"In this book, noted ecologist H.H. Shugart presents important ecological concepts through entertaining animal parables. He tells the stories of particular birds and mammals - packrats, ivory-billed woodpeckers, penguins, dingoes, European rabbits, and others - and what their fates reveal about the interactions between environmental change and the extinctions or explosions of species populations." "Change is the root of many planetary problems, but it is also an intrinsic feature of our living planet. Shugart explores past environmental change, discusses the non-existence of a "balance of Nature," and documents how human alterations have affected plants, soils, and animals."--Jacket.