It wasn’t so long ago when a lot of people thought the Florida panther was extinct. They were very nearly right. That the panther still exists at all is a miracle—the result of a desperate experiment that led to the most remarkable comeback in the history of the Endangered Species Act. And no one has told the whole story—until now.
With novelistic detail and an eye for the absurd, Craig Pittman recounts the extraordinary story of the people who brought the panther back from the brink of extinction, the ones who nearly pushed the species over the edge, and the cats that were caught in the middle. This being Florida, there’s more than a little weirdness, too.
An engrossing narrative of wry humor, sharp writing and exhaustive reportage, Cat Tale shows what it takes to bring one species back and what unexpected costs such a decision brings.
Cat Tale: The Weird, Wild Battle To Save the Florida Panther by Craig Pittman.
It wasn’t so long ago when a lot of people thought the Florida panther was extinct. They were very nearly right. That the panther still exists at all is a miracle—the result of a desperate experiment that led to the most remarkable comeback in the history of the Endangered Species Act. And no one has told the whole story—until now.
With novelistic detail and an eye for the absurd, Craig Pittman recounts the extraordinary story of the people who brought the panther back from the brink of extinction, the ones who nearly pushed the species over the edge, and the cats that were caught in the middle. This being Florida, there’s more than a little weirdness, too.
An engrossing narrative of wry humor, sharp writing and exhaustive reportage, Cat Tale shows what it takes to bring one species back and what unexpected costs such a decision brings.
Cat Tale: The Wild, Weird Battle to Save the Florida Panther by Craig Pittman. Kindle edition, 336 pages. Published by Hanover Square Press, January 2020. I received a free copy of this book from Netgally in exchange for an honest review.
Triggers: Animal death, animal extinction, cruelty to animals.
I lived the 1990’s in Florida, in a suburb in the central part of the state. Before, and after, the 90s, I traveled their often because family lived there. In all the time I have spent in Florida, I have never seen a Florida panther. You barely even heard anything about them. Occasionally you’d see a postcard with one of them on there. And I love/ hate the Florida Panthers NHL team in the late 90s and 2000s.
Even though you’d see an occasional postcard, a whisper here and there from the news or some sort of homage to the panthers elsewhere, you never felt any connection with them. Felt more like an urban legend. Or maybe like Bigfoot. (Well, it’s Florida though, so I guess it would probably be Bigfoot’s southern cousin, the Skunk Ape.) Maybe it’s real? *shrug* We don’t know. That’s how it felt with the panthers in Florida. At least for Joe and Jane Average living in the same state with the big cats. Hell, I heard more about all the pythons living in the everglades then any ol’ panther!
That is the biggest thing I loved about Craig Pittman’s book, Cat Tale. It told the real story of what was going on with the panthers in Florida. The story never told in the newspapers, or on tv, or on any of those stupid postcards that seemed so distant, so remote. It just… floored me that all of this was going on in the same state I lived in, and we never even knew anything about it!
Cat Tale is extremely well researched. And I mean… extremely well researched. The author starts with a semi brief history of the very first reports of panthers in Florida waaaay back in the day when (white) people first began to settle in the area. So we get a few reports and reactions of the handful of people living there. Surprise, then fear. Then anger. How dare these cats live on OUR land! Rarely any big cat attacks on people. EVER. But we stupid humans have to have a knee jerk-reaction and quickly grab for the guns and start shooting. How American of us. -.- But I digress…
People think “fake news” is a new thing, but it’s not. Way back in the day, it was even worse then now days. Lots of fabricated information. Some of the news reports about panthers back in the settler’s time period may or may not have always been on the up and up. Some reporters just stretched the truth to make an article more flashy. Some reporters just straight up wrote a fictional article and sold it as fact. While some reporters actually tried to do a legit report but details / clues / evidence were just lacking, so a lot of assumptions were made.
