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Animal books that other ZooChatters should read

Discussion in 'TV, Movies, Books about Zoos & Wildlife' started by birdsandbats, 19 Mar 2019.

  1. birdsandbats

    birdsandbats Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    This thread if for talking about animal books you think other ZooChatters should read. Here are some I have read:

    The Photo Ark by Joel Sartore
    I know a lot of ZooChatters have read this one already, but I can't recommend it enough. I would also recommend Sartore's book RARE: Portraits of America's Endangered Species.

    Out on a Limb by Benjamin Kilham
    An amazing book that will have you rethinking what you thought you knew about American Black Bears. Paperback edition published as In the company of Bears.

    The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman
    In incredible book about how intelligent birds really are.

    Any others?
     
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  2. katinakalinakaterina

    katinakalinakaterina Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    David Taylor's books are worth a read, they really show how little we knew about zoo animal medicine/health in the early years of zoos and how far we have come. Some of the stories are quite humorous and they cover a range of species and many different zoos.
     
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  3. TinoPup

    TinoPup Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Peter Allison's books, they're hilarious.
    Witness to Extinction by Samuel Turvey.
    Follow that up with Hope for Animals and Their World by Jane Goodall.
    The entire "Animal" series by Reaktion publishing is fantastic.
     
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  4. Hix

    Hix Wildlife Enthusiast and Lover of Islands 15+ year member Premium Member

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    Anything by Gerald Durrell.

    :p

    Hix
     
  5. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    And Attenborough's Zoo Quest books.
     
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  6. DavidBrown

    DavidBrown Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine. Witten almost 30 years ago, it is a tour of endangered species and their habitats and the people trying to save them. Some of the species they visit like the kakapo, mountain gorilla, and fauna of Mauritius are doing better than they were 30 years ago. Some sadly really were in the last phase of extinction - the northern white rhinos and the baiji. Zoochatter Carl Jones is profiled for his heroic work on the fauna of Mauritius.
     
  7. KevinB

    KevinB Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Here are some books hat I read recently, am currently re-reading or have partially read am planning to fully (re-)read and which I think are not only excellent books but also important books and ones that would and should be of interest to anyone on here.

    Witness to Extinction - How We Failed to Save the Yangtze River Dolphin by Samuel Turvey

    The Song Of The Dodo - Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions by David Quammen

    Monster of God - The Man-Eating Predator in the Jungles of History and the Mind by David Quammen

    The Unexpected Truth About Animals: Stoned Sloths, Lovelorn Hippos and Other Wild Tales by Lucy Cooke

    The Ark and Beyond: The Evolution of Zoo and Aquarium Conservation by various authors, edited by Ben A. Minteer, Jane Maienschein and James P. Collins, foreword by George Rabb

    Chimpanzee Politics - Power and Sex among Apes by Frans de Waal
     
    Last edited: 20 Mar 2019
  8. birdsandbats

    birdsandbats Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    I read My Family and Other Animals and didn't think it was that good. But I would love to read The Aye-Aye and I.
     
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  9. Crowthorne

    Crowthorne Moderator Staff Member 10+ year member

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    From a quick skim through my GoodReads read list:

    · ‘In Bear Country’ by Brian Payton
    · ‘On the Trail of the Whale’ by Mark Carwardine
    · ‘Rat Island: Predators in Paradise and the World's Greatest Wildlife Rescue’ by William Stolzenburg
    · ‘Next of Kin’ by Roger Fouts
    · ‘When Elephants Weep’ by Jeffrey Masson
    · ‘Wild Echoes: Encounters with the Most Endangered Animals in North America’ by Charles Bergman
    · ‘In the Shadow of the Fox’ by David Macdonald
    · ‘Leviathan: Or, the Whale’ by Phillip Hoare
    · ‘Solo, the Story of an African Wild Dog’ by Hugo van Lawick
    · ‘Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures’ by Virginia Morell
    · ‘Thylacine: The Tragic Tale of the Tasmanian Tiger’ by David Owen
     
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  10. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    I read all the Durrell books when I was young and at that time the "Corfu trilogy" were my least favourite of the non-fiction books, probably because they had a larger focus on his family than on animals. When I was older I appreciated them more.

    You should try his animal collecting books from his West Africa and South America expeditions.
     
  11. birdsandbats

    birdsandbats Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    I'll keep them in mind!
     
  12. Ned

    Ned Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    On the subject of Taylor, was he a fantasist? In one of his books he claims to have been picked up on a motorbike by the chimpanzee Cheetah, who drove him through L.A stopping at red traffic lights. I know chimps are cleaver but riding motorbikes takes a bit of believing.
     
  13. katinakalinakaterina

    katinakalinakaterina Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Don't remember that one? It's been a while since I read the books, maybe due for a refresher. To be fair it was the killer whale stories that really got my attention. The giant pandas, sharks and elephants were also intriguing. I suppose when you are the founder of zoo animal medicine and practices being what they were, some of the stories are bound to be a bit out there.
     
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  14. DavidBrown

    DavidBrown Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    It sounds like a pure fantasy.

    I've lived in LA for 20+ years, and nobody drives as well as he claims that chimp did.
     
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  15. Hix

    Hix Wildlife Enthusiast and Lover of Islands 15+ year member Premium Member

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    I would suggest his first four expeditions: The Overloaded Ark, The Bafut Beagles, Three Singles to Adventure and The Drunken Forest. Some of my favourites.

    :p

    Hix
     
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  16. TeaLovingDave

    TeaLovingDave Moderator Staff Member 10+ year member

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    Along with the Durrell and Attenborough books already cited - which I can strongly recommend myself - I think the following books by Errol Fuller are also very much on the "must-read" list for any Zoochatters with a serious interest in recently-extinct species:

    Lost Animals
    Dodo - From Extinction to Icon
    Extinct Birds
    The Great Auk


    They are listed in order of ease-of-obtaining; the first is still in print, the second reasonably cheap and easy to find second-hand, the third easy to find second-hand but pricey, and the final one difficult to obtain and usually pricey when you do.... although I struck lucky and found a copy for 20 quid in Oxfam a year or two ago :p

    Of these, the first and the latter two are the most important; Lost Animals reproduces photos of a great number of species or subspecies which (although now extinct) were photographed whilst extant, in some cases depicting the only such records known; Extinct Birds is a comprehensive look at all extinct bird species and subspecies known from good material from the historical era; The Great Auk is a monograph compiling more or less everything known about the species in question, including images of every extant taxidermy mount.
     
    Last edited: 21 Mar 2019
  17. Crowthorne

    Crowthorne Moderator Staff Member 10+ year member

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    I've got all except the last one (doubt I'll get as lucky as you and find it in Oxfam!). They're all excellent books, but Extinct Birds is probably my favourite.

    Errol Fuller has also recently written a book about the Passenger Pigeon, which I haven't got round to reading yet, but it's on my bookshelf waiting.
     
  18. birdsandbats

    birdsandbats Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    A couple more I just remembered, both by Phillip Hoose:

    The Race to Save the Lord God Bird
    Moonbird
     
  19. birdsandbats

    birdsandbats Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Um... The last one is available on Amazon for 10 USD.
     
  20. Crowthorne

    Crowthorne Moderator Staff Member 10+ year member

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    Is that for the 1999 book 'The Great Auk', or the 2003 book 'The Great Auk: The Extinction of the Original Penguin'?