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The Wild and the Wicked: On Nature and Human Nature
by Benjamin HaleMost of us think that in order to be environmentalists, we have to love nature. Essentially, we should be tree huggers -- embracing majestic redwoods, mighty oaks, graceful birches, etc. We ought to eat granola, drive hybrids, cook tofu, and write our appointments in Sierra Club calendars. Nature's splendor, in other words, justifies our protection of it. But, asks Benjamin Hale in this provocative book, what about tsunamis, earthquakes, cancer, bird flu, killer asteroids? They are nature, too.For years, environmentalists have insisted that nature is fundamentally good. In The Wild and the Wicked, Benjamin Hale adopts the opposite position -- that much of the time nature can be bad -- in order to show that even if nature is cruel, we still need to be environmentally conscientious. Hale argues that environmentalists needn't feel compelled to defend the value of nature, or even to adopt the attitudes of tree-hugging nature lovers. We can acknowledge nature's indifference and periodic hostility. Deftly weaving anecdote and philosophy, he shows that we don't need to love nature to be green. What really ought to be driving our environmentalism is our humanity, not nature's value.Hale argues that our unique burden as human beings is that we can act for reasons, good or bad. He claims that we should be environmentalists because environmentalism is right, because we humans have the capacity to be better than nature. As humans, we fail to live up to our moral potential if we act as brutally as nature. Hale argues that despite nature's indifference to the plight of humanity, humanity cannot be indifferent to the plight of nature.
The Wild and the Wicked: On Nature and Human Nature (The\mit Press Ser.)
by Benjamin HaleA brief foray into a moral thicket, exploring why we should protect nature despite tsunamis, malaria, bird flu, cancer, killer asteroids, and tofu.Most of us think that in order to be environmentalists, we have to love nature. Essentially, we should be tree huggers—embracing majestic redwoods, mighty oaks, graceful birches, etc. We ought to eat granola, drive hybrids, cook tofu, and write our appointments in Sierra Club calendars. Nature's splendor, in other words, justifies our protection of it. But, asks Benjamin Hale in this provocative book, what about tsunamis, earthquakes, cancer, bird flu, killer asteroids? They are nature, too.For years, environmentalists have insisted that nature is fundamentally good. In The Wild and the Wicked, Benjamin Hale adopts the opposite position—that much of the time nature can be bad—in order to show that even if nature is cruel, we still need to be environmentally conscientious. Hale argues that environmentalists needn't feel compelled to defend the value of nature, or even to adopt the attitudes of tree-hugging nature lovers. We can acknowledge nature's indifference and periodic hostility. Deftly weaving anecdote and philosophy, he shows that we don't need to love nature to be green. What really ought to be driving our environmentalism is our humanity, not nature's value.Hale argues that our unique burden as human beings is that we can act for reasons, good or bad. He claims that we should be environmentalists because environmentalism is right, because we humans have the capacity to be better than nature. As humans, we fail to live up to our moral potential if we act as brutally as nature. Hale argues that despite nature's indifference to the plight of humanity, humanity cannot be indifferent to the plight of nature.
Wild at Heart: Mustangs and the Young People Fighting to Save Them
by Terri Farley Melissa FarlowMustangs have thrived for thousands of generations. But now they are under attack from people who see them as pests. The lucky ones are adopted. Some are sent to long-term holding pens; more and more are sold for slaughter. But courageous young people are trying to stop the round-ups and the senseless killings. They are standing up to the government and big business to save these American icons. With eye witness accounts, cutting-edge science, and full-color photographs, Terri Farley and Melissa Farlow invite readers into the world of mustangs in all its beauty, and profile the young people leading the charge to keep horses wild and free. Includes notes and sources, index, and glossary.
