Becoming Wild
How Animals Learn to be Animals
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- $21.99
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times Notable Book of 2020
‘Bracing and enlightening’ Science
Culture is something exclusive to human beings, isn’t it?
Not so, says intrepid researcher Carl Safina.
Becoming Wild reveals the rich cultures that survive in some of Earth’s remaining wild places. By showing how sperm whales, scarlet macaws and chimpanzees teach and learn, Safina offers a fresh understanding of what is constantly going on beyond humanity, and how we’re all connected.
‘Becoming Wild demands that we wake up’ Telegraph
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Safina (Beyond Words), a science writer, proposes in his eloquent treatise that numerous species throughout the animal kingdom form complex societies in their interactions with each other. He focuses on three: sperm whales in the Caribbean, scarlet macaws in the Peruvian Amazon, and chimpanzees in Uganda. Having spent weeks in the field with researchers studying each species, he has plenty of examples of how culture, as well as biology, shape behavior. Sperm whales worldwide, for example, are "basically one genetic stock,' " yet individual groups each manifest their own distinctive sonar clicks to communicate. He constantly demonstrates nonhuman animals' capacity for activities often assumed to be solely the domain of Homo sapiens. While it's well-known that many animals learn by observation, Safina points out examples of those that can actually teach complicated tasks for instance, female chimps correcting their offspring's nut-opening technique. The text, written in an accessible style, is rich in similarly fascinating zoological tidbits. This revelatory work sheds as much light on what it means to be human as it does on the nature of other species.
