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The Hidden Life of Deer: Lessons from the Natural World

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Author: Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book

List Price: ~~$24.99~~
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Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5 x 1

ISBN: 0061792101
Dewey Decimal Number: 599.6515
EAN: 9780061792106
ASIN: 0061792101

Publication Date: September 1, 2009
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•	ISBN13: 9780061792106
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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description

The animal kingdom operates by ancient rules, and the deer in our woods and backyards can teach us many of them—but only if we take the time to notice.

In the fall of 2007 in southern New Hampshire, the acorn crop failed and the animals who depended on it faced starvation. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas began leaving food in small piles around her farmhouse. Soon she had over thirty deer coming to her fields, and her naturalist's eye was riveted. How did they know when to come, all together, and why did they sometimes cooperate, sometimes compete?

Throughout the next twelve months she observed the local deer families as they fought through a rough winter; bred fawns in the spring; fended off coyotes, a bobcat, a bear, and plenty of hunters; and made it to the next fall when the acorn crop was back to normal. As she hiked through her woods, spotting tree rubbings, deer beds, and deer yards, she discovered a vast hidden world. Deer families are run by their mothers. Local families arrange into a hierarchy. They adopt orphans; they occasionally reject a child; they use complex warnings to signal danger; they mark their territories; they master local microclimates to choose their beds; they send countless coded messages that we can read, if only we know what to look for.

Just as she did in her beloved books The Hidden Life of Dogs and Tribe of Tiger, Thomas describes a network of rules that have allowed earth's species to coexist for millions of years. Most of us have lost touch with these rules, yet they are a deep part of us, from our ancient evolutionary past. The Hidden Life of Deer is a narrative masterpiece and a naturalist's delight.

Customer Reviews:

Showing reviews 1-5 of 42

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Call of the Wild October 30, 2009
Himri (Tempe, AZ USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

The author makes it fun to be a deer and play Hide and Hide.

With the oaks going barren one year(they have a mind of their own just like one of the cats in the book) - helter skelter in the animal kingdom but a great opportunity at Thomas residence to do
back yard deer watching - their social behavior.

Reading about the effects of introduction of non native species to a place makes me wonder about how mysteriously evolution works. If here subspecies are lost, isolation breeds different species like in the Grand Canyon squirrels. Geography dictating breeding season.

Now who knew scats held facts in them. If someone got a look at the scats at Montezuma Castle in time, then they could tell the direction in which the cliff dwellers left in haste.

The concept of Predator urine was interesting.

All in all, there are so many things happening in the natural world that call for observation for comprehension, with some mishaps in the domestic world - hysterical macaws, hyper rats and passive cats.

3 out of 5 stars

Light, Readable Tale of Deerwatching October 22, 2009
Brian P. Hudson (Dearborn, MI)
I liked this book far more than I expected to.

It's really a book of personal observations, supported by a little bit of research, as one woman looks out her back window at the deer who frequent her yard in the winter. It doesn't sound like much, and in the end it really isn't--her observations lead to conclusions that humanize the deer, but don't give a lot of "hard facts" or otherwise add to the scientific knowledge of the species. In addition, the whole exercise feels a little artificial; after all, she's feeding these deer, so her very actions are luring them into an artificial situation.

Still, it's a good read. The observations themselves are intriguing, and the author's style is light and readable. The book itself is thin, so about the time this exercise in deerspotting gets a little tiresome, the book is nearly over anyway. In the end, one is left with one woman's insights into these beautiful creatures, and a curiosity to find out more.

5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant Satire! October 22, 2009
K. Nettles (Midwest)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful

The Hidden Life of Deer deftly skewers the vanity of self-styled animal rescuers who prefer to depend upon their own emotions rather than the hard facts of nature and conservation work. In the great tradition of Christopher Buckley, the author sets up her characters in a series of increasingly ridiculous situations, to which insanity they themselves are unconscious. Written from a purportedly autobiographical viewpoint, Thomas begins the story with the conspiracy of trees in the local forest to withhold their acorns, a sort of union strike against the forces of evil corporate fauna greed. Setting out to rescue the deer (though not the squirrels) from the resulting shortage of preferred food, Thomas decides to cross the goddess Gaia's picket lines and throw out buckets and buckets of corn. The resulting encounters with game management, knowledgeable neighbors, and a wounded bear serve to expose the self-contradictory rationalizations and self-congratulatory moral justifications that take primacy over what is actually in the best interest of animal populations. Although the book is primarily about the deer, one of the best stories in the book has to do with the debate over whether to bring her mother's "pet" squirrels and doves along for the move to New Hampshire -- a hysterical discussion that makes a serious point about the consequences of making wild animals dependent upon humans for food. Ultimately, Thomas instead chooses to make pets out of the rats that infest her house and leave their droppings on her desk, having reached the logical extremes of her devotion to Gaia and novel interpretations of the way animals think.