Wild at Heart: America's Turbulent Relationship with Nature, from Exploitation to Redemption
by Alice Outwater"Alice Outwater’s infectiously readable Wild at Heart captures the essence of ecology: Everything is connected, and every connection leads to ourselves." —Alan Weisman, author, The World Without Us and Countdown "A wonderful book. Information rich to say the least, and the indigenous human connections and portrait of the deep connectivity of nature, are both strong elements." —Jim McClintock, author of A Naturalist Goes Fishing Nature on the brink? Maybe not. With so much bad news in the world, we forget how much environmental progress has been made. In a narrative that reaches from Native American tribal practices to public health and commercial hunting, Wild at Heart shows how western attitudes towards nature have changed dramatically in the last five hundred years.The Chinook gave thanks for King Salmon's gifts. The Puritans saw Nature as a frightening wilderness, full of "uncooked meat." With the industrial revolution, nature was despoiled and simultaneously celebrated as a source of the sublime. With little forethought and great greed, Americans killed the last passenger pigeon, wiped out the old growth forests, and dumped so much oil in the rivers that they burst into flame. But in the span of a few decades, our relationship with nature has evolved to a more sophisticated sense of interdependence that brings us full circle. Across the US, people are taking individual action, planting native species and fighting for projects like dam removal and wolf restoration. Cities are embracing nature, too.Humans can learn from the past, and our choices today will determine whether nature survives. Like the First Nations, all nations must come to deep agreement that nature needs protection. This compelling book reveals both how we got here and our own and nature's astonishing ability to mutually regenerate.
The Wild Bee Handbook: The Amazing Lives of Our Wild Species and How to Help Them Thrive
by Sarah Wyndham-LewisThere are over 20,000 species of bees worldwide, of which just seven species are honeybees. In the US alone, there are over 4,000 species of bee, whereas Europe only have nearly 2,000 bee species and the UK has 275.The Wild Bee Handbook is a practical, illustrated guide that will introduce you to the common wild bees you might find in your garden. Through a handy directory, learn how vital wild bees are to the ecosystem and discover how we can garden to offer them the food and habitat they need. This book is an essential resource for anyone interested in biodiversity and sustainable gardening, featuring sections on container gardening, the no-dig method, how to maintain soil health, the principles for rewilding and wildflower gardening for success - it doesn't matter how big or small your space, you can still garden to support wild bees. The Wild Bee Handbook is a celebration of the wild pollinators and a beautifully illustrated, informative guide that will equip you to create a green space to help them thrive. Join the wave of change and learn how to grow sustainability.
Wild Blue: A Natural History of the World's Largest Animal
by Dan BortolottiThe blue whale holds the title of largest creature that has ever lived, and it may also be the most mysterious. The biggest blue whales can outweigh every player in Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League combined. Their mouths can gulp more than thirteen thousand gallons of seawater. A newborn can be over twenty feet long and gain nearly twenty tons in seven months—about eight pounds per hour. Blue whales emit more powerful sounds than any other animal on earth, though many of their vocalizations are beyond the range of human hearing. Yet nearly everything that we have learned about blue whales has come after humans almost wiped them out from the oceans. A century ago, some three hundred thousand roamed the seas. But in the first decades of the twentieth century, humans hunted and killed 99.9% of them. Their numbers decimated, the species seemed destined for extinction. Only in recent years has the number slowly begun to increase, along with hope for the blue whale's future. Equal parts history and science, Wild Blue is the first comprehensive portrait of the blue whale. It draws upon new findings from scientists who have begun to identify individual blue whales and understand how they dive, how they feed, where they migrate, and why they emit their haunting, low-frequency calls. With deft, poignant writing, Dan Bortolotti gives us the most vibrant, breathtaking view to date of these magnificent creatures.
Wild Brunch: Poems About How Creatures Eat
by David L. HarrisonYoung wildlife lovers are invited to explore how and why animals eat what they do in this nonfiction poetry picture book collection for kids.Explore how narwhals, jellyfish, hippos, piranhas, and many more species of swimming, land-based, and flying animals satisfy their appetites in a collection of culinary poems.A creative companion to Now You See Them, Now You Don't: Poems About Creatures That Hide and A Place to Start a Family: Poems About Creatures That Build by celebrated author and science expert David L. Harrison and award-winning illustrator, Giles Laroche.
