Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace

by Carl Safina

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, Carl Safina offers a fresh understanding of what is constantly going on beyond humanity.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Nature, Animals, Biology, Audiobook, Science Nature

Audible Audio

First published April 14, 2020

About the author

Carl Safina’s work has been recognized with MacArthur, Pew, and Guggenheim Fellowships, and his writing has won Orion, Lannan, and National Academies literary awards and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals. He has a PhD in ecology from Rutgers University. Safina is the inaugural holder of the endowed chair for nature and humanity at Stony Brook University, where he co-chairs the steering committee of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and is founding president of the not-for-profit organization, The Safina Center. He hosted the 10-part PBS series Saving the Ocean with Carl Safina. His writing appears in The New York Times, Audubon, Orion, and other periodicals and on the Web at National Geographic News and Views, Huffington Post, and CNN.com.

He lives on Long Island, New York with his wife Patricia, the two best beach-running dogs in the world, some chickens, a couple of parrots, and Frankie the kingsnake.

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review The book is divided into three sections, the biggest is sperm whales, then there are chimpanzees and finally the smallest but to me the most interesting, scarlet macaws.

When I was living in the Amazon, the birds were ever-present but I never saw one. They fly in big flocks very, very high above the canopy. You can glimpse a flock and know that they are macaws because they chatter loudly, non-stop. I was interested to know why the birds are so beautiful and colourful, and why, unlike a lot of birds the female isn't drab. It's all to do with mating of course, or sex. Animals also have sex for fun, whales do, bonobos scarcely have time for anything else, bats do (and like oral sex - the males are presumed to suck out sperm of a rival so that babies will be his own. No one has explained why females like oral sex on the males), lionesses are multi-orgasmic and like males with stamina and chimps do it too.

I found the sperm whale section the least fascinating, probably because a lot of it was the history of whale hunting. What I did find interesting was the discussion of the clicks they make that identify each other, and also identify who isn't part of their clan.

Sailing the Atlantic on a small boat, sometimes when I was on watch alone at night, especially a moonless, stormy night, a pod of dolphins would swim around the boat for hours. I could see them wheeling by the phosphorence that arced in the water and when I lay down on the cabin sole, I could hear them talking. Clicks and whistles, but with rhythm, like people's speech, call and response if you will, quite unlike a dog barking will set off all the neighbourhood dogs barking together. This sounds so like conversation it is impossible to think it wasn't and I wondered if it was the same with sperm whales?

This is where the book misses to me. The alpha chimp, says the author and I'm sure Attenborough since he is so patriarchal, is the breeding male around who the troop is organised. Safina posits that is their way of keeping peace, but chimpanzees are not known for peacefulness, rather for fighting, wars against other troops, bullying and if the females don't co-operate, rape (politely called 'coercive sex by biologists).

A book I was reading (but forgotten the name of right now) said that dna tests on chimpanzee packs proved that over 50% of all babies were not the children of the alpha males. Observation proved that non-alpha males and females were sneaking off into the bush at night for affairs with chimps from other troops. So being unfaithful, having crushes and screwing around have an evolutionary base, one might assume, assuring that there is a variance in genes. People, like chimpanzees, have rules against this sort of behaviour, but it doesn't stop either one!

One of the most interesting observations in the book, was about bower birds who much prefer pretty blue things to decorate their bowers with. In one area the birds got blue things, but in another there weren't any, so they went for grey. When the birds (who were genetically identical to the ones who like blue) were given blue items, they still went for the grey. Grey had become their standard of beauty.

Flexible learning leads to different behaviours from group to group, and that is culture.

Group to group variations in customs, traditions, practices, and tools that is culture.

Culture is teaching the children what to do, when and where, how to get food, how to prepare it, how to communicate and who with. Usually the teacher is the mother. And what they teach their young depends on their environment, this is culture.

Some animals taught to communicate with people by signs or pressing buttons, will teach other animals to do the same. Washoe the first chimp to be taught sign language, taught it to the much younger Loulis she was given as a baby to care for. She taught her sometimes by moulding her hands into the appropriate signs. At age 5 Loulis knew 55 words and could use them in 2 and 3 word sentences.

It is a mistake to think that people's IQs vary from unable to care for themselves to developing string theory and that animals do not also have variations. The bright and innovative lead the way, the rest of us go ah ha, good idea, and learn from them. Why would this be exclusively human?

An interesting book, with a fabulous cover, definitely worth a read if you are interested in animal behaviour.

[Jenna ❤ ❀ ❤]

DNF at 6%. Interesting subject but I don't like the author's style. He seems to want to relate more about his and others' experiences with animals than give scientific facts. I really don't care what the author thought and felt whilst on a whale watching trip; I just want to know about the whales... but 21 pages and I've learned only one thing about them - ("At around 200 decibels, sperm whale sonar is one of the loudest sounds known").

I don't want a human interest story when I pick up a book about "animals". I want a book about other animals besides us.

[Stefani Robinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book turned out to be nothing like I expected when I clicked on the audiobook. I was hoping for a book that explores whether or how animals show a sense of cultural and belonging. Do animals recognize individuals in their community? Do different animal communities have differing cultures? How much of this can be chalked up to evolutionary learning versus active learning? 

That is what the synopsis led me to believe I would be reading. But it wasn't. Most of it was about the author's personal agenda on how humans interact with animal culture. And the first 50% of the book talks almost exclusively about sperm whales. Then we had whole chapters that discuss the history of commercial and aboriginal whaling. And then whole chapters on the morality of whaling. And then we continued on the diatribe with a very long bit about ocean pollution. Very little of the first 50% of the book was actually about how and why whales experience culture and cultural learning. I was really bored. If I wanted a book about sperm whales, I would have read one.

We even got a long rant about how humans give names to whale species. The author spent a lot of time wondering why humans give whales "demeaning" or "diminutive" names like false killer whale or pygmy sperm whale. And he wondered if perhaps this was to lessen their value in our own eyes so we could more easily kill them. Well, that might be true, but I don't think the whales really care what we call them.

Also, just for fun, I bring you this particular quote: "I'm not sure yet who these whales are but they sure have sexy flukes."....yep, I was a little confused by that one too.

Finally, we moved on from whales to macaws and other birds. We got more of a discussion about animal culture here then before but not much. We got long winded rants about evolution, deforestation, and why certain animals evolved to be beautiful. Though beautiful is a human construct, so I doubt that the birds developed beauty for the reason of beauty.

