Becoming Wild, Carl Safina
Becoming Wild, Carl Safina
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Becoming Wild
How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace

Author: Carl Safina

Narrator: Carl Safina

Unabridged: 13 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 04/14/2020


Synopsis

Some people insist that culture is strictly a human feat. What are they afraid of? This book looks into three cultures of other-than-human beings in some of Earth's remaining wild places. It shows how if you're a sperm whale, a scarlet macaw, or a chimpanzee, you too experience your life with the understanding that you are an individual in a particular community. You too are who you are not by genes alone; your culture is a second form of inheritance. You receive it from thousands of individuals, from pools of knowledge passing through generations like an eternal torch. You too may raise young, know beauty, or struggle to negotiate a peace. And your culture, too, changes and evolves. The light of knowledge needs adjusting as situations change, so a capacity for learning, especially social learning, allows behaviors to adjust, to change much faster than genes alone could adapt.

Becoming Wild offers a glimpse into cultures among non-human animals through looks at the lives of individuals in different present-day animal societies. By showing how others teach and learn, Safina offers a fresh understanding of what is constantly going on beyond humanity.

About Carl Safina

Carl Safina is a professor at Stony Brook University and the recipient of a MacArthur "genius" fellowship. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Time, the Guardian, Audubon, and National Geographic. He lives in East Setauket, New York.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Mary on October 06, 2020

Carl Safina is one of the great writers about the natural world. He's a favorite of mine and his latest book does not disappoint about the parallels of human life and wild life. If you love animals, you will love Carl and this book, and his mission.......more

Goodreads review by Stephen on November 24, 2020

In Becoming Wild, ecologist Carl Safina recounts his time spent with field scientists studying cetaceans, macaws, and chimpanzees, to share insights and speculation about the most under-appreciated aspect of animal life on earth: culture. Not only do many animal populations appear to have sharply-de......more

Goodreads review by Amanda on April 30, 2020

I love learning about animals. I've never actually thought about animal culture, but once he starts describing it, it's so obvious! Historically, humans have been very self-centered and anthropocentric, thinking that everything was created for us, so that it's our right to use the earth however it s......more

Goodreads review by Doctor on July 22, 2021

Safina falls strongly on the “continuity” side of discussions about the relationships between humans and other animals, especially “intelligent” animals. But while others, like Frans de Waal, call attention to the continuity between human and animal intelligence, Safina focuses on “culture.” He relie......more