We love the wrong animals.
Dogs and cats? How can they miss? They share our beds, for goodness sake.
Other animals, including birds — they take care of themselves, mostly. Unless we get in the way.
The new book "Unnatural Companions," rethinks, as the subtitle says, "our love of pets in an age of wildlife extinction."
The author, science journalist and dog owner Peter Christie, tells us the numerous and diverse ways he believes pets harm wildlife — as predators, invaders, disease carriers, and consumers.
He looks closely at pet owners' contributions to the issue, pointing then to what he calls "the pet industry's immense role in driving the extinction crisis." Pet food gets a thorough examination. The meat we eat is just part of the problem, he says.
Christie wants us to know what he considers the hidden price paid for the pleasure we receive from pets. His concern is that our total investment in pets will cause neglect of the environment and the animals therein.
Eventually, he fears, this will cause the ecological functions of the world to falter, piece by piece. His analogy is automobiles — you can only remove so many parts before your car stops working.