Another problem was that the audiobook was voiced by the author. Naturally you would think that this would be a good choice, the author knows the inflection, tone, and rhythm of what they intended with their work. But this author seemed confused by his own material. He regularly mispronounced things or paused strangely in the middle of sentences. And then he tried to start putting on voices for excerpts from fiction books or for individuals he spoke with, which was equally strange. And almost all of it was delivered in a monotone. They should have gotten a different performer.

I think this book lacked an identity. The author couldn't pin down his subject material and so he spent a lot of time roaming whatever came into his mind. This one had potential but it was mostly just confusing.

[Mary Monroe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carl Safina is one of the great writers about the natural world. He's a favorite of mine and his latest book does not disappoint about the parallels of human life and wild life. If you love animals, you will love Carl and this book, and his mission.

[... · Rating 3 out of 5]

Becoming Wild is divided into three parts: about sperm whales, scarlet macaws and chimpanzees. In each of these parts, Carl Safina argues that animals have cultures.

I've learned quite a bit, as I don't read much about whales nor parrots (for lack of time), and nothing at all about chimpanzees (for lack of interest.) But while there's a lot of facts about sperm whales and whale research, the part about scarlet macaws has very little about them. Safina kept digressing about birds in general (there are countless books for that, I didn't need a recap here) and wondering why these parrots are so colorful. The part about macaws was already the shortest of the three, but Safina managed to make it even shorter by not devoting its few pages to, well, macaws (I bought the book for the cover macaw so you can imagine my disappointment). The last part, about chimpanzees, was outside my comfort zone (what with my pithecophobia), but I guess it was decent.

I don't like Carl Safina's writing style, nor do I appreciate his "for example, my dogs..." that he just has to throw in or it wouldn't count as his book. It could also use some cutting (get ready for repetitions and overlong explanations). I've had the same problems with Beyond Words.

I don't know how much new info is here for people who've already read something on sperm whales, macaws or chimpanzees. For example, in Beyond Words, I've learned nothing new from the part about wolves, having read several nonfic books about them prior.

So it was a slow read (too long, unnecessarily, just like this review), a little disappointing (not enough about macaws) but still interesting (I honestly didn't know all these things about sperm whales). Would I recommend? If you're interesed in either of these three species, sure, just don't expect too much.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Becoming Wild, ecologist Carl Safina recounts his time spent with field scientists studying cetaceans, macaws, and chimpanzees, to share insights and speculation about the most under-appreciated aspect of animal life on earth: culture. Not only do many animal populations appear to have sharply-defined conceptions of belonging to a particular group — one that distinguishes itself with unique ‘accents’ — but this clannishiness can drive speciation, dividing populations into increasingly distinct subspecies. What’s more, the unique knowledge and habits of a given population mean socialization is as vital for chimpanzees or macaws as it is for humans: bear cubs are taught their diets, and primates their predators, the same way humans learn their letters. Although Becoming often meanders off-topic, it never fails to be fascinating — nor could it, given its primary subjects.

We begin with sperm whales, who lives in elaborate watery clans and only mate within them. The large groups are divided into smaller and smaller subsets, until one arrives at the intimate family circle — and each layer of this social onion declares itself with unique verbal codes, distinct expressions of the clicking ‘language’ that sperm whales use to communicate. Each group, each clan has its own clicking ‘tags’ that identify it to the others; different clans of whales avoid contact with one another. Linguistic differentiation between populations within a species is extremely common, across the spectrum of animal life — and it’s often associated with subspeciation. Different whale populations, despite sharing the same genetics, will develop unique subcultures and specializations, never tapping into foodstuffs that other populations rely on as staples. Animal cultures can effectively create social islands in which the subspecies develop physical as well as cultural differences from one another — and if that trend continues long enough, eventually the accumulated physical differences are enough to make cross-group breeding an impossibility. Et voila, a new species!

Not only do many animals have a knowledge of the group they belong to, one that alters what they eat and who they mate and where they live, but they actively depend on that group’s knowledge to sustain them. Birds learn most of their repertoire of songs and alarms from their families: without them, they can only do the equivalent of bird-babbling and grunting. Individuals within a group acquire knowledge unique to them, or hit upon a way of obtaining food. If the knowledge-bearing individuals within a group are lost, very often successful behavior can simply disappear from a group. That can lead to disaster: during African droughts, for instance, it is the long memory of elephant matriarchs that allows them to lead the family to distant oases. Another instance of this that Safina shares is a pack of wolves which had found a tactic to counter prey which had a nasty habit of retreating uphill, into terrain the wolves couldn’t navigate: when some of the older wolves were killed, the younger ones hadn’t yet learned the trick, and that particular prey went unexploited in the future. If enough members of a group prematurely perish without passing on their acquired knowledge of the land, the group itself will wither.

Safina’s approach in Becoming Wild isn’t simply to recap what he’s learned, but to share the journey; some chapters are diary-like. Much of the book is arguably off topic from the concept of animal acculturation, though if one has an interest in animal behavior, particularly social dynamics, it’s certainly not time wasted: I was never bored for a moment when reading this work. Not only is the subject itself absolutely fascinating, but Safina often waxes lyrical. Regardless, there are focus problems: the section on macaws is more on the concept of beauty itself than the promotion of it through sexual selection. Safina’s discussion there is absolutely enjoyable to consider in its own right, as were the sections on how baboons have adapted to exploiting research camps and the like — but I sometimes wondered when we were getting back to animal culture.

Although not without its quirks, Becoming Wild succeeds in opening a lay reader’s eyes to the importance of animal ‘culture’ across the world — and the emphasis that puts on taking conservation & animal preservation more seriously

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

The role of parents in the animal kingdom is critical in acclimating the young to their community and imparting survival skills. Carl Safina shows how skills that have been attributed to instinct are the result of parental training through observations on sperm whales, macaws and chimpanzees their natural habitat. He is guided by dedicated researchers with long experience in wild life observation. As further evidence of training over instinct, he notes that animals raised by humans do not fare well when released to the wild.

Of the three sections, the one on whales stands out. Safina explored their ocean habitat with a researcher so familiar with the pods that he could recognize individuals by name (which he had given them) on sight. I learned that whales live in families. Each family has a distinctive click for messaging others. A click from a distressed whale can bring many clans to an area where help is needed since a family click, like a dialect, can be understood by many. Mothers may nurse their young for 5+ years. They teach them to breathe (demonstrating and nudging them upward), to hunt, find warmth and more. Safina quotes Melville and other writers of his era who hunted whales to show the consistency of whale behavior across time.

