Elephant Memories: Thirteen Years in the Life of an Elephant Family
by Cynthia J. Moss
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Book Summary Information
Author: Cynthia J. MossEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2000-07-15
ISBN: 0226542378
Number of pages: 364
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Book Reviews of Elephant Memories: Thirteen Years in the Life of an Elephant Family
Book Review: Secret Lives of Elephants
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the Elephant book I've been waiting for! I love Elephants and have read several books about these magnificent animals. However, most books either focus on Elephants in human history (Elephant Destiny is a good book for this), photographs (such as Karl Ammann's recent Elephant Reflections), or the memoirs of conservation biologists who study Elephants (The Elephant's Secret Sense: The Hidden Life of the Wild Herds of Africa unfortunately fell into this category). Cynthia Moss' Elephant Memories: Thirteen Years in the Life of an Elephant Family is different - it is 100% about Elephants, their lives, their struggles, and personalities. Aside from some essential context about her research, Moss removes herself from the narrative and tells the story of the Elephant families in Amboseli National Park, Kenya.
While we know Elephants are intelligent and can communicate, we can't speak to them directly to learn about their lives. However, Cynthia Moss comes extremely close. She provides an account of Elephant life in the same way a sociologist might depict a lost human tribe. Moss gives each Elephant a name and describes his or her personality. At the beginning of the book, Moss includes a family tree of the Elephants in the book. Each chapter covers a separate topic ("Migration," "Mating," etc.). At the end of the chapter, Moss includes a list of the family members whom she discussed during that chapter so readers can follow who survived. By the end, the reader will come to know some Elephants particularly well, the "TC" and "TD" family, including Teresia and Slit Ear.
If Cynthia Moss is still writing on Elephants, I would love to see if she has any updates about the Amboseli Elephants. This particular book ends in the late 1980s, with a 1999 afterward. This is informative, but with increased tourism in Amboseli and global warming (which is melting the glaciers on Mt. Kilimanjaro) within the past decade, I worry that the Elephants will face future threats.
I've written hundreds of reviews for Amazon, and I don't think I've ever said this about a book, but I think Elephant Memories deserves 6 stars. It presents years of important scientific to the general public in an original, well-written, and light-hearted manner. Moss never dumbs down the science, but rather shows how it helps us understand these animals better.
If you like this book, you should definitely watch Echo and Other Elephants, a documentary hosted by David Attenborough and starring Cynthia Moss and her Elephants at Amboseli. Wildlife Wars: My Fight to Save Africa's Natural Treasures, a book by former Kenya Wildlife Services Director Richard Leaky, is also a good book to read since it discusses the Kenyan government's policies to protect Elephants and includes some of people Cynthia Moss worked with in Amboseli.
If you love this book, I highly recommend a trip to Amboseli National Park in Kenya. I visited recently and was able to get very close to these Elephants (see my pictures of them at http://web.mac.com/freedom4/Doms_Travel_Site/Africa/Pages/Amboseli_%28Kenya%29.html). Just make sure to read Elephant Memories before you go.
Summary of Elephant Memories: Thirteen Years in the Life of an Elephant Family
Cynthia Moss has studied the elephants in Kenya's Amboseli National Park for over twenty-seven years. Her long-term research has revealed much of what we now know about these complex and intelligent animals. Here she chronicles the lives of the members of the T families led by matriarchs Teresia, Slit Ear, Torn Ear, Tania, and Tuskless. With a new afterword catching up on the families and covering current conservation issues, Moss's story will continue to fascinate animal lovers.
"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!'"?Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times
"Moss speaks to the general reader, with charm as well as scientific authority. . . . [An] elegantly written and ingeniously structured account." ?Raymond Sokolov, Wall Street Journal
"Moss tells the story in 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." ?Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, New York Times Book Review
"A prose-poem 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!'"?Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times
"Moss speaks to the general reader, with charm as well as scientific authority. . . . [An] elegantly written and ingeniously structured account." ?Raymond Sokolov, Wall Street Journal
"Moss tells the story in 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." ?Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, New York Times Book Review
"A prose-poem celebrating a species from which we could learn some moral as well as zoological lessons." ?Chicago Tribune
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