Wild by Design: The Rise of Ecological Restoration
by Laura J. MartinAn environmental historian delves into the history, science, and philosophy of a paradoxical pursuit: the century-old quest to design natural places and create wild species. Environmental restoration is a global pursuit and a major political concern. Governments, nonprofits, private corporations, and other institutions spend billions of dollars each year to remove invasive species, build wetlands, and reintroduce species driven from their habitats. But restoration has not always been so intensively practiced. It began as the pastime of a few wildflower enthusiasts and the first practitioners of the new scientific discipline of ecology. Restoration has been a touchstone of US environmentalism since the beginning of the twentieth century. Diverging from popular ideas about preservation, which romanticized nature as an Eden to be left untouched by human hands, and conservation, the managed use of natural resources, restoration emerged as a “third way.” Restorationists grappled with the deepest puzzles of human care for life on earth: How to intervene in nature for nature’s own sake? What are the natural baselines that humans should aim to restore? Is it possible to design nature without destroying wildness? Laura J. Martin shows how, over time, amateur and professional ecologists, interest groups, and government agencies coalesced around a mode of environmental management that sought to respect the world-making, and even the decision-making, of other species. At the same time, restoration science reshaped material environments in ways that powerfully influenced what we understand the wild to be. In Wild by Design, restoration’s past provides vital knowledge for climate change policy. But Martin also offers something more—a meditation on what it means to be wild and a call for ecological restoration that is socially just.
Wild by Nature: North American Animals Confront Colonization
by Andrea L. SmalleyHow did efforts to control wild animals affect colonization?Winner of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title of the Choice ACRLFrom the time Europeans first came to the New World until the closing of the frontier, the benefits of abundant wild animals—from beavers and wolves to fish, deer, and bison—appeared as a recurring theme in colonizing discourses. Explorers, travelers, surveyors, naturalists, and other promoters routinely advertised the richness of the American faunal environment and speculated about the ways in which animals could be made to serve their colonial projects. In practice, however, American animals proved far less malleable to colonizers’ designs. Their behaviors constrained an English colonial vision of a reinvented and rationalized American landscape. In Wild by Nature, Andrea L. Smalley argues that Anglo-American authorities’ unceasing efforts to convert indigenous beasts into colonized creatures frequently produced unsettling results that threatened colonizers’ control over the land and the people. Not simply acted upon by being commodified, harvested, and exterminated, wild animals were active subjects in the colonial story, altering its outcome in unanticipated ways. These creatures became legal actors—subjects of statutes, issues in court cases, and parties to treaties—in a centuries-long colonizing process that was reenacted on successive wild animal frontiers. Following a trail of human–animal encounters from the seventeenth-century Chesapeake to the Civil War–era southern plains, Smalley shows how wild beasts and their human pursuers repeatedly transgressed the lines lawmakers drew to demarcate colonial sovereignty and control, confounding attempts to enclose both people and animals inside a legal frame. She also explores how, to possess the land, colonizers had to find new ways to contain animals without destroying the wildness that made those creatures valuable to English settler societies in the first place. Offering fresh perspectives on colonial, legal, environmental, and Native American history, Wild by Nature reenvisions the familiar stories of early America as animal tales.
Wild Chimpanzees: Social Behavior of an Endangered Species
by Adam Clark ArcadiAs our closest primate relatives, chimpanzees offer tantalizing clues about the behavior of early human ancestors. This book provides a rich and detailed portrait of chimpanzee social life in the wild, synthesizing hundreds of thousands of hours of research at seven long-term field sites. Why are the social lives of males and females so different? Why do groups of males sometimes seek out and kill neighboring individuals? Do chimpanzees cooperate when they hunt monkeys? Is their vocal behaviour like human speech? Are there different chimpanzee 'cultures'? Addressing these questions and more, Adam Arcadi presents a fascinating introduction to the chimpanzee social universe and the challenges we face in trying to save this species from extinction. With extensive notes organized by field site and an appendix describing field methods, this book is indispensable for students, researchers, and anyone else interested in the remarkable and complex world of these intelligent apes.