The chapter on macaws was the weakest but you see how difficult it is for macaws to find good nesting space. Macaws defend nests with more vigilance than defending their food, or even their young whom they may eat if chicks are considered weak. Mating is interesting, and led me to the internet to see the courtship dances of the bowerbirds.

The culture of chimpanzees was both thought provoking and disturbing, given that this is our closest relative species. Males strive for alpha status. By observing grooming, mating and food sharing you can see the ramifications for the entire community. Relationships come and go based on who is on or close to the throne. An alpha male can dominate such that no other males can breed. Females have to beg for meat, which the males typically hunt. One chimp mother carried the body of her dead daughter around, which is not considered unusual. I took this as not just grief, but a sign of the loneliness and stress in this society. Safina poses that the organization of society around an alpha male brings peace, since the alpha defends the society from other chimpanzee colonies and predators. On a lighter note, the parts on communication studies from the 1970’s showed that chimps can learn to communicate with humans via sign language. One chimp mastered a 350 word vocabulary and taught, without human assistance, an adoptive son to sign.

Throughout the book, Safina shows how parents, mostly mothers, teach their young how to hunt, avoid predators, communicate, etc. and that the methods they teach collectively build a culture. He extends this culture theory to the creation of new species. If the you are taught hunting that emphasizes teeth over limbs, over time a new species with strong teeth, jaws and a digestive system designed to process the food so acquired will form. The body that fits this system will differ From the hunters who use more limbs in their hunt. Most biologists favor the theory it takes a significant change in land formation for a new species to emerge.

In the ending, Safina brings it all together with another recurring theme which is the human encroachment on the oceans and rain forests.

There is a lot to think about in this book. I recommend it for those interested in animal behavior. The chapters on whales and chimpanzees are highly recommended.

[Amanda Cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love learning about animals. I've never actually thought about animal culture, but once he starts describing it, it's so obvious! Historically, humans have been very self-centered and anthropocentric, thinking that everything was created for us, so that it's our right to use the earth however it suits is. I've always been against this unfettered consumption and "economic progress". Money isn't the only important thing. The book has a good mix of animal stories, biology, history, and nature conservation. I think more people should learn about animals in this way and take a stand for nature conservation.

[Doctor Moss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Safina falls strongly on the “continuity” side of discussions about the relationships between humans and other animals, especially “intelligent” animals. But while others, like Frans de Waal, call attention to the continuity between human and animal intelligence, Safina focuses on “culture.”

He relies on a relatively simple characterization of culture. “Behavior” is what an animal does, e.g., feeding, mating, hunting, . . . “Culture” is how it does it, especially where this “how” is something passed along from generation to generation in a community or family. Communities of sperm whales, one of the three species Safina discusses in detail, have particular ways of feeding, even particular ways of breathing (given the coordination needed among deep dives to feed, care-giving and protection for the young, and the need to surface in order to breathe). And, more famously, sperm whales have particular ways, through audible clicks and other sounds, to identify themselves as members of a group, a family, and as an individual. Instinct takes a sperm whale, or any other animal, only so far. in order to live successfully in the wild, an infant whale must learn the “culture” of his or her family and community — the norms of behavior that give each individual a chance to cope successfully with its environment and to coordinate successfully with others.

Safina casts that characterization in open-ended terms in order to allow for and group together the diversity of distinctively human cultures and the cultures he attributes to other animals. He means to avoid a bias, the idea that in order to have a culture at all, an animal must do human-like things — speaking, writing, building artifacts . . . . Animals like sperm whales (and macaws and chimpanzees, the other two species he discusses) may well do things like those human cultural activities, but his point is that anything they do is to be understood as an activity of their own distinctive cultures, not by its similarity to what humans do. Such things count as “culture” because they are the way a species does what it does and passes its ways along to its young, not because it is similar to what humans do.

The book is divided into three sections, each devoted to one of those three species — sperm whales, macaws, and chimpanzees. For each, Safina identifies a particular aspect of culture to organize his observations around.

For sperm whales, it is family. Sperm whales have strong family bonds, with families in turn bound to groups and then into larger clans. Young whales are taught by their mothers (fathers do not contribute directly to child-rearing) how to feed, hunt, mate, and, crucially, how to communicate with other members of its group and clan. The clicks we commonly associate with whales have distinctive patterns and rhythms, identifying individuals, groups, and clans.

Interestingly, whale clans do not interact. When whales hear a series of clicks identifying a whole or group with different clan membership, they ignore them. That exclusivity helps to introduce one of Safina’s more controversial claims, that cultural differences can grow into new branchings of distinct species.

One example that stuck with me was from another kind of whale, orcas. In the same waters of the Pacific Northwest, different orca groups have divided into ones that feed on fish and others that feed on sea mammals. Those differences are passed from generation to generation in hunting and feeding cultures. Over time, the orcas who hunt and feed on mammals have developed stronger jaws and teeth. Although not yet recognized as a separate species, the mammal-eaters have developed genetic differences from their fish-eating peers. Safina discusses other examples of cultural differentiation developing into new species branches — various fish and bird species.

The topic of species development arises during Safina’s discussion of macaws, with a focus on beauty. He wonders how to account for the beautiful plumage of macaws — what is the survival advantage of not only bright plumage but downright beautiful plumage?

Things get speculative there, but Safina defends the idea that “beauty” itself can be a factor operating in evolutionary selection (or filtering as he would prefer). Mate selection can certainly influence the evolution of traits. Darwin himself identified “sexual selection” as a complement to “natural selection.” Over generations, preferences that may have at one point conferred a survival advantage (e.g., robust antlers) can then become valued in mate selection regardless of survival advantages. It’s an open question whether such a development even needs to begin with survival advantage.

The third species, chimpanzees, take Safina to his third theme, “peace.” Chimpanzees, at least on the surface of things, are anything but peaceful. After all, they are our closest relatives. But, like us, chimpanzees have enough social intelligence to allow them to afford a volatile social environment. They have conflict, but they have ways of settling conflicts, albeit in many cases violently (at least among males). A successful alpha chimp is not just the strongest and the best fighter, he’s the best at maintaining the group, its hierarchical structure, its mating activities, its cooperative hunting and feeding activities, its community-level involvement in the rearing of infants, its defense against threats from other groups, and other activities.

Chimpanzees live a complex social life, and it can differ widely from group to group. Social intelligence, and the passing on of learned lessons from generation to generation, is the key to maintaining such a dynamic cultural environment.

