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"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. With reporting from deep in nature, alongside individual creatures in their free-living communities, this book offers a very privileged glimpse behind the curtain of Life on Earth, and helps inform the answer to that most urgent of questions: Who are we here with?"--… (more)
User reviews
I was particularly impressed by whales who organize into families, tribes and nations - and then signal their name to passing whales eg. I am George of the Wilson family of the California tribe of the Pacific-ocean whale nation. These are human terms and concepts (Safina never gives human analogies), but the idea is the same, there are layers of belonging and identity within whale populations. One significant insight is how to do new species evolve? Normally this is thought to require physical separation like Darwin's finches on separate islands. But Safina makes a good case that as individuals within a species separate into different cultural groups or tribes, over time they evolve into separate species. For example one "tribe" of whales may prefer eating sea lions while another prefers fish. There is no reason for this other than that is how one group of whales always did things, and how they train their young. Over time they evolve into different species that favor one food source over another.
The chapters on chimps was fairly uncomfortable because they are one of the few species to regularly kill members of their immediate group (homicide), chimp on chimp violence is legendary. It is a testosterone culture where competition for status among males drives everything. Compared to Bonobos where male status is not so important. Such insights into our own species is a powerful reason to look more closely at the cultures of other species.
I am not sure if this is the right style of a book for audio or if I just don't enjoy the author's style.
I had believed the book to focus on the culture of whales, parrots and monkeys, but so far (I have just reached the bird
It is difficult to listen to, I am wondering if it would have been a better choice for a print or e-book, so that I could reference back and forth between different stories of the whales.
I am continuing on for now and will updated further.
How can a a herd of wild animals find water in a drought year or know another source of food or shelter in the hard times? It’s often an elder of the herd that has been through the situation before than can recall
Although this book focuses on such diverse species as whales, Macaw Parrots, and chimpanzees, many other species are briefly examined, too.
It addresses emotions not always attributed to animals – love, grief, altruism and even a search for beauty and harmony.
It’s a fascinating book. Although my life in Montana makes me very familiar with domestic animals and wildlife, I won’t look at animals and birds the same way again.