Review by Booklist Review
When Kahumbu first started working with elephants in the 1980s, they were all dead, their ivory stockpiled in a 12-ton pile confiscated from poachers, a heap she helped audit for the Kenyan government, which later burned the entire pile to signal the ban on the ivory trade. Inspired to study elephants in the wild, Kahumbu soon learned how difficult it was for a young African woman to join the mostly white world of field research. In this companion volume to a National Geographic television series, conservationist Kahumbu, in conjunction with coauthor Geib, a science journalist, brings a unique perspective to the study of animals our ancestors evolved with, a species that has been heavily exploited by colonial powers and the ivory trade and even by benign wildlife filmmaking that resulted in productions most Africans never get to view. As she followed African elephant populations in the savannas, forests, and deserts, with a briefer look at Asian elephants, Kahumbu marveled at how different elephants are in different ecosystems and how they adapt behaviorally and physiologically to their environments. Wonderfully illustrated with world-class photographs, this symphony of elephant research and elegant writing from a fresh new voice takes readers into the heart of elephant life.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