Of course, as with de Waal, when Safina is talking about chimpanzees, he’s also talking about humans and human culture. This section is probably the most enlightening, if your interests run, like mine, toward learning about ourselves as we observe our biological relatives.

The more we discover we have in common with other animal species, the more continuity we discover between us and them. Here, throughout Safina’s book, it is our sharing of the role of “culture” at such a basic level that, as he says, humans aren’t born humans, they become humans through their absorption of culture. And he says the same of the three species he discusses. Sperm whales have to become sperm whales, a particular kind of sperm whales, through cultural development. There is no such thing as how sperm whales feed, mate, or even breathe — there are diverse ways, provided by the diverse cultures of sperm whales. As for humans.

Of course, the greater commonality and continuity we discover between ourselves and other species, the more we build the ground for empathy and fellow-feeling. Again, as with de Waal’s work, realizing how much we are like other animal species makes it more and more difficult to accept how we have come to treat them — as food, as research subjects, as pests, . . .

And that theme comes through as well. It is unsettling, but it’s something we’re going to have to deal with if we see ourselves and other species for what we and they are.

[Jolanta (knygupė)]

at 20%

[Andrei · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ikka ja jälle kerkib liikide võrdluses üles küsimus, kas ja millisest kultuurist saab rääkida mitteinimeste puhul. Safina selgitab peamiselt vaalade, papagoide ja šimpanside näitel, kuidas erinevad elusolendid kasvavad, toimivad, tunnevad, mõtlevad, õpivad, seoseid, pere- ja kogukondi ning jah, kultuure loovad. Kuigi osad hüpped teaduslike uuringute, julgete hüpoteeside ja veidi romantiseerivate lugude vahel võivad mõne eriala eksperdil harja punaseks ajada, võluvad nii puudutavad näited looduse rütmidest kui ka põnevad filosoofilisemad mõttearendused teemadel nagu ilu roll evolutsioonis või agressiivsuse (eba)ratsionaalsus. Mis peamine, tegemist on suurepärase vastumürgiga tüütule antropotsentrismile ja egoistlikule müüdile "looduse krooni" erilisusest. 4/5

[Joseph Adelizzi, Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carl Safina breaks his fascinating work Becoming Wild into three sections, each section dealing with both a species and a theme. Part one deals with sperm whales and family, part two macaws and beauty, and part three chimpanzees and peace.

As interesting as that approach is, the more important idea for me was the overarching idea of culture. I'd dare say most people, my "pre-Becoming Wild self" included, are unaware that animal populations have cultures - specific learned ways of doing things, or selecting a mate, or even favoring certain food choices to the exclusion of choices favored by neighboring populations of the same species. Safina makes a strong argument that these various cultures may possibly lead to the creation of separate species.

I know it is solipsistic to say knowing about culture in various species makes them "more human," but for lack of a better word I'll leave it there. And sadly, knowing of these cultures and their dependence on shared learning, it breaks my heart to think of the crushing effects we as a species are having on the cultures of so many other species, even as we think we are doing good by trying to reintroduce captive animals back into the wild. That's why it is so important that we carefully consider the full ramifications of our planned actions BEFORE we put those actions in effect.

We need to start acting more like stewards than ravagers. Rafina makes that clear.

[Kelly]

A super fascinating look at "culture" as it relates to animals, specifically whales, parrots, and monkeys. Why do humans think we're the only creatures who have cultural habits and norms? Other animals do, too, and this takes a dive into norms as seen through the eyes of those creatures (as opposed to creating meaning from our eyes).

Audio was serviceable. The production solid, though it's a longer book and I only didn't LOVE the audio because I could have read it faster, even at increased listening speed.

For readers who love nature, animals, and readable science nonfiction.

[lindsi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn’t love it or hate it, a lot of it was just kinda boring… I wish there’d been more accounts of the animals’ behavior and less waxing philosophical. I thought it was going to be a playful but scientific book like Frans de Waals’s work, but it veered too far into travelogue/memoir territory for me too often.

[Ken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carl Safina has an interesting writing style: it’s also VISUAL.
Each 3rd of this book comes alive because he was there, and he can vividly
recall it and relate it.

He was in the 30 foot boat with whale tracker/expert Shane Gero for weeks .
They were identifying returning sperm whale pods and recording their unique conversations .

He was in a research station in the Peruvian Amazon observing macaws and related parrots .With field biologists Gaby Vigo and Don Brightsmith he observed birds socializing, playing and pairing at the nearby salt licks.

He trekked through the Budongo forest in Uganda with Cat Hobaiter and Kizza Vincent following a chimpanzee clan to be able to rest among them and experience their behaviors in the wild.

His writing style is evocative of a David Attenborough “Life” documentary or a “Planet Earth” episode narrated by Oprah. Professional yet always personal.
The writing is lyrical, knowledgeable, vivid. Never dry. Examples, references
to similarity of biology between disparate species, anecdotes and sensible, logical conclusions.

You are not just reading BECOMING WILD - You are “seeing” an experience. All you need is the book, a modicum of silence and an imagination.
Carl Safina will deliver the experience.

[Christie Bane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m on a nature/science/biology kick lately, and this book was thoroughly satisfying. The book discusses three animals in exquisite detail — whales, macaws, and chimps and other apes. I felt like my brain was being stuffed full of facts, but with such smooth delivery that it never felt overwhelming. Pop science at its best! The book is about animal culture, and how it’s passed along from generation to generation. Animals most definitely do have culture, and it is both complex and relatable. I had the audiobook, and while per the reviews many people did not enjoy the author being his own narrator, I loved it and thought he did a great job.

[SilviaG · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Michele · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was recommended by an excellent speaker at LTA’s Rally in 2021. I see why he liked it so much!

In the Prologue, Carl Safina explains what the reader can expect. “THE STORIES IN THIS book are about animal cultures. The natural does not always come naturally. Many animals must learn from their elders how to be who they were born to be… Cultural learning spreads skills (such as what is food and how to get it), creates identity and a sense of belonging within a group (and distinct from other groups), and carries on traditions that are defining aspects of existence (such as what works as effective courtship in a particular region)… Until now, culture has remained a largely hidden, unappreciated layer of wild lives. Yet for many species, culture is both crucial and fragile. Long before a population declines to numbers low enough to seem threatened with extinction, their special cultural knowledge, earned and passed down over long generations, may begin disappearing. This book is also about where culture has led Life (capital L meaning all of life on Earth, writ large) during its journey through deep time”(1%).

