Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars | 3,076 ratings

Price: 17.5

Last update: 10-05-2024


About this item

One of Audible's Best of 2021

AudioFile Magazine's Best Audiobooks of 2021

An Instant New York Times Bestseller

#1 Los Angeles Times Bestseller

#1 Indie Hardcover Nonfiction Bestseller

A Washington Post and Publishers Weekly Best Nonfiction Book of 2021

Longlisted for the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

Join "America’s funniest science writer" (Peter Carlson, Washington Post), Mary Roach, on an irresistible investigation into the unpredictable world where wildlife and humans meet.

What’s to be done about a jaywalking moose? A bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? Three hundred years ago, animals that broke the law would be assigned legal representation and put on trial. These days, as New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach discovers, the answers are best found not in jurisprudence but in science: the curious science of human-wildlife conflict, a discipline at the crossroads of human behavior and wildlife biology.

Roach tags along with animal-attack forensics investigators, human-elephant conflict specialists, bear managers, and "danger tree" faller blasters. Intrepid as ever, she travels from leopard-terrorized hamlets in the Indian Himalaya to St. Peter’s Square in the early hours before the pope arrives for Easter Mass, when vandal gulls swoop in to destroy the elaborate floral display. She taste-tests rat bait, learns how to install a vulture effigy, and gets mugged by a macaque.

Combining little-known forensic science and conservation genetics with a motley cast of laser scarecrows, langur impersonators, and trespassing squirrels, Roach reveals as much about humanity as about nature’s lawbreakers. When it comes to "problem" wildlife, she finds, humans are more often the problem - and the solution. Fascinating, witty, and humane, Fuzz offers hope for compassionate coexistence in our ever-expanding human habitat.


Top reviews from the United States

#EmptyNestReader
5.0 out of 5 stars A look at the crossroads where humans and animals meet.
Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2023
A 5 star book that takes an around-the-world look at the crossroads where humans and animals meet. And when they do meet, the erratic, often unforeseeable, things that happen. ”For most of the past century, your odds of being killed by a cougar were about the same as your odds of being killed by a filing cabinet. Snowplows kill twice as many Canadians as grizzly bears do.” We don’t outlaw snowplows, or filing cabinets. What are we to do about the “wildlife problem”? “The black bear is a ridiculously lovable species. There's a reason kids have teddy bears, not teddy goats or teddy eels.”

Science writer Mary Roach takes a deep dive into the human-animal conundrum. What do we do when grizzly bears are breaking into homes - and refrigerators? Seagulls are uprooting pots of flowers and randomly scattering the floral displays meant or the Pope’s Easter mass? Sacred monkeys terrorize Indian citizens?
“I can’t judge” says Roach. "We all have emotional connections to certain branches of the tree of life, and for some that branch is trees. We are irrational in our species-specific devotions. I know a man who won’t eat octopus because of its intelligence. Yet he eats pork and buys glue traps for rats, though rats and pigs are highly intelligent, likely more intelligent—I’m guessing, for I have not seen the SAT scores—than octopuses. Why, for that matter, is intelligence the scale by which we decide whom to spare? Or size? Have the simple and the small less right to live?”

Roach’s books are informative and engaging. Combining a brief outline of the facts with the details of the problem, including moral quandaries, etc. and information on ideas that have previously been or yet-to-be been tried, her humorous tongue-in-cheek style of writing make this book a delight to read. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I have read several other books by Roach, Fuzz is my favorite thus far.
christine macdonald
4.0 out of 5 stars Good info in an entertaining way
Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2024
Very much enjoyed this authors sense of humor while covering a subject that is important to our planet. Looking forward to reading more of her books.
Steven bdeen
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2024
Mary Roach is an amazing author. She blends science with a wonderful dose of humor, making all uber books entertaoning, infomative, and very readable
MommaLayne
5.0 out of 5 stars A Hilarious Exploration of Human-Wildlife Conflicts and Legal Oddities
Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2024
"Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law" by Mary Roach is a captivating and witty examination of the complex interactions between humans and wildlife, delivered through Roach's trademark humor and curiosity. The book tackles intriguing questions like how to handle a jaywalking moose or a bear caught in the act of breaking and entering, combining elements of science, law, and conservation to explore the curious phenomenon of animals behaving badly.

Roach embarks on a journey with various specialists, including animal-attack forensics investigators and bear managers, as she investigates real-life conflicts that arise when wildlife crosses paths with humans. Her adventures take her from the Indian Himalayas, where locals face threats from leopards, to St. Peter’s Square confronting vandalous gulls. Along the way, she engages in quirky experiences, including taste-testing rat bait and even getting mugged by a macaque. With engaging prose and fascinating insights, "Fuzz" reveals that when it comes to "problem" wildlife, humans often play a significant role in the solutions. This enlightening read showcases Roach's ability to blend science with storytelling, ultimately advocating for a compassionate coexistence with the natural world amid the complexities of modern life.
Jeffrey Penn May
3.0 out of 5 stars Fuzz Buzz
Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2022
While I respect the knowledge of science writers and their efforts to educate and inform, sometimes their efforts fall flat. Could be that Mary Roach’s other books are funny while being informative, but this one sure didn’t inspire me to find out if they are. Of course my reaction can merely be a mismatch. What one person thinks is funny can be insipid to another. I admire her success and her efforts, all of which are to be commended.

Fuzz is laden with incomplete, dull, and repetitive supposedly humorous antidotes. Roach sounds like a guest speaker at a Middle School trying to impress disinterested teens and preteens, throwing in a cuss word here or there to prove her authenticity, straining to prove she’s cool while the kids make immature jokes about her name. When she’s not trying to be funny, she sounds like a narrator for an exceedingly dull nature show. The descriptions of offices, the drone of the obvious, and the lame attempts at humor make Fuzz difficult to slog through.

The extended metaphor of animals as offenders seems forced, required by the title, itself a bad pun. By the end, the metaphor is lost in the buzz, and here, this review’s “buzz” mimicry may or may not illustrate the point, but I’m forcing it in anyway. Yes, we are constantly trying to share space with animals, and Mary Roach presents some of the informative, clever, and potentially humorous ways in which societies around the world are trying to do that. Good effort and worthy of admiration.
Baldfellow
4.0 out of 5 stars A fun and fascinating read
Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2021
I’m an animal person, and a big fan of the many nature shows on TV, so I know many animals and I love to learn about them. This book is unique in that it’s about the interfacing of animals and people, and it highlights the problems caused by many different species, and the sometimes hilarious efforts of government and other agencies to control or eradicate the “pests”. The author has a great sense of humor, and I found myself chuckling or laughing out loud at the wry way she has of bringing out the humor in many of these situations. Sorry the book is finished, I enjoyed every page of it. I highly recommend it to all of my my animal compatriots.

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