Secrets of the Savanna: Twenty-Three Years in the African Wilderness Unraveling the Mysteries of Elephants and People
by Authors: Mark Owens; Delia Owens; Alexandra Fuller (foreward)
- Used
- Fine
- Hardcover
- Signed
- first
- Condition
- Fine/Fine
- ISBN 10
- 0395893100
- ISBN 13
- 9780395893104
- Seller
-
Arlington, Virginia, United States
Item Price
A$185.93A$111.56
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, May 2006. Hardcover. First Edition / full number line. Inscribed & signed by both authors on the title page. Fine book in a Fine jacket. Text unmarked. Jacket clean and bright. Laid-in tri-fold pamphlet from the Owens Foundation for Wildlife Conservation. Not from a library. No remainder mark. Not clipped. xxvi + 230 pages.
Crossing stick bridges over swollen rivers and battling swarms of tsetse flies, Mark and Delia Owens found their way into one of the most startlingly beautiful, wild places on earth, the northern Luangwa Valley in Zambia. As they were setting up camp to launch their lion research, gunfire echoed off the cliffs nearby. Gangs of ivory poachers were not only shooting the elephants but also virtually enslaving local villagers. Against unimaginable odds, Mark and Delia stopped the poaching by helping the villagers find other work, start small businesses, and improve their health care and education. Living with wild creatures all around (lions sleeping at their toes, an orphan elephant dancing a jig in camp), Mark and Delia observed surprising similarities between the behaviors of humans and those of other animals. The bonding among young female animals and the competition among males reminded them of their own childhoods. As the elephant population slowly recovered from poaching, the Owenses saw parallels to human societies under stress. Older elephants, killed for their tusks, had taken with them the knowledge that had been passed down to the young for generations. The slaughter of the elders led to chaos-single mothers without older females to guide them, solitary orphans, rowdy gangs of young males-and a scientific mystery: how could there be so many babies and so few females old enough to be mothers? A young orphan they named Gift eventually provided the clue to the remarkable discovery that revealed the elephants' secret. After the local ivory poachers were put out of business, they shifted their sights from the elephants to the Owenses. To save themselves, Mark and Delia took a lesson from the elephants, employing one of the last secrets of the savanna.
Crossing stick bridges over swollen rivers and battling swarms of tsetse flies, Mark and Delia Owens found their way into one of the most startlingly beautiful, wild places on earth, the northern Luangwa Valley in Zambia. As they were setting up camp to launch their lion research, gunfire echoed off the cliffs nearby. Gangs of ivory poachers were not only shooting the elephants but also virtually enslaving local villagers. Against unimaginable odds, Mark and Delia stopped the poaching by helping the villagers find other work, start small businesses, and improve their health care and education. Living with wild creatures all around (lions sleeping at their toes, an orphan elephant dancing a jig in camp), Mark and Delia observed surprising similarities between the behaviors of humans and those of other animals. The bonding among young female animals and the competition among males reminded them of their own childhoods. As the elephant population slowly recovered from poaching, the Owenses saw parallels to human societies under stress. Older elephants, killed for their tusks, had taken with them the knowledge that had been passed down to the young for generations. The slaughter of the elders led to chaos-single mothers without older females to guide them, solitary orphans, rowdy gangs of young males-and a scientific mystery: how could there be so many babies and so few females old enough to be mothers? A young orphan they named Gift eventually provided the clue to the remarkable discovery that revealed the elephants' secret. After the local ivory poachers were put out of business, they shifted their sights from the elephants to the Owenses. To save themselves, Mark and Delia took a lesson from the elephants, employing one of the last secrets of the savanna.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Books of the World (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- RWARE0000003324
- Title
- Secrets of the Savanna: Twenty-Three Years in the African Wilderness Unraveling the Mysteries of Elephants and People
- Author
- Authors: Mark Owens; Delia Owens; Alexandra Fuller (foreward)
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Fine
- Jacket Condition
- Fine
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First Edition
- ISBN 10
- 0395893100
- ISBN 13
- 9780395893104
- Publisher
- Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- Place of Publication
- Boston
- Date Published
- May 2006
- Pages
- xxvi + 230
- Size
- 8vo
- Keywords
- Delia Owens, Mark Owens, autobiographies, biographies, memoirs, conservation, elephants, poachers, poaching, Luangwa, Africa, Zambia, Mozambique
- Bookseller catalogs
- Africa; Exploration, Expeditions, and Discoveries; Animals;
Terms of Sale
Books of the World
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About the Seller
Books of the World
Biblio member since 2017
Arlington, Virginia
About Books of the World
Finding new homes for the library I collected over five decades of travel around the world.
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- Number Line
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- Remainder Mark
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- Jacket
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