It is this last point that I find particularly striking. The cultural knowledge needs to be passed down, and has been central to life on earth. We can’t lose that culture. “Throughout animal life on Earth, the tapestry of genes is overlaid with more learned knowledge and information than humans have realized. Social learning goes on all around us. But it’s subtle; you have to look carefully and for a long time. This book is one deep, clear look into things that are difficult to see”(1%).

We typically think about culture as a human thing, but that’s narrow-minded, even if we unintentionally think that way. “Learning “how we live” from others is human. But learning from others is also raven. Ape and whale. Parrot. Even honeybee. Assuming that other animals don’t have culture because they don’t have human culture is like thinking that other creatures don’t communicate because they don’t have human communication…The whales, parrots, and chimps we will visit represent three major themes of culture: identity and family, the implications of beauty, and how social living creates tensions that culture must soothe. These species and many others in these pages will be our teachers. We will learn something from each that will widen our appreciation of being alive in this miracle we offhandedly refer to as the world”(1%).

This book will also “help inform the answer to that most urgent of questions: Who are our traveling companions in the journey of this planet—who are we here with? That’s our present expedition. Ready?”(1%).

Sound interesting? The rest is what I learned or wanted to remember from the various sections.

Realm 1

This section is all about sperm whales, and their sense of identity and family. The author spends time off Dominica, in the Caribbean waters, with sperm whales and with researcher Shane Gero, who has devoted his life to studying these sperm whales. Their clicks are used to identify themselves as individuals (yes!! As individuals!!), as families, as clans. “Whales recognize differences among themselves because groups have specialized differently in answering the question “How best can we live where we are?” “(26%). They seem to love each other, never out of hearing range, always having someone up watching the young whales when others are feeding at depth. They even touch frequently. They help defend each other. They warn each other. They are a close unit, a true family, but one that always gets along.

Sperm whales aren’t doing well. “Shane confides that his analysis shows that these Caribbean sperm whales are declining at about 4 percent per year. If that rate of decline continues, in twelve years the sixteen commonly seen families will each be down to one whale, or be gone. We wouldn’t know about the potential loss of this community of whales if it weren’t for the work Shane is doing. It makes me wonder about all the other places in the world: which whales may be slipping away?”(27%).

This is a problem. “What’s at stake is: ways of being. What ancient memory banks are being purged, what rich files of life’s library are being erased? What’s at stake is communities of individuals who know who they are in the world because they know one another. Each whale is a node in a web of relationships. Some play distinct roles within families; some play roles between families. Shane has been explaining that the web of relationships is “greatly hurt by the loss of each node.” The daunting question becomes not just “How do we prevent loss of another whale?” but “How do we avoid losing Pinchy?” “(27%).

What is causing their decline:
—It’s not lack of food.
— It’s “the realities of being urban whales,” Shane says, “of living right next to people.” There’s pollution, pesticides, cruise ships, cargo shipping, and high-speed ferries. There are plastics to swallow; there’s fishing gear to get tangled in. Shane points out, “We’re making their day harder”(27%).
— There’s also ships “using extremely loud air-gun blasts to detect potential oil deposits deep under the seafloor. Surveyors can generate tens of millions of such 260 decibel sound blasts. These whales, so extremely evolved to listen, so dependent on hearing the sound-shadow of a squid in the dark, likely cannot cope with such noise”(24%).
— “In the Philippines, a fifteen-foot-long Cuvier’s beaked whale washed up with almost ninety pounds of plastic in his stomach. Their corpses are like bottles all bearing a message: “Your world is killing our world”(27%).
— “A multiyear study of whale stress-hormone levels happened, by chance, to run through 2001. After the 9/11 attacks, while global shipping paused, the whales’ level of cortisol, a stress hormone, plummeted. Meaning: routine ship traffic is now intense enough to keep whales permanently stressed.” To me, that’s mind-bending,” Shane remarks. “It says that what we do to make our lives easier is making their lives more difficult. The whales don’t deserve that”(27%).

Realm 2

This section is all about scarlet macaws, and what they can teach us about beauty. It takes place the Peruvian Amazon, a landscape that really drew me in.

Safina continues to emphasize the importance of maintaining the various cultures within species. “Only one wolf family in Yellowstone specializes in hunting bison; only one in Minnesota specializes in fishing. If an individual’s specialization spreads and others come to share the skill or habit, then that skill or practice becomes cultural…The point is, individuals vary, so cultures vary. Cultures evolve and respond to change. And that means: cultures can be damaged. Can be lost. When populations plummet, traditions that helped birds and other animals survive and adapt—vanish. The modern world’s nine thousand or so bird species contain about eighteen thousand regional variations usually called subspecies. To avoid losing bird biodiversity worldwide, we’d have to ensure the existence not just of the nine thousand species but of all eighteen thousand subspecies—for starters”(33%).

He goes on to make this very important point, “Biodiversity is usually approached as a gene-pool thing. But does that cover it? Not really. There’s a fourth level we are just becoming aware of: cultural diversity. Skills, traditions, and dialects that animals have innovated and passed along culturally are crucial to helping many populations survive and perpetuate… What I do hope is that conservationists can advance the case for preserving wide cultural diversity and ease the public out of a perilous satisfaction with precariously minimal populations. Cultural elements erode as habitats shrink, but humans are poor at valuing diversity. Species recovery goals are sometimes too small to save a species, not to mention what the species has learned culturally about how to survive…Survival of numerous species depends on cultural adaptation. How many? Likely very many. We’re just beginning to ask such questions. But the preliminary answers indicate surprising and widespread ways that animals survive by cultural learning.”(34%). This is a very important lesson imparted by this book.

Macaws are declining. Why?
— “Macaws like to nest in huge specimens like the one we’re heading for because they offer broad, open views. The birds don’t like trees full of vines or low branches that can hide climbing predators. But humans have heavily targeted Dipteryx species for flooring wood and for charcoal. So throughout vast areas, the great, gnarled, multicentenarian giants riddled with cavities needed by birds and other animals have gone crashing to the forest floor, taking macaw populations down with them”(34%).
— poaching for the pet trade
— “Farming, logging, the cage-bird trade, killing for the cook pot, killing because some farmers consider parrots crop “pests”—all of these factors add up to widespread troubles for parrots”(35%).
— “Most of the Central American forests that macaws need have been felled and burned, largely so that U.S. fast-food burger chains can sell cheap beef”(37%).
—- “forests are felled and burned by loggers and squatters, and water channels are spoiled and polluted with mercury by illegal gold mining”(38%).

