How can we save the world’s greatest predators? University professor’s new book investigates

University of Gloucestershire’s award-winning wildlife expert Professor Adam Hart has launched a new book exploring the complex relationship between the world’s most terrifying predators and the people that live alongside them.

From big cats to army ants, bears to crocodiles, and piranha to snakes, Adam’s book ‘The Deadly Balance’ explodes some myths and investigates the latest research around encounters between animals with fearsome reputations and humans.

By probing the latest conservation science, Adam – Professor of Science Communication within the University’s School of Natural, Social and Sports Sciences – explores how we might both conserve the world’s predators and live safely alongside them.

Published by Bloomsbury, ‘The Deadly Balance’ is released on 2 February.

Adam said: “Whether it’s lions in Africa, tigers in India or sharks in the world’s oceans, we are fascinated by – and often terrified of – predators.

“Animals that can hunt, kill, and eat us occupy a unique place in the human psyche, and for good reason.

“Predation forms a big part of our evolutionary history, but in the modern world there are many people who live alongside animals that can, and sometimes do, make them prey.

“Despite their fearsome and often wildly exaggerated reputations, these animals have far more to fear from us than we do from them.”

Alongside his role at the University, Adam is a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service. He has made more than 30 radio documentaries on topics ranging from tree diseases to trophy hunting and was the co-host of the BBC TV documentaries Planet Ant and Hive Alive.

Adam’s work on thermal imaging in rhino anti-poaching in southern Africa won him the UK Universities’ Green Gown award for Research with Impact.

He is the writer and presenter of the wildlife podcast Tooth and Claw, which spotlights the world’s greatest predators, on the BBC World Service’s Discovery channel.