The Last Giants
The Rise and Fall of the African Elephant
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- 3,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
*Levison Wood's documentary series on WALKING WITH ELEPHANTS is available to watch now on Channel 4*
This book comes at a critical time. Fifty years ago, Africa was home to just over 1.3 million elephants, but by 1990 the number had halved. Meanwhile in the span of a lifetime, the human population has more than doubled.
In Levison Wood's The Last Giants, he explores the rapid decline of one of the world's favourite animals. Filled with stories from his own time spent travelling with elephants in Africa, and documenting their migration in his Channel 4 series, Walking With Elephants, the book is a passionate wake-up call for this endangered species we take for granted. The Last Giants was written to inspire us all to act - to learn more and help save the species from permanent extinction.
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Wood (Walking the Americas), a photographer, explorer, and British Army veteran, takes a rewarding look at the habits and habitats of the African elephant. He begins by recalling the first time he saw elephants in the wild, as a boy on vacation with his parents in Kenya. Scores of them "appeared as if out of nowhere on their nightly pilgrimage to an ancient shrine," and "I stood transfixed" at this "wondrous and enchanting" sight. While emphasizing that he is still just an enthusiast, "not an expert in elephant biology, psychology or conservation," he proceeds to introduce some salient facts and insights from each of these areas. To begin, he discusses the varied uses of one of their most distinctive attributes, their trunks, and their divergent evolutionary path from most other mammals the elephant's "closest living relative" today is the rock hyrax, a "furry, rodent-like creature that looks a bit like a guinea pig and isn't much bigger." Moving onto psychology, Wood shares observations on how his subjects' highly developed intelligence and capacity for empathy emerge in interactions with each other. Finally, he homes in on the threats posed by trophy hunting and the ivory trade. Comprehensively yet accessibly conveying Wood's lifelong fascination with African elephants, his discussion will appeal to anyone keen on learning more about them.
