It’s not like we’re constantly dealing with bears stealing pic-a-nic baskets. It seems like a weird topic for scientific research. So, I flipped it around and thought, “What is the animals were the perpetrators? What are those crime scenes like? How do you prevent these crimes?” So that’s how it unspooled. But while I wondered what direction that would take me, it took me to a dead end because you can’t tag along on an open case because that’s illegal. Tiger penis is illegally obtained and sold as a virility potion. I got interested in wild life crime forensics - not wild life as the perpetrators, but as the victims - after I stumbled on this paper by a researcher named Bonnie Yates, who is the foremost authority on how to tell counterfeit tiger penis from real tiger penis. That’s a tough one to answer, I don’t have a great origin story, I rarely do.

The science of human/wildlife conflict is the boring way to say what the book is about. How do you deal with that? You don’t arrest them and fine them, so how do you deal with it? And can science help? They kill, they steal, they trespass, they jaywalk. Animals don’t read, have no reason to know about these laws, and they break them all the time. The subtitle is When Nature Breaks The Laws, but these are human laws, laws written for people. What is Fuzz about?įuzz is a book about people and wild animals getting in each other’s way, more or less. But as she explains in the following interview, while Fuzz has her usual mix of information, insight, and humorous observations, it’s not like watching videos of bear stealing food. Especially since her newest, Fuzz: When Nature Breaks The Law ( hardcover, Kindle, audiobook) seems like it could be her funniest one yet. At a time when people refuse to believe in science, facts, reason, or the experts, a new book by science writer Mary Roach is just what her fans need right now.

Fuzz by Mary Roach