Parrot's Lament : And Other True Tales of Animal Intrigue, Intelligence and Ingenuity

by Linden, Eugene

• ISBN13: 9780452280687
• ISBN10: 0452280680
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-08-01
• Publisher: Plume

Summary

A gorilla shrewdly sells back a missing key chain to the highest bidder. An orangutan picks a lock to let himself out of his zoo enclosure and two elephants adopt a tag-team strategy to keep their handlers from putting them back into theirs. In The Parrot's Lament, noted environmentalist Eugene Linden offers more than one hundred true anecdotes about animal acts of cooperation, heroism, escape--even tales of deception or manipulation of human beings. Drawing on the first-person experiences of veterinarians, field biologists, researchers, and trainers, Linden has compiled a warmly entertaining and powerfully persuasive argument for animal consciousness that, while not human, far exceeds what humans usually grant animals. Scientifically sound and emotionally compelling, The Parrot's Lament contains remarkable stories that are sure to resonate with animal lovers, turning skeptics everywhere into believers.

Author Biography

Eugene Linden is an award-winning journalist and the author of The Parrot’s Lament, The Future in Plain Sight, Silent Partners, and other books on animals and the environment. He has consulted for the U.S. State Department, the UN Development Program, and he is a widely traveled speaker and lecturer. In 2001, Yale University named Linden a Poynter Fellow in recognition of his writing on the environment.  He lives in Nyack, New York, and Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

Preface	xiii
Introduction	1	(26)
The Wolf Who Made Friends with a Goat
Games and Humor	27	(20)
``She Didn't Know Human, and He Didn't Know Gorilla...''
Trade and Barter	47	(14)
Ah, Treachery
Deception	61	(18)
I Think That You Think That I Think That You Think...
Mind Reading and Mental Chess	79	(16)
The Pig Who Ran to Work
Cooperation in Work, Conflict, and Healing	95	(24)
Orangutan Engineers and Nut-Cracking Chimps
Tools and Intelligence	119	(18)
Escape from Topeka...
And Omaha, and Brownsville, and...	137	(18)
Love! Valor! Compassion!
Empathy and Heroism	155	(14)
What Do They Make of Us?
A Place Where Humans Are the Novelty	169	(22)
Selected Bibliography	191	(4)
Index	195