Wild City: Encounters With Urban Wildlife
by Florence Wilkinson'The mark of a good nature book is that it opens your eyes to what is there, but you missed, and then to the beautiful possibility of what might be. This is a very good book.' John Lewis-Stempel'An enjoyable and timely reminder that we are never alone' Tristan GooleyThe badgers of Brighton's most exclusive postcode. The water voles of Glasgow. The Black Country bats who have found a haven in old industrial tunnels. The peregrine falcons nesting on the ledges of tower blocks. The mosquitoes found on the London Underground and nowhere else on earth.In Wild City Florence Wilkinson takes us on a fascinating journey into why we should engage with our fellow urban species. What we might see - if we only take the time to look - and how nature is adapting to human-engineered environments in unexpected and ingenious ways.As more and more of our planet is urbanised, we humans still feel that primal pull to connect with our wilder roots. This gorgeously lyrical book invites us to celebrate the natural world, while also offering a clear-eyed glimpse into the challenges faced by urban plants and animals as cities grow and sprawl.Wild City proposes a compelling manifesto for city wildlife, suggesting how we might take action to protect the often-overlooked residents who live alongside us.City-dwellers, it's time to meet your neighbours.
Wild Connection
by Jennifer L. VerdolinWild Kingdom meets Sex and the City in this scientific perspective on dating and relationships.A specialist in animal behavior compares the courtship rituals and mating behaviors of animals to their human equivalents, revealing the many and often surprising ways we are both similar to and different from other species.What makes an individual attractive to the opposite sex? Does size matter? Why do we tend to "keep score" in our relationships? From perfume and cosmetics to online dating and therapy, our ultimate goal is to successfully connect with someone. So why is romance such an effort for humans, while animals have little trouble getting it right? Wild Connection is full of fascinating and suggestive observations about animal behavior. For example, in most species smell is an important component of determining compatibility. So are we humans doing the right thing by masking our natural scents with soaps and colognes? Royal albatrosses have a lengthy courtship period lasting several years. These birds instinctively know that casual hook-ups are not the way to find a reliable mate. And older female chimpanzees often mate with younger males. Is this the evolutionary basis of the human "cougar" phenomenon?Fun to read as well as educational, this unique take on the perennial human quest to find the ideal mate shows that we have much to learn from our cousins in the wild.
Wild Crop Relatives: Genomic and Breeding Resources
by Chittaranjan KoleWild crop relatives are now playing a significant part in the elucidation and improvement of the genomes of their cultivated counterparts. This work includes comprehensive examinations of the status, origin, distribution, morphology, cytology, genetic diversity and available genetic and genomic resources of numerous wild crop relatives, as well as of their evolution and phylogenetic relationship. Further topics include their role as model plants, genetic erosion and conservation efforts, and their domestication for the purposes of bioenergy, phytomedicines, nutraceuticals and phytoremediation. Wild Crop Relatives: Genomic and Breeding Resources comprises 10 volumes on Cereals, Millets and Grasses, Oilseeds, Legume Crops and Forages, Vegetables, Temperate Fruits, Tropical and Subtropical Fruits, Industrial Crops, Plantation and Ornamental Crops, and Forest Trees. It contains 125 chapters written by nearly 400 well-known authors from about 40 countries.
Wild Cultures
by Christophe BoeschHow do chimpanzees say, 'I want to have sex with you?' By clipping a leaf or knocking on a tree trunk? How do they eat live aggressive ants? By using a short stick with one hand or long stick with both? Ivorian and Tanzanian chimpanzees answer these questions differently, as would humans from France and China if asked how they eat rice. Christophe Boesch takes readers into the lives of chimpanzees from different African regions, highlighting the debate about culture. His ethnography reveals how simple techniques have evolved into complex ones, how teaching styles differ, how material culture widens access to new food sources and how youngsters learn culture. This journey reveals many parallels between humans and chimpanzees and points to striking differences. Written in a vivid and accessible style, Wild Cultures places the reader in social and ecological contexts that shed light on our twin cultures.
