Bushmaster

April 27, 2015
Environmental filmmaker Eatherley charts the life and interests of Raymond Ditmars, an early 20th-century snake expert as well as a prolific writer and filmmaker who became the Bronx Zoo’s first curator of reptiles. It is a well-intentioned effort that delves into the natural landscape and the unique environments in which bushmasters, the world’s largest vipers, often thrive. Eatherley traces the herpetologist’s searches for bushmasters in both the United States and South America. The book is a biography and a scientific narrative, yet the author never manages to capture or keep his audience’s full attention. Eatherley dutifully recalls Ditmars’s experiences with different kinds of snakes, writing about how Ditmars “would never forget the turmoil of impressions etched on his brain” during an encounter as a teenager, “the snake’s length far exceeding that suggested by its weight; the keeled scales lending the skin a rasp-like quality; the waxy sheen of the animal; the blunt head; and, set above pinkish jowls, the reddish-brown eyes with their elliptical black pupils.” But the work lacks a real hook and readers might find it difficult to be similarly enraptured. Eatherley’s occasional references to himself and behind-the-scenes research details reveal much about the scientific process, but they are not enough to carry the rest of the story. Photos.

Starred review from December 1, 2015

In the 1990s, zoologist Eatherley began work on a show about snakes and planned an episode on the bushmaster, a pitviper that is found in rainforests from Brazil to Nicaragua. An eight-foot-long specimen of the snake (they can reach 13 feet, and their venom is highly potent) featured in a 1932 autobiographical work by Raymond Ditmars, a herpetologist, among other things, who was obsessed by the species and who became a curator at the Bronx Zoo. As Eatherley performed research for the show, he became similarly obsessed with Ditmars, whose lifelong quest to capture a bushmaster the author recounts in a mix of well-written regular narrative and excerpts from Ditmars's extensive memoirs. The account will remind readers of memoirs by Roald Dahl and Oliver Sacks, in that it describes a time when a young man of some means could have unrestrained adventures, and when success depended far less on formal qualifications than it does today. VERDICT Eatherley offers an intriguing story that's also packed with details on the history of the Bronx Zoo, New York, snakebite treatments, zoology, and the development of the idea that nature conservation is important.--Henrietta Verma, Library Journal

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