Elephants on the Edge: What Animals Teach Us about Humanity Book

If you look at some of the commonly known trivia about animals - that elephants grieve and occasionally bury their dead, that chimps can speak sign language, that some species of monkeys display exhibit traits like fairness or cognitive dissonance - it's shocking to see how much it conflicts with currently used preservation tactics. For instance, take the culling of a herd of elephants through relocation or hunting. We all sit and watch National Geographic specials that marvel at their social structure, their abilities to communicate with each other and form relationships and then simply assume that these efforts have zero repercussions.

The book's premise is that these species suffer trauma much in the same way that people do. It mentions a herd of elephants in Africa where two rogue teenage males deliberately killed dozens of rhinoceros without explanation - this, they say, is no different than the gang violence we see in inner cities, cities racked by the same dislocation, disappearing resources and exploitation. Whether you agree with it or not, there is something to be said for books that turn over entire lines of thinking. I especially like books that take logic and findings from unrelated fields and apply them in interesting and provocative ways. This book does just that.