Vig Károly: Zoological Research in Western Hungary. A history (Szombathely, 2003)
XVIII At the same time, this bibliographical treatment can also be read as an intriguing account of scientific history. The fates of individuals and communities, researchers and researched (scientists, taxa, areas) lie behind the titles. The bibliography itself, assessed in this way, compiled and edited, makes intriguing, instructive reading in itself. (For many whose taxonomic knowledge from their student days are fading, it can serve as a reminder as well.) It is an aid to professional memory. In that sense too it is an indispensable handbook, a basic work, a volume whose value will mature, not fade with time. Finally, the book has a general message for environmental studies. The spatial and temporal dynamics of the animal species, their extinction or proliferation, point to global processes that are better measures of the state of ecological systems than any instrument could be. Animal instincts —paradoxically — can sometimes gauge dangerous situations better than academic science. Veszprém, Easter 2003 ATTILA T. SZABÓ Dr. biol, university professor LINES OF RECOMMENDATION Readers of this book —whether researchers, agricultural, forestry, fishery or game experts, environmentalists, or simply people interested in the open questions about wildlife —will come up against the question of what the West Hungarian border region, has signified and signifies today as a research field for a zoologist. For centuries, this was the part of Hungary most accessible from Western Europe. Visitors from that direction first encountered here a countryside and fauna characteristic not only of this country, but of the Eurasian regions further east. For those approaching from the East, from distant parts of Hungary, on the other hand, the region signified the Alps and the West. (This was especially the case during the decades when Western European research opportunities were closed to most Hungarian researchers.) These days, when egoism, individualism and a desire for self-assertion predominate, there are few researchers prepared to assess their work of their contemporaries and forebears and make a fair inventory of the research done in a region. The professional humility required to write such a work is lacking in most disciplines. The author has filled that gap for this Western part of Transdanubia, by following the lines of zoological research, from the early 16th century to the present day, in Praenoricum —a region tragically severed by a border in the 20th century. His work is a service to science and to the conservation of natural diversity, for the benefit of us all. Sarród, March 2003 LÁSZLÓ KÁRPÁTI Director of the Fertő-Hanság National Park