Wild Ecosystems, Unit 6: Nature's Neighborhoods
by Wright Group/McGraw-HillThis is a textbook about the connection of living things in the wild ecosystem.
Wild Equids: Ecology, Management, and Conservation
by Jason I. Ransom Petra KaczenskyThe first expert synthesis of the diverse studies conducted on wild equids worldwide.Wild horses, zebras, asses, and feral equines exhibit intriguing and complex social structures that captivate the human imagination and elicit a wide range of emotions that influence conservation and management efforts. This book, spearheaded by Jason I. Ransom and Petra Kaczensky, brings together the world's leading experts on equid ecology, management, and conservation to provide a synthesis of what is known about these iconic species and what needs to be done to prevent losing some of them altogether. The most comprehensive conservation book on wild equids in decades, this title will enlighten not only equid researchers, but also mammalogists, conservationists, and equine professionals. Readers will find new insight into the lives of the world's horses, zebras, and asses, understand the basis of our relationships with these animals, and develop a greater understanding of where equids come from and why they are worth conserving.Included in this book are detailed, state-of-the-science syntheses on Social structure, behavior, and cognition Habitat and diet Ecological niches Population dynamics Roles of humans in horse distribution through time Human dimensions and the meaning of wild Management of free-roaming horses Captive breeding of wild equids Conservation of wild equids Conservation of migrations Reintroductions Genetics and paleogenetics
Wild Experiment: Feeling Science and Secularism after Darwin
by Donovan O. SchaeferIn Wild Experiment, Donovan O. Schaefer challenges the conventional wisdom that feeling and thinking are separate. Drawing on science studies, philosophy, affect theory, secularism studies, psychology, and contemporary literary criticism, Schaefer reconceptualizes rationality as defined by affective processes at every level. He introduces the model of “cogency theory” to reconsider the relationship between evolutionary biology and secularism, examining mid-nineteenth-century Darwinian controversies, the 1925 Scopes Trial, and the New Atheist movement of the 2000s. Along the way, Schaefer reappraises a range of related issues, from secular architecture at Oxford to American eugenics to contemporary climate denialism. These case studies locate the intersection of thinking and feeling in the way scientific rationality balances excited discovery with anxious scrutiny, in the fascination of conspiracy theories, and in how racist feelings assume the mantle of rational objectivity. The fact that cognition is felt, Schaefer demonstrates, is both why science succeeds and why it fails. He concludes that science, secularism, atheism, and reason itself are not separate from feeling but comprehensively defined by it.
Wild flowers of Majorca Minorca and Ibiza
by Elspeth BeckettVisitors to these islands in search of sun and sea are often surprised by theglorious wild flowers, abundant particularly in the spring and late autumn.Many are curious to know more about them.This book offers a means of identification on three levels.For the complete beginner there are illustrations of most of the more strikingwild plants (and of a few cultivated ones).For those who wish to go further, there is help in the form of a botanical key (abasic skill for would-be botanists, and what better place, than a sunny holidayisland to learn it in).For those who already have this skill here is a key to all the wild floweringplants ( except those waiting to be discovered - what a challenge for aninteresting holiday!).
