Published 17th January 2025

ARC’s Conservation Director, Jim Foster, thinks last year was a good one for book-worms. Here he rounds up some of his favourite 2024 titles.

This is rather a personal and selective list of books published last year that have some relevance to herp conservation. Hopefully it will attract a wider readership to some lesser known titles, alongside the more familiar ones.

Ponds, Pools and Puddles by Jeremy Biggs and Penny Williams (William Collins, London). ISBN: 9780002200851.

This substantial volume (624 pages!), part of the venerable New Naturalist series, is nothing short of a modern classic in my view. The authors somehow manage to balance technical depth with an engaging tone, all aided by helpful illustrations, data and references. I especially like the way they synthesise published and unpublished information, often summarised in well thought-out tables. It does a fantastic job of answering many questions about ponds, describes the range of wildlife they contain, and outlines complex conservation issues in accessible language. There are useful historical and geographic perspectives. I loved the description of great crested newts as the “pantomime villains of British nature conservation”, and the accompanying explanation for why this unfortunate animal is subject to regular drubbings at the hands of politicians and the media. The book is a must for anyone with a serious interest in ponds, and I hope will be a source of inspiration to generate more of this critical habitat. It’s also pleasing to see a palmate newt take centre stage on the cover.

Strategies for Conservation Success in Herpetology (Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles Herpetological Conservation Series, Vol. 4), edited by Susan C. Walls and Katherine M. O’Donnell (SSAR, Ohio).

This collection of 44 case studies shows how conservation can work, helpfully countering some of the negative messaging that’s all too common nowadays. Although it’s published by a North American society, the book includes examples from 17 countries. My colleague Rob Ward is a co-author on a great chapter about three decades of conservation action for the agile frog on Jersey. The chapter on amphibian responses to landscape-scale habitat restoration in Estonia, by Riinu Rannap and colleagues, is another inspiring read. This book is probably for the more specialist audience and isn’t cheap, but the format is welcome, not least as it allows more descriptive, practical content that would be difficult to include in a typical peer-reviewed paper.

Lost frogs and hot snakes, by Martha Crump (Cornell University Press, Ithaca). ISBN: 9781501774485.

Another publication from the USA with a global reach, though a strong focus on the Americas. The format is simple: herpetologists give short accounts of notable field experiences, and it’s interesting to observe the wide range in style and content they choose. The book is divided into inviting themes such as “The thrill of discovery” and “Mishaps and misadventures”. I was especially drawn to the more reflective accounts; whilst reading about the trials of fieldwork is part of the deal here, and is done well, it was even more engaging when the authors ruminate on what their field pursuits really mean. On first reading, I felt some of the accounts could have benefitted from more robust editing. Ross Alford’s disconcertingly frank description of toileting arrangements on a tropical island, for instance. But part of the joy here is that the biologists have free rein to write exactly what they like, liberated from the usual guard-rails of academic publishing. Always entertaining, at times the results are also illuminating about this shared passion for reptiles and amphibians, and their place in an often hostile world.

Neue Methoden der Feldherpetologie, edited by Klaus Henle, Peter Pogoda, Richard Podloucky, Arno Geiger and Annegret Grimm-Seyfarth. (Chimaira, Frankfurt am Main). ISBN: 978-3-89973-575-8.

This impressive book, in German with English summaries and captions, has 21 chapters on field herpetology methods resulting from a conference held in Leipzig in 2020. Whilst the focus is understandably on Germany, Switzerland and Austria, British readers will find much of interest here. Hence, even with a deeply deficient understanding of German, I picked up useful points from sections on field biosecurity measures, monitoring methods, captive breeding, reintroductions and mitigation methods. The book is well illustrated, and the editors deserve credit for producing a lasting record of what must have been a great conference; it takes a massive effort to produce a document as slick as this. In a similar vein, last year the same publisher also produced Verbreitung, Ökologie und Schutz der Schlingnatter Coronella austriaca, Laurenti 1768 [Distribution, Ecology and Conservation of the Smooth Snake] edited by Richard Podloucky, Ulrich Schulte and Dirk Alfermann. It includes interesting studies on the species in Germany, Norway and England (the latter written by colleagues from ARC and DICE).

Great Misconceptions: Rewilding Myths and Misunderstandings, edited by Ian Parsons (Whittles Publishing, Dunbeath). ISBN: 978-184995-589-8.

This volume of essays with varying perspectives on “rewilding” gives plenty of food for thought. The book title might prompt you to think it takes an adversarial position, but in fact the essays explore and dissect some critical aspects of what rewilding is and how to do it well. A highlight is Steve Carver’s exploration of rewilding principles. He helpfully explains differences between rewilding and conventional restoration approaches, amongst other points. The discussion about Favourable Conservation Status was a bit muddled though, conflating this concept with protected site condition assessment. Interesting too was Chris Sperring’s discussion on engaging with landowners and local communities, the risks of just using the term rewilding, and how things can go badly wrong when you don’t engage properly. Alexander Lees and Ian Carter’s meticulously reasoned chapter on reintroductions, underscoring when they make sense and why they are not always appropriate, should be required reading for anyone considering a conservation translocation. The rationale they espouse is a helpful challenge to those occupying the more radical fringes of reintroduction practice. Rounding off the book is an essay by Mark Avery, every bit as thought-provoking - dare I say mischievous at times - as you would hope for. He looks back from an imagined vantage point in 2048, describing how the English uplands are now a tree-covered landscape harbouring red squirrels and lynx, and the societal changes that allowed this new landscape to (re-)emerge.

Snakes, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, by Romulus Whitaker and Janaki Lenin (HarperCollins, Haryana). ISBN: 978-9356997127.

A bit of a wild card to finish off this round up. It’s an account of the early life of Rom Whitaker, who has played an instrumental role in herp conservation in India, and indeed his influence extends wider, especially via film-making. With a childhood split between his native USA and India, and raucous escapades further afield, it’s an eventful quarter-century. I was especially keen to read how his interest in snakes develops. As explored in Martha Crump’s book, there is something about a fascination (obsession, perhaps?) for this particular animal group that drives some people to do incredible things. The text is illuminating on that score, and it was touching to read about the encouragement from Rom’s mother. Readers of a more delicate disposition might baulk at some of his exploits, though Rom’s introduction gives some admirably candid context for the apparent contradictions. The lurid book title rather belies a more reflective, responsible side that emerges from the text. Having said that, in closing I’ll just opine that whilst the snakebite treatment he self-administers on page 342 certainly isn’t considered good practice, it's worth remembering this was the 1960s after all.