Living Things We Love to Hate: Facts, Fantasies and Fallacies

Ian Wylie Toal is a Martindale-based freelance science writer.

Freelance environmental writer Des Kennedy has assembled a rogues’
gallery of 20 “despised species” of animals and plants, with the aim
of convincing us that they deserve our respect, not our contempt.

This is quite a task, for the list includes such perennial nonfavorites
as rats, slugs, mice, snakes, and bats. It’s also an eclectic list,
featuring mosses, woody plants, flowering plants, arachnids, insects,
and arthropods as well as the more familiar birds and mammals.

Kennedy’s impetus for writing this book was that many of these
creatures are considered “repulsive and dangerous, not because of
awful personal experiences, nor as a result of solid information, but
because of a fictitious concoction of rumours.” By countering some of
these myths, he hopes to bring about a “reconnection with the natural
world,” a rediscovery of “the deeper truths found in the ancestral
wisdom of tribal peoples.”

The author presents a strong case for these organisms, devoting a
chapter to each and entertainingly presenting a host of information
interspersed with history and commentary. He tends, however, to make
unwarranted claims for the organisms, turning them into symbols of the
damage he feels Western civilization has wreaked on the world. And the
text is sometimes contradictory, leaving the reader unsure whether
Kennedy likes or dislikes some of his subjects.

This is a valuable book, for it does correct some misconceptions about
certain life-forms. But it is not an unbiased account, and it might be
prudent to keep the author’s point of view in mind while reading it.