Just FYI. Here's the review and book description from Amazon.com

-Bob F.


Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly

The culmination of a wildlife expert's life-long work on the "man-eating" lions of Tsavo, this deftly written study examines the history of two male lions who systematically hunted, killed and ate 135 railroad workers when the British built a railroad across Africa a century ago. The fascinating and horrifying story of these killings has already be the subject of a popular nonfiction book (The Man-Eaters of Tsavo and other East African Adventures, first published in 1907 and still in print today) and a Hollywood film (1996's The Ghost and the Darkness), but Patterson's book must now be considered the definitive Tsavo lion study. Patterson's research at Chicago's Field Museum and his work establishing the Tsavo National Park-the most important wildlife preserve in East Africa-have established him as one of the world's leading experts on lions as well as an important conservationist. These credentials lend authority to his analysis as he sifts through often competing and inaccurate records about the lions. Patterson also devotes some time to the culture of the railway camps, detailing how the varied burial customs of these multinational communities encouraged lions to prey on corpses. But the author's focus is primarily on the habits and behaviors of lions themselves, and, by describing the "novel social system" of the Tsavo lions, he makes a strong case for the continued existence of the Tsavo National Park, which has turned a "virtual wasteland" into an area where lions now provide important answers to ecological issues related to animal survival.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Description
Through field research and forensic evidence, a scientist reveals his theory on why two Kenyan lions killed humans and then ate their prey

In March 1898, the British began building a bridge over the Tsavo River in East Africa. In nine months, two male lions killed and ate nearly 140 workers, halting construction.

After a long hunt Colonel J. H. Patterson killed the lions, which are now on display at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

As codirector of the Tsavo Research Project, Bruce Patterson has conducted extensive fieldwork throughout the region on these lions. In The Lions of Tsavo, Patterson retells the harrowing story of those bloody nights in Kenya. He presents new forensic evidence on these maneless lions and argues that the man-eating behavior exhibited in 1898 came from the encroachment of human populations on wild habitats.

Patterson continues this theory by exploring man's interaction with the changing Kenyan environment, creating a complete, up-to-date, and scientific look behind this intriguing murder mystery.

I'm no expert on slave activities but wouldn't slavery and slave collecting have been illegal in British East Africa in 1898, if it ever was legal there? I was of the opinion that the slave trading ships feared the sight of British warships out on the open seas as the Brits had outlawed such activity long before the U.S. had. Sure, the Caribean islands under British control were populated by slavery but I always thought they stopped that practice way before the U.S. did.

Don't let that fool you. Slavery still exists in the third-world countries today. It exists in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and in parts of the Arabic world. Yes, there are laws, but who's going to enforce them, the UN.?

In the Chicago Suntimes

Man-eating lions weren't that big, one even had bad teeth, author reveals

February 16, 2004

BY DAVE NEWBART Staff Reporter


Long characterized as oversized brutes with a taste for human flesh, the lions of Tsavo aren't all they are cracked up to be, a Field Museum researcher says.

While books and movies about the notorious lions of Kenya have played up their ferociousness, Bruce Patterson's new book takes apart some of the commonly held beliefs about the lions in The Lions of Tsavo: Exploring the History of Africa's Notorious Man-Eaters (McGraw-Hill, $24.95).

That's not to say the lions aren't unique from the famous pride lions of the Serengeti. The Tsavo males, for instance, have no manes and live in a much hotter, more arid part of Africa.

"I'd like to set the record straight about what these lions are really about,'' said Patterson, the MacArthur curator of mammals at the Field Museum and president of the American Society of Mammalogists.

The Field is home to the stuffed remains of two of the most famous man-eating lions in history. The two reportedly killed 135 workers building a railroad through Kenya in the late 1890s. But even the actual number they killed -- like their reputation -- might be overstated, Patterson said, and is more likely due to environmental causes as opposed to any natural tendencies.

During the 1898 rampage, a number of factors might have led the lions to get a taste for human flesh. A plague killed much of their usual prey, and people were easy pickings, for slave traders often left slaves to die along rail routes, and local burial practices left many corpses unburied.

Plus, Patterson argues that one of the lions had a tooth problem so bad that it would have been extremely painful to kill buffalo or other prey.

The book also goes into Patterson's current research project, an in-depth study of the lions on a ranch just outside Tsavo National Parks, the largest wildlife area in Kenya.

He and his fellow researchers have attached radio collars to four lions in order to track them, document their behavior and study their breeding practices. Hair, tissue and stool samples are taken to learn about the lions' hormones, genes and eating habits.

Contrary to claims, the lions do not seem to be larger in size than other African lions. Data show that the lions' body and skull size fall within a range of other lions.

"They're not bigger,'' said Patterson, disputing claims by John Patterson (no relation to Bruce), the engineer on the British railroad project who killed both lions and then toured the world telling their story.

Still, because the terrain in Tsavo is so harsh and rainfall so scarce, hunting can be more difficult and prey harder to come by. Lions still occasionally attack humans. But more frequent are lion attacks on cattle and other livestock. The conflict between man and beast, lion and livestock is mainly a matter of humans encroaching on lions' territory -- and lions running out of room to hunt.