Elephant Memories
Thirteen Years in the Life of an Elephant Family
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
"A style so conversational…that I felt like a privileged visitor riding beside her in her rickety Land-Rover as she showed me around the park." —The New York Times Book Review
Cynthia Moss spent many years living in Kenya's Amboseli National Park and studying the elephants there, and her long-term research has revealed much of what we now know about these complex and intelligent animals. In this book, she shares a more up-close and personal perspective, chronicling the lives of the elephant families led by matriarchs Teresia, Slit Ear, Torn Ear, Tania, and Tuskless, including a rare look at calves and their development. This edition is also updated with a new afterword, catching up on the families, covering current conservation issues, and "celebrating a species from which we could learn some moral as well as zoological lessons" (Chicago Tribune).
"One is soon swept away by this 'Babar' for adults. By the end, one even begins to feel an aversion for people. One wants to curse human civilization and cry out, 'Now God stand up for the elephants!'"—The New York Times
"Moss speaks to the general reader, with charm as well as scientific authority…[An] elegantly written and ingeniously structured account."—TheWall Street Journal
"Any reader interested in animals will be captivated."—Publishers Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Amboseli National Park, near Mt. Kilimanjaro in southern Kenya, is home ground to some 600 elephants; this herd has been relatively free from human interference and was a major focus for field study. Moss, author of Portraits in the Wild, has been involved with the elephants of Amboseli since 1973; she and her colleagues have made a substantial contribution to our knowledge of elephant biology and behavior. Here, she follows one extended family through 13 years of good times and bad times, observing details of their daily lives. The book is organized by year and topic: each chapter begins with a synthesized narrative that introduces a single phase of lifesuch as mating, migration, social behavior, births and calves (this is the first study of elephant newborns and their development)that relates to family history. This is a captivating story of individual animals', rather than the author's, adventures. Moss affirms the old tale about elephants assisting one of their own who is injured or dying; she also reports that they recognize bare and bleached bones of their species. Any reader interested in animals will be captivated. Photos.