Wild Food Plants for Zero Hunger and Resilient Agriculture (Plant Life and Environment Dynamics)
by Ajay Kumar Pardeep Singh Suruchi Singh Bhupinder SinghThe edited volume brings out a comprehensive collection of information relevant to wild food plants, their importance for global sustainable food security, future-readiness, and resilient agriculture. The book's primary focus is to cover topics on the diversity of wild food plants across the globe, their nutraceutical importance, production-consumption trends, integration into the current food menu, and marketing and livelihood opportunities to the indigenous people. Sustainable development goals 1, 2, and 3 are significant for a poverty-free, hunger-free world and ensure good health and wellbeing of the people, respectively. The three goals are important and interlinked as achieving zero poverty will help reduce hunger among the people. Availability of nutritional and balanced food ensures good health. Wild food plants are an essential part of a nourishing and healthy diet for indigenous communities. They are globally collected from natural habitats or cultivated at more minor scales. Although consumed locally, they are an essential part of the diets of tribal and indigenous communities worldwide and hold immense potential to alleviate global hunger. Considering their importance for global sustainable food security, it is essential to clearly understand the future role of wild food plants for future readiness and resilient agriculture. Therefore, this book provides a piece of important information on these aspects. The book is a valuable resource for the audience ranging from undergraduate science students to the NGOs and institutions involved in poverty alleviation programs, policymakers, dieticians, horticulturists, plant breeders, farmers, health experts, and food enthusiasts.
Wild Fruits: Composition, Nutritional Value and Products
by Abdalbasit Adam MariodWild fruits play an important role in mitigating hunger in the developing world. As a sustainable and natural food source in rural areas, these fruits have a strong effect on regional food security and poverty alleviation. This makes the utilization of wild foods incredibly important for native populations both in terms of food security and economics. There are many traditional methods for wild fruit harvesting, indigenous tree and plant domestication and cultivation passed down through generations that are sustainable and economically viable, ultimately contributing to a better quality of life for large sections of the developing world. To date there has not been a reference work focusing on the full scope of wild fruits from their growth and chemical makeup to their harvest, distribution, health effects and beyond. Wild Fruits: Composition, Nutritional Value and Products adequately fills this gap, expansively covering the utilization of multi-purpose wild fruits in regions worldwide. Effects on quality of life, food security, economics and health are extensively covered. Over 31 wild fruit species are examined, with individual chapters focusing on each species' phytochemical constituents, bioactive compounds, traditional and medicinal uses and chemical composition. Harvest, post-harvest and consumption methods are covered for each, as are their overall effect on the food security and economics of their native regions. This book is essential for researchers in search of a comprehensive singular source for the chemical makeups and cultivation of indigenous wild fruits and their many benefits to their native regions.
Wild Honey Bees: An Intimate Portrait
by Ingo Arndt Jürgen TautzA lavishly illustrated exploration of the mysterious, hidden world of forest-dwelling wild honey bees—with new insights that promise to revolutionize conservation and beekeepingThe honey bee, a key pollinator, is now an endangered species, threatened by human activity and loss of biodiversity. Because of this, understanding forest-dwelling wild honey bees—which are more resistant to diseases and parasites than honey bees kept by beekeepers—is more important than ever before. In this lavishly illustrated book, Ingo Arndt, one of the world’s best wildlife photographers, and Jürgen Tautz, one of the world’s leading bee experts, set out on the trail of wild honey bees, bringing back sensational photographs, some of which document behaviors never captured before, and new scientific insights that promise to revolutionize conservation and beekeeping.A remarkable number of wild honey bee colonies still exist, living in hollow trees inside the forest, largely unnoticed by humans. This book explores the fascinating secret world of wild honey bees, including the adaptations and behaviors they have acquired to survive and the new challenges they face today. Featuring incredible macro and wide-angle photographs, some taken from inside hives, Wild Honey Bees is a unique collaboration that documents a major research project and offers critical new insights about these essential creatures.A stunning photographic record that documents for the first time the original way of life of the endangered, forest-dwelling honey beeA unique collaboration between one of the world’s best wildlife photographers and one of its leading bee expertsFeatures incredible macro and wide-angle photographs, some from inside the hive, depicting bees as never seen beforeOffers fascinating new insights into the mysterious, hidden world of the wild honey bee
