The Beasts of the East: The Fall and Rise of America's Eastern Wilderness

A fresh and fascinating portrait of the eastern wilds, The Beasts of the East is a celebration of the extraordinary lost natural wonder of the eastern U.S.--an astonishingly abundant landscape that was once the center of American wildness before its despoliation--and a revelatory journey through recent efforts to return elk, bison, wolves, and other creatures to their native landscapes

Before skyscrapers and smokestacks rose across the eastern U.S., elk, bison, wolves, and cougars roamed. Typically imagined as icons of the West, these large mammals are in fact native to what was once a kind of Eden--towering forests in the Northeast, rolling prairies in the Midwest, and cypress swamps in the Deep South. But, in mere decades, industrialization and unregulated hunting brought these emblems of the East to the precipice of extinction; by the 1950s, squirrels were one of the few wild mammals an easterner was likely to encounter.

Now, even as the climate and biodiversity crises loom, eastern wildlife are staging an unlikely comeback. Herds of bison graze on Illinois prairies, red wolves lurk in North Carolina's coastal marshes, and abandoned coal mines in Kentucky are now home to thousands of elk. Such rewilding promises to restore balance to eastern ecosystems and return one of the most biodiverse regions in the world to its former luster--but not without controversy.

In The Beasts of the East, we follow environmental writer and James Beard Award finalist Andrew Moore as he meets conservationists, hunters, biologists, and nature lovers as they confront herculean challenges: How can we enable wildlife migration in the midst of suburban sprawl? Are these success stories viable in the long-term? When humans and wildlife come in close contact, how do we define wilderness?

Andrew Moore is the author of Pawpaw: In Search of America's Forgotten Fruit, which was a James Beard Foundation Award nominee in Writing & Literature. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and The Daily Yonder. He lives in Pittsburgh.

Review Quotes:

"In The Beasts of the East, Moore recounts the six years he spent traveling throughout the Eastern United States, interviewing and consulting with hundreds of people involved in or affected by wild-animal management, with the intent of discovering how the animals of the Eastern wilderness came to be so quickly 'extirpated' and how, centuries later, the undoing of that destruction has at last begun. This is a magisterial work of natural history and reportage." - Wall Street Journal

"A revelation. Andrew Moore recreates a lost world of not long ago, when the eastern part of North America was wild, when there were elk in Illinois, bison in Indiana, and much of Ohio and Michigan were covered by swamps. This book is both an elegy for what we've lost over the last few centuries of so-called human progress, and a clarion call for conservation, rewilding, and finding wonder in those pockets of history that still remain." - Steve Brusatte, University of Edinburgh paleontologist and New York Times bestselling author of The Rise and Reign of the Mammals and The Story of Birds

"A searching exploration of the survival and reintroduction of long-lost animal species east of the Mississippi. . . . An exemplary work of environmental journalism and advocacy." - Kirkus (starred review)

"[A] captivating account of efforts to return animals to their native landscapes. . . . Moore's deep research and often cinematic storytelling reveal the power individuals have to shape public policy. It's an inspiring portrait of ecological recovery." - Publishers Weekly

"We can't hope to know where we're headed if we don't know where we've been and where we're coming from. In The Beasts of the East, Andrew Moore's beautifully wrought and compelling stories of our extraordinary wildlife legacy, artfully framed by the author in their rightful context, are exactly what we need to help point us in the right direction." - Carl Safina

"Beasts of the East is an absorbing history of North American wildlife, from tragic demise to inspiring resurrection. Andrew Moore's meticulously researched account of eastern rewilding is that rarest and loveliest of species -- a truly hopeful book about humankind's relationship with the natural world." - Ben Goldfarb, award-winning author of Crossings and Eager

"Moore dispels the myth of a naturally domesticated Eastern seaboard, conjuring a precolonial landscape teeming with elk, bison, wolves, cranes, salmon, and expansive forests. The book details the rapid and violent ecological collapse, much of which was nearly complete within a century of European settlement, before shifting to the equally compelling story of modern restoration. . . . Richly researched and broad in scope, this work will attract readers interested in environmental history and current conservation efforts." - Library Journ