After the brief chapter or two about the early days of Florida settlers finding a panther on their porch, we start moving into a time where a lot of information starts to become more consistently documented. Florida panther sightings and events, from the start of the 20th century to present day. I can’t even imagine how long it took for the author to dig through decades of paper files, microfiche, VHS and cassette tapes, interviews, political documents, diaries / journals, letters, emails, etc, etc, etc…. in order to give us such an accurate account of saving the Florida Panthers. Dude! I get tired just LISTING all the ways of digging for the facts!! The author is clearly passionate and dedicated to the cause. I am incredibly impressed at Pittman did with this novel.
A few more chapters in, and Pittman starts getting to the real meat of the story. When Floridians first started noticing that, hey… where’d the panther go? And are there any left? Quickly followed with “Hey, I don’t know… should we, like… do something about this?” From the very first attempts to find and document the panthers, to the start of trying to save them, leading all the way up to today’s work. We learn about all the key players, as well as the bit players. The trackers, the biologists, the vets, the politicians… everyone.
Along with all the old documents to work from, the author actually tracks down a lot of the people from those documents and gets interviews from them first hand. He asks the questions nobody else did, then or now! I loved how Pittman skillfully weaves the old documents with modern interviews from people involved, so they can add more information and depth to what the author relates to us from all the old documents. Information not always spoken or written about in those research or legal documents.
Another skill the author has, is making this huge, scientific, multi-decade long info dump extremely entertaining. You know how it is… not complaining, buuutttt… some non-fiction science books get a little…. long winded and boring… with how they are told. You know what I mean? Not that the information is bad or anything, it’s just that it is told in more of a professor / textbook monotone sort of way. Very stiff. Not much emotion, just stating the facts as they are. Those sort of books can be great for learning about the subject, but sometimes they also kind of… make your eyes start to glaze over, right?
Not so with Cat Tale! The author took the subject extremely serious, but he also lightened a pretty dark story with some well placed humor. He also injected the story with a lot of energy and passion. He clearly loves the state he lives in, but he also totally gets that Florida is RIDICULOUS. Ok, I’ve spent a lot of time there. So I get it. Florida is crazy. You get to experience some of the crazy in Cat Tale and Pittman just kind of rolls with it. Not always agreeing with it, but at the same time, he shrugs his shoulders, shakes his head, gives a slight chuckle, and goes, well… that’s Florida for you.
Now… WARNING. This is a pretty SAD story. Yes, we do have a happy ending of helping the panther… but man, it is pretty bleak for most of the book. Especially if you are a huge animal and wildlife lover. It’s also very frustrating for anyone who loves untamed or untainted land for nature, or those who love trying to save the planet we live on instead of messing it up farther. I am a big sucker for animals and saving the wildlife, so there were some parts where I was pretty much crying at just the savagery and uncaring killing people did / do to the panthers for no other reason then they could. 😡 Or the greedy, dirty BS of the politicians, who could care less about the state animal unless it looked good for re-election. Not to mention a fair amount of sexism, inner pettiness and massive ego problems going on on the actual team that is trying to save the panthers. AGH! 😡 A LOT of stupidity! Enough to make you want to rip out your hair at times. At the same time though, you can’t help but be lured in by this incredible story.
This isn’t a terribly long book, but there is a ton of information packed in it. The pacing moves really fast and you never feel bored by what you are reading. I also never felt overwhelmed by too much info thrown at me. I will admit it did take me a longer time to read then most books because there is a lot of information to thoughtfully disgust instead of just speeding through it. There are a LOT of names to remember though, and sometimes it was a little bit hard to keep it straight on who everyone was.
So, to sum it all up… Cat Tale is an amazing book. Extremely entertaining and very well researched. That story is a sad, happy, and strange, with decent amounts of humor to help keep things a little lighter. The author really did a phenomenal job. I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in biology, wildlife, nature, and or cats. Hey, if you like non-fiction… you need to read this book. Everyone. Read this book. Brings attention to a forgotten big cat of the US. It is about time.
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