Humans and Hyenas

Keith Somerville is a Member of the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent, UK, where he is a professor at the Centre for Journalism. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London, UK, and a Member of the IUCN CEESP/SSC Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group.

"With this volume, Keith Somerville has produced the definitive history of the tortured relationship between Homo sapiens and the Hyaenidae, his exhaustive research documenting our mutual history from the distant Pleistocene past to today’s headlines and latest scientific studies. Prof. Somerville’s history of the hyena–human relationship documents the decline of three species in excruciating detail, a scholarly case study of the devastating impact the too-intelligent ape has had on the species with which it shares the planet; there are millions of similar stories as life on earth is crushed beneath eight billion humans. This volume joins his previous ones on the destruction of elephants and lions, clarion calls for humanity to wake up, grow up, and assume responsibility for repairing the destruction it has wrought."- Dr Laurence G. Frank, Living with Lions Project Director and research associate in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley."In his new book Humans and Hyenas: Monster or Misunderstood, Keith Somerville aims to repair the predator’s undeserved reputation in human eyes … Somerville uncovers the roots of the misconceptions around the three species of hyena – the striped, spotted and brown – and makes a compelling case for the cause of their conservation … this stands as a definitive work on hyenas and the historical journey they have taken with humans during the Anthropocene. It is an indispensable resource for anyone with an interest in hyenas." – Ed Stoddard, Maverick Life.

• Introduction; 1 Dramatis Personae: The spotted, striped and brown hyenas; 2 Humans and hyenas from the Pleistocene to the Holocene; 3 Humans and hyenas in Africa to 1600CE; 4 Humans and hyenas in West, Central and South Asia to 1600CE; 5 Humans and hyenas from 1600CE to the end of the 19th century; 6 Persecution increases under colonial rule; 7 Contemporary Africa, West, Central and South Asia; 8 Myths and representations from early humans to The Lion King