From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2006:

Animal Passions & Beastly Virtues:
Reflections in Redecorating Nature
by Marc Bekoff
Temple University Press (1601 North Broad Street,
Philadelphia, PA 19122), 2005. 290 pages, paperback. $26.95.

Marc Bekoff, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology
at the University of Colorado, is among the best known scientists
and scholars in animal welfare.
Animal Passions & Beastly Virtues, his latest of many books,
covers topics ranging from the behavioral ecology of carnivores to
the moral issues surrounding the use of animals in science.
We especially enjoyed Bekoff’s essays on coyotes, since our
own wildlife rehabilitation work during the years we ran the
Kalahari Raptor Centre involved black-backed jackals, the comparably
persecuted African and Asian coyote counterpart.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2006:

Pleasurable Kingdom: Animals and the Nature of Feeling Good
by Jonathan Balcombe
Palgrave/MacMillan (175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010), 2006.
256 pages, hardcover. $24.95.

Balcombe writes, “When animals are stereotyped, the public
is done a disservice. Reinforcing the myth, we perpetuate a
one-dimensional perception of the animal kingdom….It is only when
we get close to animals, and examine them with open minds, that we
are likely to glimpse the being within. Natural history writing is
strewn with incidents in which writers are moved to awe by the
intelligence, sensitivity and awareness of animals they have lived
with.”
Balcombe points out many aspects of pleasure-seeking animal
behavior. As all vertebrates have a nervous system very much the
same as ours, it is reasonable to assume that all are alive to both
pain and pleasure, contrary to the derision that greeted authors who
suggested this in earlier times. As Balcombe points out, “In the
face of these discoveries, the position that pleasurable states are
the sole domain of the human species is narrow and anthropocentric.
To deny animals conscious experiences is to deny that they plan,
desire, anticipate, tease, grieve, enjoy, tolerate, and gauge.
It is to reject that they make decisions.”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2005:

Intelligence in Nature: An Inquiry into Knowledge by Jeremy Narby
Tarcher/Penguin (375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014), 2005. 256
pages, hardback. $35.00.

Having been enthralled by Jeremy Narby’s The Cosmic Serpent
(1998), I was pleased when Narby’s second book Intelligence in
Nature came in the mail. It was not a disappointment.
Intelligence in Nature is more-or-less a sequel to The Cosmic
Serpent, continuing to illustrate the parallels between “primitive”
shamanic cultures and modern biology that Narby discovered in his
study of botany. But whereas The Cosmic Serpent dealt mainly with
molecular biology, particularly the structure of DNA, Intelligence
in Nature covers a much broader spectrum, dealing not only with
genetics but also with animal behavior and adaptation.
The ability of individuals to adapt to their environment,
found in even the most primitive of life-forms, is described by the
Japanese term Chi-Sei, meaning “to know.” Throughout the book Narby
uses Chi-Sei to describe the apparent intelligence of everything from
birds to slime molds.

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