Reintroducing species in the wild is fraught with issues. Birds are mentioned here, but this pertains to many species, “MANY YOUNG BIRDS NEED to learn much by observing their parents and elders, and parrots probably need to learn more than most. That’s why trying to restore parrot populations by captive breeding and reintroduction is tricky and fraught… Elders also appear important for social learning of migratory routes. Various storks, vultures, eagles, and hawks depend on following the cues of their elders to locate strategic migration flyways or important stopover sites…Conservationists have recently reintroduced large mammals in a few areas where they’ve been wiped out, but because animals released into unfamiliar landscapes don’t know where food is, where dangers lurk, or where to go when the seasons change, many of these translocations have failed…. it may take two or three generations before an introduced population of macaws succeeds at becoming wild. In other words, macaws are born to be wild. But becoming wild requires an education”(37 and 38%).

Genetic and cultural biodiversity are important. “All of the above sums to this: a species isn’t just one big jar of jelly beans of the same color. It’s different smaller jars with differing hues in different places. From region to region, genetics can vary. And cultural traditions can differ. Different populations might use different tools, different migration routes, different ways of calling and being understood. All populations have their answers to the question of how to live”(37%). “As the land, the weather, and the climate changes, some of these differences will turn out to be the answers of the future. Others will die out. If diversity remains in these cultural pools—and there is sometimes more diversity in cultures than in gene pools—the species’ survival will become more likely. If pressures cause regional populations to blink out, the species’ overall odds of persisting will dim. With populations blinking out, the odds of maintaining the rich tapestry and beautiful panorama of Life on Earth become a more tenuous proposition, increasingly diminished”(38%).

Cultural differences could lead to speciation, without geographical isolation. “Think again, for instance, of the killer whale types who inhabit the same region but specialize in hunting different prey in different ways—catching fish in one case, mammals in another—and have consequently developed social and physical differences. Regardless of the fact that scientists haven’t named these whale groups differently (yet), they avoid each other and really have become separate species. How might cultural specialization carry into genetically evolved differences? … I am now convinced that breeding preferences don’t just create mating winners and losers who score high or low while playing for the same team—but that breeding preferences can and do create different leagues that take their own games into differing arenas. We’ve seen that cultural innovation and social learning create specialists. Once specialists occur, the stage is set for each to avoid others, take their specialization into a new niche, and permanently cut ties… I strongly suspect that the mechanisms driving the origin of new species are mainly three: Charles Darwin’s “natural selection” and his “sexual selection,” and the one our present exploration has brought us to here, which I’ll call cultural selection... Sexual tastes and preferences—many of them cultural, many of them female—have helped drive Life’s diversification. Likely they drive it far enough to repeatedly cause the origin of beautiful new species. Beauty—for the sake of beauty alone—is a powerful, fundamental, evolutionary force. Beauty coupled with behavioral specializations, all reinforced by cultural learning that makes the young prefer the preferences of their elders, drives much of what we see in the wondrous living world”(48% and 49%).

Realm 3

This section is all about chimpanzees and what they can teach us about peace. It takes place in the Budongo Forest of Uganda and neighboring areas they visit.

What do we learn about peace?
— “If the science of watching animals has one great message for humankind, it’s that female power—whether in bonobos, elephants, sperm and orca whales, or lemurs—tends to create space for peace”(55%).
— “Humans don’t have a monopoly on empathy. We have, in fact, a long way to go to perfect it. (Intentional cruelty and torture require a mind equipped with sufficient empathy to understand that another is suffering.) But in our finer moments, human compassion is the best thing about us”(69%).
— “Reconciliation probably exists in all of the mammals for whom dustups and disagreements must be fixed so that life as a group or community can go on. And it appears to be there in the parrots, with their mammal-like capacity for rage and their propensity for mutual preening and tenderness”(77%).
— “Group identity—such a fundamental aspect of culture—both enables and results from empathy, altruism, cooperation, and the need to keep things okay. The driving force is the need to make the group continue to cohere as a whole, because the benefits of the group are greater than the summed collection of its individuals”(77%).
— “CHIMPANZEES, WRITES BUDONGO’S PIONEERING researcher, Vernon Reynolds, “have evolved a high degree of what can be called social intelligence, involving appeasement, deception, counter-deception, alliance formation, reconciliation after conflicts, and sympathetic consolation for victims of aggression.” Theirs, he says, is a “thinking society,” based on the intentions, plans, and strategies of its members. These are capacities we share, enabled by brain circuits we share, originating in evolutionary history we share. Chimpanzees provide both a cautionary tale for how to get it wrong and instructive mentoring for how to bring it back and make it right”(78%).

It was heartbreaking to hear how humans have so impacted chimps.
— “Cat says that about three of every four adult chimpanzees here bear a snare’s disfigurement. For many, it’s just a scar or a stiff hand. Others lack fingers or toes. Or worse. Thirty-year-old Jinja has lost her right hand; ten-year-old Andrua lacks his left; Philipo is missing a foot”(54%).
— “When people enter the forest to cut wood or set snares, they sometimes leave plastic cups at water holes. A curious chimp might pick one up. That’s one way a person can pass on an infectious strain that chimpanzees have no experience dealing with. (Chimpanzees elsewhere have also died from human-source infections, including, in fact, the rhinovirus—the common cold.)”(67%).
— “some one hundred thousand orangutans have died because agricultural corporations have destroyed their forest homes, largely for oil palm plantations”(78%).

We usually study chimps to better understand Homo sapiens, but Safina points out that we are missing the point.
— “If “precursors to modern human languages” is why we were interested in communicating with apes and parrots, then we weren’t really interested in them. We were interested—as usual—only in ourselves. We weren’t trying to communicate with or understand or appreciate living beings. If it’s always about us, then ending these studies won’t cause us to miss out on anything; we were, all along, missing everything…Who we are voyaging with on this lonely living planet is quite possibly the only meaningful line of inquiry. I knew that Cat and I would get along when she said, “I haven’t come to work in a remote Ugandan forest because I am interested in ‘clues to human evolution’ or ‘how we became toolmakers.’ I’m here because I’m interested in chimps.””(67%).
— “Ketie has been carrying her dead infant for ten days now; one West African chimp carried her dead baby for twenty-seven days… “Chimpanzees’ awareness of death has been underestimated.” But what in the non-human world has not been underestimated?”(68%).