Wild Hope: On the Front Lines of Conservation Success
by Andrew BalmfordTropical deforestation. The collapse of fisheries. Unprecedented levels of species extinction. Faced with the plethora of gloom-and-doom headlines about the natural world, we might think that environmental disaster is inevitable. But is there any good news about the environment? Yes, there is, answers Andrew Balmford in Wild Hope, and he offers several powerful stories of successful conservation to prove it. This tragedy is still avoidable, and there are many reasons for hope if we find inspiration in stories of effective environmental recovery. Wild Hope is organized geographically, with each chapter taking readers to extraordinary places to meet conservation’s heroes and foot soldiers—and to discover the new ideas they are generating about how to make conservation work on our hungry and crowded planet. The journey starts in the floodplains of Assam, where dedicated rangers and exceptionally tolerant villagers have together helped bring Indian rhinos back from the brink of extinction. In the pine forests of the Carolinas, we learn why plantation owners came to resent rare woodpeckers—and what persuaded them to change their minds. In South Africa, Balmford investigates how invading alien plants have been drinking the country dry, and how the Southern Hemisphere’s biggest conservation program is now simultaneously restoring the rivers, saving species, and creating tens of thousands of jobs. The conservation problems Balmford encounters are as diverse as the people and their actions, but together they offer common themes and specific lessons on how to win the battle of conservation—and the one essential ingredient, Balmford shows, is most definitely hope. Wild Hope, though optimistic, is a clear-eyed view of the difficulties and challenges of conservation. Balmford is fully aware of failed conservation efforts and systematic flaws that make conservation difficult, but he offers here innovative solutions and powerful stories of citizens, governments, and corporations coming together to implement them. A global tour of people and programs working for the planet, Wild Hope is an emboldening green journey.
Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals
by Marc Bekoff Jessica PierceMarrying years of behavioral and cognitive research with compelling and moving anecdotes, Bekoff and Pierce reveal that animals exhibit a broad repertoire of moral behaviors, including fairness, empathy, trust, and reciprocity. Underlying these behaviors is a complex and nuanced range of emotions, backed by a high degree of intelligence and surprising behavioral flexibility. Animals, in short, are incredibly adept social beings, relying on rules of conduct to navigate intricate social networks that are essential to their survival. Ultimately, Bekoff and Pierce draw the astonishing conclusion that there is no moral gap between humans and other species: morality is an evolved trait that we unquestionably share with other social mammals.
Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals
by Marc Bekoff Jessica PierceScientists have long counseled against interpreting animal behavior in terms of human emotions, warning that such anthropomorphizing limits our ability to understand animals as they really are. Yet what are we to make of a female gorilla in a German zoo who spent days mourning the death of her baby? Or a wild female elephant who cared for a younger one after she was injured by a rambunctious teenage male? Or a rat who refused to push a lever for food when he saw that doing so caused another rat to be shocked? Aren’t these clear signs that animals have recognizable emotions and moral intelligence? With Wild Justice Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce unequivocally answer yes.Marrying years of behavioral and cognitive research with compelling and moving anecdotes, Bekoff and Pierce reveal that animals exhibit a broad repertoire of moral behaviors, including fairness, empathy, trust, and reciprocity. Underlying these behaviors is a complex and nuanced range of emotions, backed by a high degree of intelligence and surprising behavioral flexibility. Animals, in short, are incredibly adept social beings, relying on rules of conduct to navigate intricate social networks that are essential to their survival. Ultimately, Bekoff and Pierce draw the astonishing conclusion that there is no moral gap between humans and other species: morality is an evolved trait that we unquestionably share with other social mammals.Sure to be controversial, Wild Justice offers not just cutting-edge science, but a provocative call to rethink our relationship with—and our responsibilities toward—our fellow animals.
Wild Life: The Extraordinary Adventures of Sir David Attenborough
by Leisa Stewart-SharpeJourney through the jungle and coral reefs, across the African plains and icy poles, and even to the Galapagos Islands, as you discover all there is to know about the world's best-known and best-loved naturalist, Sir David Attenborough, in this beautifully illustrated non-fiction picture book.From a childhood spent searching for fossils to his awe-inspiring work as a broadcaster and conservationist, learn about Sir David Attenborough's WILD life, as you experience iconic moments from his documentaries and are inspired by his untiring efforts to protect our planet.A perfect gift for budding naturalists and fans of David's wildlife documentaries.