2 out of 5 stars

Misleading title -- Nothing "hidden" about it, just backyard observations October 18, 2009
Carol M (Oregon)
5 out of 8 found this review helpful

From the title, "Hidden Life of Deer", I assumed this book was written by a naturalist and intended to give laymen more insight about these beautiful animals. But it's really written by a layperson, telling of her observation of the deer that she feeds on her property.

So my expectations were completely off. And I found myself really irritated with the lack of science, and the constant rationalizations of behavior that goes against recommendations of wildlife experts.

I might have really enjoyed this book, if I'd had appropriate expectations. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas obviously loves her deer friends, and has entertaining anecdotes to share. She's a kind-hearted soul, and a keen observer of "her" animals. Her writing is warm and friendly, rambling like a cozy conversation over a cup of tea - with occasional passionate outbursts.

If you'd like a cozy, relaxing narrative non-fiction about one woman's relationship with her local deer, this is your book. If you're looking for science, look elsewhere.

3 out of 5 stars

"The Hidden Life of Deer - Lessons from the Natural World"! October 16, 2009
Braydyn Niewiadomski (Anacortes, WA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

If you can't tolerate the fact that people feed deer and you believe that this is something that people should not do, then you should do yourself a favor and skip this book. Elizabeth Thomas's arguments will not convince you that this is a good idea. Personally, I'm not convinced that feeding deer on her land some corn in her backyard was such a terrible thing. Although when she cited the story of how one deer came out of the forest and tried to cross the ice to get to the corn and almost broke through it and slipped in, it made me wonder.

A problem with her arguments for feeding the deer is that she'll say how reasonable and intelligent the reasons for not feeding deer are, and then say how she decided to ignore them anyway. It just didn't really make sense, and she did this a lot throughout the book which got to be rather tiresome after a while.

Now, before I get to the good stuff, let me get one more complaint out of the way. It's called the hidden life of deer, but only the first three chapters really live up to that title (an alternate and, I think, more appropriate title would be, "Observing Deer and Other Creatures" Or something along those lines). In those first three chapters, I did learn some new things about deer that I had never known before, and I thought this was shaping up to be at least a 4 star book, maybe even 5. Unfortunately though, she started as some other reviewers have already mentioned, getting a little bit too philosophical. She'd describe something that she saw and then speculate and say things like, "I'm pretty sure what just happened was..." and then explain it almost as if it were fact.

After the first three chapters, the book started to get a little disheveled. Chapter 4 was,"The Hazards of Feeding" which was unnecessary as she'd already made her reasons (whether they were right or wrong) clear in the preface. While there were many interesting anecdotes in the following chapters, they weren't really so much about the hidden life of deer. I looked over this seeing as how I just picked this book up on a whim, but had I been looking for a book that focused solely on deer I may have found the lack of focus a little frustrating. For instance, in the chapter, "Fawns" there is a quite lengthy story about a bear that visited her home, which while being quite amusing, had absolutely nothing to do with fawns in any way. The final chapter is what took this book down to 3 stars for me. Entitled, "Our Place in the World" this chapter hardly even had deer in it and felt really out of place. It was also one of the longest chapters and was, for me, quite tedious as I didn't agree with some of her viewpoints.

However, I still enjoyed the majority of this book, especially the parts pertaining to the main subject matter, the hidden lives of deer. I even learned about quite a bit of new behavior, and while they really didn't fit in, still enjoyed the lengthy passages about other creatures. So, if you're looking for a book about deer just to relax and learn a few things, and not as a scientific study, (and have no qualms with deer-feeding) then you'll most likely enjoy this book, mildly recommended.

Showing reviews 1-5 of 42

1 2 3 4 5 6 ...9 Next »

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