Safina continues to hammer home is urgent point that cultural diversity is critical. ““It’s not just the loss of ‘chimps,’” Cat repeats. “I find terrifying the possibility of losing each population’s unique culture. That’s permanent.” Culture isn’t just a boutique concern. The keepers of cultural knowledge allow populations to survive in their habitats. Cultures and habitats, both, are needed; both must be rescued from the current ransacking of the planet. Cultural diversity is raw material for resilience and adaptability to change. And change is accelerating”(78%).

There is reason for some hope. “…when people want it to, saving species works. The animals just need room to live and to be left in peace to make their own choices”(79%). He preceded this comment with numerous examples of recovered species.

Another point of this chapter is to challenge humanity to be better. “The chimps are the best they can be. The question for us: Are we? The chimps ask no more of themselves. We must ask no less. Look into the mirror. Recognize our shared humanity, our shared limitations, shared dilemmas—our shared gifts. Chimpanzees tap into their better nature 99 percent of the time. Let their success be a challenge to us”(79%).

Epilogue

Safina shows us how much similarities we have with those we are journeying with on this planet. And their survival is critical to ours.
— “Will we let them continue to exist or will we finalize their annihilation? That’s our stark choice ”(80%).
— “When species upon species become endangered it means deeply systemic incompatibilities have broken out into symptomatic illnesses. Upon our rocky life raft in space, living things anchor what is beautiful. As they dwindle, the beautiful drains away. As animals and plants lose their grip on existence, we lose the beauty of our own ”(80%).
— “Parks and refuges, necessary now but not sufficient, are merely the flip side of widespread demolition; they are like preserving Mona Lisa’s eyes while pulping the rest of Da Vinci’s masterpiece for its fibers, then congratulating ourselves for our foresight. There can be no substitute for expanding the true, deep, broad coexistence that is required ”(80%).
— Can we evolve a culture for a beautiful future on Earth? Only humans can ask that question. Only humans need to. And everything that means anything depends on our answer”(80%).

I learned a lot more than is shown here. See all my saved passages for more. Wow, what a book!

[Buck Wilde · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoughtful book that, by suggesting that animals are more human than we think, actually winds up reinforcing the truism that you and me, baby, we ain't nothing but mammals.

We think of "higher emotions" like altruism, familial bonding, and whole-ass Romanticist love as hallmarks of mankind alone, but the fact of the matter is our only monopolies are on pollution and pants.

In the first part of the book, Safina talks about his adventures with a bunch of vegetarian sperm whale researchers and the connections that they formed with the whales. They tagged and recognized the whales, but what's difficult to conceive of is these 50 foot sea monsters started recognizing them. Eye contact. You've looked into the eyes of a dog or cat and you've known when it registers, "Hey, I know that guy". You know the oxytocin is rattling around in those furry, cavernous heads. Consider that same social connection with a 90,000 lb cetacean, because they do recognize you. And if they recognize and socially categorize something as petty and insignificant as a human being, an inconsequential speck trapped in the flat plane of their sky like the Phantom Zone from Superman 3, you can be damn sure they recognize the families they travel, bond, sing, and play with for their 70 year lifespans. Assuming we don't stab them to death for oil or ambergris in the interim.

Most of this chunk of the book was dedicated to analysis of the whale's songs, and the cultural mores that develop within them. Different pods of whales have different communication tags for opening and closing their conversations. The examples given from the two groups Safina tagged along to study was a "one, two, cha-cha-cha" clicking, versus a longer "one, two, three, four, five" clicking that designated to the whales where the speaker was from.

"Hey, I'm originally from Scranton. Yeah, where they filmed the Office."

Whales are doing that.

Their songs are unfathomably loud, traveling for miles, but due to the lives they live if a family member is within 5 miles or so they're "travelling together". They protect each other, rush to one another's aid. They celebrate when reunited after a long time apart. There was a haunting example of a mother who lost calf (to humans, of course), and she pushed the corpse along the surface, through human travel routes, for 14 days.

Sounds like mourning to me.

The next segment of the book was devoted to beauty as a philosophical concept, and the interplay between sexually selected traits to increase reproductive success in other animals (exemplified by macaws, but also by flowers, butterflies, peacocks, etc.) and the weird fact that we also find them beautiful, though not sexually so unless cartoon-exposure imprinting and garden variety childhood trauma badly crossed our wires. Safina waxes philosophical with a beauty for beauty's sake perspective. I can't disagree, if only beauty weren't so damn subjective, but I'm also not an evolutionary biologist or an ecologist nature writer. At best, I'm a boneshaker, and Jungianism can justify just about any philosophy.

It also explores avian intelligence, which is staggering. We all know crows remember people and bring shiny manmade gifts to humans who were kind to them. I didn't know they understand fluid dynamics and will put objects into a graduated cylinder to displace water until they can grab the food floating on the surface. I didn't know wild crows design and use hooked tools, which is so advanced that most primates haven't figured out yet. I certainly didn't know parrots could be taught geometry, but that's exactly what they did in the book; the parrots memorized and could distinguish between shapes, and when parts of the shapes were covered, they could still correctly identify them based on the angle they could see. That's extrapolation.

Part three was an exploration of chimp culture, and their proclivity for warfare despite their preference for peace. Their leadership styles, their predilection for male vanity, their premeditated murder and infanticide, and a whole bunch of other distinctly evil traits that only show up among one other species that we know of. Go on, guess.

There are many books that examine chimp social dynamics in greater detail, so I won't pull that apart too much here. Suffice it to say, the message at the end was that these animals, who we generally don't think of as all that intelligent, are just like us, and we're just like them. No higher, no lower. No tip of the hierarchy. If chimps were around at the same time as proto-hominids, and they got to spears first, it would probably be Planet of the Apes right now.

The take-home is we're not special, and somehow, that's reassuring.

[Chris Bolger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the type of book I normally read, but enjoyed reading something different for a book club! I really liked the macaw and chimpanzee sections, very interesting.

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a long time I’ve believed that each species of animals has its own culture (or many different regional cultures). It feels great to know that there are scientists and other researchers out there who take the possibility of non-human culture seriously, and who have found a lot of compelling evidence of these cultures existing. There’s so much more to learn about the other beings we share this planet with!

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful book, I simply loved it! It explores how animal cultures raise families (on an example of whales), create beauty (parrots) and drift between the state of war and peace (chimpanzees).

The tone of the book shifts from hope to despair and shows the author’s deep love for the nature. I am grateful for his work and sharing what is important in this world.

