Abstract
Cooper, J. E. (ed.). Birds of Prey: Health and Disease, 3rd ed. 345 pp. Blackwell Science Ltd., Oxford, 2002. $109.99. ISBN 0-632-05115-9.
This is the third edition of Birds of Prey: Health and Disease. The first edition was published in 1978 under the title Veterinary Aspects of Captive Birds of Prey and served as the basis on which many of today's books on avian medicine and disease are built. The second edition was published in 1985 with a supplement. The third edition starts with overview chapters on nomenclature and avian anatomy and proceeds into clinical and diagnostic aspects of raptor medicine followed by the diseases of raptors, which comprise the major part of the book. The disease aspect of the book is broken down into different categories: noninfectious, infectious excluding macroparasites, parasitic diseases, foot conditions, neurologic disorders, nutritional diseases, and poisoning. New additions to the third edition are chapters on anatomy, poisoning in wild (free living) raptors, and diseases in wild raptors. There are also new additions to the appendix section, giving the third edition an overall 90 pages more than the second edition. The book is well written, in a clear, easy-to-read style. The author adds a personal touch to the book by writing in the first person and using his own personal experiences when appropriate. This makes the reading of the book and the assimilation of the information very smooth. The book is nicely illustrated with many drawings, flow charts, tables, and color and black-and-white photographs, including several electron micrographs.
All chapters are fairly well organized and very well referenced. The reference and further reading section is very thorough. The book has several chapters written by acknowledged experts in their respective fields, which, in addition to the new information on free-living raptors, are breaks from the previous editions.
The emerging disease portion of the book is somewhat short and makes no reference to the recent cases of West Nile virus (WNV) infection in both captive and wild raptors in the United States. Also, there is only a brief mention of WNV in the infectious disease part of the book. This oversight is likely due to the timing of the writing of the book coinciding with the early stages of the WNV outbreak in the United States.
Overall, I found this book to be very useful and full of pertinent information. Any veterinarian working in the field of avian medicine and pathology would benefit from owning it. This is a great book for both the veterinary student interested in avian medicine and the veterinary pathologist who specializes in avian or zoo and wildlife pathology.