Product details
- ISBN 9781915294616
- Dimensions: 127 x 197mm
- Publication Date: 12 Sep 2024
- Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing UK
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
Our Delivery Time Frames Explained
2-4 Working Days: Available in-stock
10-20 Working Days: On Backorder
Will Deliver When Available: On Pre-Order or Reprinting
We ship your order once all items have arrived at our warehouse and are processed. Need those 2-4 day shipping items sooner? Just place a separate order for them!
‘One of the most remarkable figures in British conservation.’ Observer
‘Gow reinvents what it means to be a guardian of the countryside.’ Guardian
‘Courageous, visionary, funny.’ Isabella Tree
‘A brilliant read.’ Benedict Macdonald
‘He gets stuff done. . . . Highly entertaining but also a heartfelt plea for a wilder, more inspiring Britain.’ Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Birds, Beasts and Bedlam recounts the adventures of Britain’s favourite maverick rewilder, Derek Gow, and his single-minded mission to save our rarest wildlife – one species at a time.
Author of Bringing Back the Beaver and Hunt for the Shadow Wolf, Derek shares his personal, courageous and highly entertaining tales in Birds, Beasts and Bedlam, including how he raised a sofa-loving wild boar piglet, transported a raging bison bull across the UK, got bitten by a Scottish wildcat and, together with Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell, restored the ancient white stork to the pioneering Knepp Estate.
After a Shetland ewe captured his heart as a boy, Derek grew up to become a farmer with a passion for ancient breeds. When he realised how many of our species were close to extinction – even on his own land – Derek tore down fences literally and metaphorically, transforming his traditional Devon farm into a 300-acre rewilding haven for beavers, water voles, lynx, wildcats, harvest mice, wild boar and more. A project that is still ongoing today.
Birds, Beasts and Bedlam continues the rich tradition of great British nature writing and is a natural bedfellow to Gerald Durrell’s A Zoo in My Luggage. Passionate, subversive and unforgettable, Birds, Beasts and Bedlam will leave you imagining a rewilded landscape filled with our lost native birds and wildlife.
‘A do-er, not a dreamer, Gow has become one of our most outspoken rewilders.’ Countryfile Magazine
‘In this warm and funny autobiography, [Gow] writes with a whimsical fluency about the moments of humour and pathos in an unusual life.’ Country Life
Derek Gow is a farmer, nature conservationist and the author of Hunt for the Shadow Wolf and Bringing Back the Beaver. Born in Dundee, he left school when he was seventeen and worked in agriculture for five years. Inspired by the writing of Gerald Durrell, he jumped at the chance to manage a European wildlife park in central Scotland in the late 1990s before moving on to develop two nature centres in England. He now lives with his children, Maysie and Kyle, on a 300-acre farm on the Devon/Cornwall border, which he is in the process of rewilding. Derek has played a significant role in the reintroduction of the Eurasian beaver, the water vole and the white stork in England. He is currently working on a reintroduction project for the wildcat.