 
|
|
Paperback
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
ISBN13: 9780226616742
Condition: NEW
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices
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
| Customer Reviews: |
|
| |
| more memoir than science |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
 |
|
This book turns out to be much more memoir than science, and that is fortunate. O'Connell is actually better in describing her personal experiences, with all the color, than she is in explaining science or even the political background. What you get is the story of a courageous, self reliant woman, who experiences fear and makes mistakes, but perseveres. She is not only elephant watcher, but community organizer. The book is much less interesting toward the end when as a successful Ph.D she returns to Africa with a number of assistants, than in the beginning when she is a solitary observer, who must be careful of lions and angry elephants.
|
| Humans And Elephants Share Common Traits |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
 |
|
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."
|
| More memoir than elephant science |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
|
|
In reading the summaries and reviews for this book, I had gotten the sense that it focused on the science of elephant communication. However, it is more the author's personal memoir about her experiences in Namibia than about elephant communication. O'Connell does tell some fascinating tales of escapes from lions and elephant politics. In one incident, a female lion stuck its head into the author's bunker, and I was left reading the book on the edge of my seat (even though I know the author survived). She is also good at interpreting elephant emotions and giving real character to the matriarchs and young bulls in the elephant families. When her research team tried dart one female elephant from a helicopter in order to radio tag her, the elephant's colleagues and babies flapped their ears, tried to use their trunks to swat the helicopter, and even charged the helicopter. These stories are the best part of the book.
I thought O'Connell discussion of the science of elephant communication left much to desired. There was too little of it, and when she does discuss the science it was a bit too quick and without enough explanation. She recounts a few anecdotes about elephants using seismic communication, but never actually gives us an idea of whether these observations were considered statistically significant. At one point, she discusses how she learned about the anti-aliasing effect in geophysics but looking at a computer graphic, but fails to give readers a photograph of that graphic in order to help us understand what she is describing.
If you want a conservation biologist's adventure stories, this book will work well for you. In fact, I think it does a great job explaining the politics and frustrations, but also the joys of the field. However, contrary to the impression I received in reading the Amazon page, this book doesn't deal much with elephant communication.
|
| Great book |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
|
|
I really enjoyed reading this book. I particularly enjoyed the portions discussing Caitlin's life in the jungle. It is well worth reading for those interested in the scientific aspects as well as those interested in the human dimensions.
|
| Inspired by Elephants' Ears |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
|
|
One would expect that a book written by a research associate at Stanford University on elephant communication would be boring and pedantic, but not so with Caitlin O'Connell's The Elephant's Secret Sense. The daughter of a doctor, whose earliest memories found her carrying her father's medical bag in hopes that he would use his tools to examine her ears, O'Connell grew up to study the enormous ears and hearing systems that encompass the elephant from head to toe. Her studies led her in a quest to help the Namibian farmers, resettled from South Africa during apartheid, by using sound to protect their farms from hungry elephants.
O'Connell's work combines the suspense of a mystery writer with the lyrical prose of a travel writer, and reveals her compassion for all living things. In her book, she chronicles her adventures and misadventures as she strives to understand how elephants communicate with each other within their African environment.
In the Caprivi, violent death is as much a part of the landscape as the capricious nature of rain. Nobody knows when it will come or how much to expect, but in the end it always comes. Death can snatch people away without warning--for example, a leopard stealing into a hut leaving a faceless victim, a croc seizing a laundress off the riverbank, or an elephant using its powerful knuckle to smash the ribs of a hapless person lost in the forest...And a neighbor may disappear simply for being from the wrong tribe, or from the cold sweat of the ever-present malarial fever, or even from an unexpected twist in the night, silencing the cries of an infant.
O'Connell traveled between two settings in Africa, one in the wild with elephants, lions, rhinos, crocodiles, and elands, and one in the villages of Namibia with unfamiliar residents, corrupt officials, and compassionate reserve stewards. As well, she dealt with various educational institutions in the US. Throughout the book, she shows the reader the contrasts between the different cultures.
...When it came time to leave the Caprivi, I was stricken yet freed. Which way did I feel? Which way should I go? How could I tease apart these feelings?...How is it that I had come to grieve for this land, for the animals, and for these people? How did I let it consume me? How could I put things in perspective? After leaving and gaining some distance, would I ever be able to return? I wanted desperately to help, yet my visions for the inevitability of failure paralyzed me. In the end, had I really helped these people?
Including pictures of many of the elephants she studied, O'Connell shows how a researcher can quickly become attached to the animal's personalities almost to the point of anthropomorphism. But she maintains the balance necessary to study the wild animals without interfering too much in their environment.
After reading this book, one will undoubtedly want to read more about preserving the last wild herds in Africa and support O'Connell and her husband, Tim Rodwell in promoting elephant conservation and scientific understanding around the world. For those interested in science and ecology, this very readable book also serves as an inspiration to the next generation of researchers.
by Susan M. Andrus
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women
|
|
