Animals Count: How Population Size Matters in Animal-Human Relations

Whether their populations are perceived as too large, just right, too small or non-existent, animal numbers matter to the humans with whom they share environments. Animals in the right numbers are accepted and even welcomed, but when they are seen to deviate from the human-declared set point, they become either enemies upon whom to declare war or victims to be protected.

In this edited volume, leading and emerging scholars investigate for the first time the ways in which the size of an anim...