The Elephant's Secret Sense: The Hidden Life of the Wild Herds of Africa

The Elephant's Secret Sense: The Hidden Life of the Wild Herds of Africa
by Caitlin O'Connell

The Elephant's Secret Sense: The Hidden Life of the Wild Herds of Africa
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Book Summary Information

Author: Caitlin O'Connell
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-09-01
ISBN: 0226616746
Number of pages: 264
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press

Book Reviews of The Elephant's Secret Sense: The Hidden Life of the Wild Herds of Africa

Book Review: Humans And Elephants Share Common Traits
Summary: 5 Stars

It is a big world and we tend to get too wrapped up in our world and life - it is good to know that people like Caitlin O'Connell are observing and contemplating nature. It would be hard to imagine me giving up creature comforts to spend one night in an observation bunker at an African watering hole, but Dr. O'Connell does this for many months through the years. While doing this fieldwork, she observes that elephants are communicating in an unlikely way - through the ground. This fascinating read takes the reader through the scientific process related to this discovery and provides many insights into life in the Third World and in the bush. My favorite thought of Dr. O'Connell's is that "humans and elephants share common traits: neither appears equipped to compromise; both are refugees of war, struggling for a foothold, a patch to resettle, to reclaim and call their own."

Summary of The Elephant's Secret Sense: The Hidden Life of the Wild Herds of Africa

While observing a family of elephants in the wild, Caitlin O?Connell noticed a peculiar listening behavior?the matriarch lifted her foot and scanned the horizon, causing the other elephants to follow suit, as if they could ?hear? the ground. The Elephant?s Secret Sense is O?Connell?s account of her groundbreaking research into seismic listening and communication, chronicling the extraordinary social lives of elephants over the course of fourteen years in the Namibian wilderness.
            This compelling odyssey of scientific discovery is also a frank account of fieldwork in a poverty-stricken, war-ravaged country. In her attempts to study an elephant community, O?Connell encounters corrupt government bureaucrats, deadly lions and rhinos, poachers, farmers fighting for arable land, and profoundly ineffective approaches to wildlife conservation. The Elephant?s Secret Sense is ultimately a story of intellectual courage in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
 
?I was transported by the author?s superbly sensuous descriptions of her years spent studying the animals. . . . Conjures a high-class nature documentary film in prose.??Steven Poole, Guardian
 
?A ride as rough and astonishing as the roads of the African floodplain.??Joan Keener, Entertainment Weekly
 
?A successful combination of science and soulfulness, explaining her groundbreaking theory of how elephants use seismic communication. . . . O?Connell?s account is studded with sympathetic insights and well-turned phrases.??Publishers Weekly
 
?This fascinating book reads like a fast-paced detective story of a scientific discovery and adventure set in contemporary Africa. . . . By the end, O?Connell takes her rightful place among the leading biographers of the African elephant.??Iain Douglas-Hamilton, author of Among the Elephants
 
 

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