When extinction looms, conservation biologists tackle the problem by studying the threatened species. What is the number of extant individuals? The diversity of the gene pool? The nature of the threats to its habitat? Journalist Jon Mooallem takes a different tack. He pores over the stories people tell about the species. Is the polar bear, for example, a "bloodthirsty man-killer", a "delicate, drowning victim", a "cog in a Darwinian machine" or a "menacing and capable agent of its own fate"? The thesis of Wild Ones is that these narratives are ultimately more important for species survival than any data, management plan or science, because they determine how hard society is willing to work to keep a species going - as he puts it, "the bear is dependent on the stories we tell about it".
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