[Jim Folger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Carl Safina’s writing is always interesting, due to a detailed and insightful relevance coupled with a compelling narrative. Becoming Wild presents interesting insights into three separate animal species: sperm whales, macaws, and chimpanzees. One comes away with the distinct impression that non-humans are more like us than not. This is especially true of the chimps who are only a couple of steps removed from us in evolutionary terms.

Similar to the marvelously written Voyage of the Turtle and Eye of the Albatross, the insights into sperm whales was most interesting, since so little has been published about them. This alone made the book worth reading. Having read several other books on how smart chimps and birds are, those sections were not as revealing, but did contain gems of little known information that kept me intrigued.
My only criticism might be towards the end of the book when there was too much discussion of individual chimps and their daily lives. However, one has to marvel at the comprehensive descriptions, and the fact that there are people who have given their lives to observing these intriguing denizens of the natural world.

Finally, I have to applaud Safina’s commentary that “we are the only species that makes global problems. I think the human species has made itself incompatible with the rest of the world.”

[Katie Wadsworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

read this for ecology class, it’s an amazing non fiction book

[Sam Mason · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book after reading Frans de Waal’s animal cognition book. These two books pair well together as Becoming Wild focuses much less on cognition and takes the reader through the world of animal culture and learned behaviors. The book is divided into three sections as you learn about the social and emotional learning capabilities of sperm whales, macaws and chimpanzees. You will definitely gain appreciation and respect for these animals. Similar to most books on animal behavior and cognition, the book also chips away at human exceptionalism. Good read overall, I found that it picked up a bit after the sperm whale section and the author did particularly well keeping the macaw section new and exciting.

[Donna Herrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having been ashamed and fearful of my own deviancy as a youth I never studied sociology, or psychology, or anthropology in college. So Carl Safina's observations about what is culture and why culture, and does culture define what it means to be human were new arguments for me. I found his examples persuasive. In this time of Covid-19 if we don't hang together, we shall die alone. That is the essence of culture. Culture allows beasts to live long and prosper. It remains to be seen whether short lived species have cultures that they transmit from one generation to the next.

[Melina Watts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review pending in "Earth Island Journal," I'll share when published.

[Jack Hicks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Becoming Wild, How Animal Cultures, Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace
Carl Safina, 2020
Consider this: Culture is determinative; your place in the world, your language, your beliefs, your conception of beauty, your very identity is shaped and influenced by the culture into which you are born. Cultures change over time and in a process called cultural speciation split and subdivide into different cultures. This is not only a human condition; animals have cultures too that are also determinative, also change and speciate. Carl Safina explores this concept by examining three different animal cultures; Sperm Whales, Scarlet Macaws and Chimpanzees.
Our popular conception of Sperm Whales has been shaped stories originating from the 19th century whaling industry; stories that portray them as brute forces of nature such as Moby Dick. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Sperm whales are superbly adapted creatures that dive thousands of feet below the surface to feed on squid, sometimes spending close to an hour underwater while feeding. They have a cooperative maternal society that protects their young by dividing childcare responsibilities by alternating babysitting and feeding duties. With the largest brain in the world, over seven times the size of the human brain, Sperm whales have an intricate Morse code like language and form complex matriarchal communities. Safina takes us on board Shane Gero’s research vessel as he explores whale community behavior in the deep oceans off the coast of Dominica. Gero has found that Sperm whale society is comprised of communities of between 200 and 1000 individuals. Each community has its own coda or ID composed of a five-letter code of short and long clicks. Each family within the community has its own coda and each individual has his or her own coda. This enables whales to communicate their identities and individual whereabouts over long ocean distances. Each community has its own culture; unique behaviors, territories, and language. Different communities are separate breeding entities that do not interact with other communities. Our own species interaction with these amazing creatures has been unfeeling and destructive. For two centuries we have hunted them almost to extinction in the quest of oil and perfume.
As Safina eloquently states: “To destroy a whale is a monumental denial of life and merely one symbol of the human species rather recent working hatred for the world. We have named one whale, killer. But that shoe best fits the species who possesses the feet to wear it. Even if all humanity gains the emotional and intellectual maturity to divest ourselves from harming them, we may yet lose them in an ocean of plastics, chemicals, fishing tangles, spinning propellers, speeding hulls and noise. All whales now have trouble competing with us for the fishes of the seas. The more humans fill the world, the more they empty it.”
Herman Melville in Moby Dick: “There is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely out-done by the madness of men.”
Darwin put forth the idea that evolution is driven by natural selection and sexual selection. Sexual selection theorized that male beauty was a sign of fitness to attract females and facilitate procreation. But what about Scarlet Macaws? Both the female and the male share probably the most glorious plumage in the avian world. This is a plumage that rather than camouflage, announces I am here. Safina journeys to the Amazon jungle of Peru to answer this conundrum. There are 23 different species of Macaws; all are highly social, all live human life spans, most have striking plumage, and all derive from a single ancestral species. How did all these varied otherwise non-functional beautiful variations evolve? Certainly not natural selection or sexual selection. What is beauty, why do we perceive something as beautiful, a bird, a flower? Safina speculates that not only is there a universal conception of beauty, there is also a cultural perception. He posits that this is true of humans but also of a species such as the Scarlet Macaw. Over millennia various separate Macaw non-interbreeding cultures perceived a certain favored plumage as more beautiful. Those individuals that had it bred more prolifically and over time the different Macaw plumages diverged. Safina calls this concept evolution by cultural selection.
On beauty: “A taste for the beautiful exists as a deep capacity, one bequeathed to us through inconceivable ages, shared to varying degrees by many creatures. It seems to me that a sense of the beautiful exists to let living beings feel at home, happy and alive, here on earth. If anything is more miraculous than the existence of life, it is that life has created for itself a sense of beauty.”
In the dense jungles of Budongo Forest Park lives a group of Chimpanzees called the Waibira troop. Genetically Chimpanzees are our closet relatives. That their behaviors should mirror ours should be no surprise. Of all the great apes, they and us are the only patriarchal societies. We share with them the dubious distinction of male aggression, intergroup murder and mayhem as well as intergroup warfare. Chimpanzee politics are the politics of Alpha males who form coalitions.
“As with humans, chimpanzees usually share meat with relatives, allies, potential sex partners. Rivals and competitors get snubbed. A male on the rise might seem liberal with his sharing. But when he reaches the alpha rank, his seeming generosity shrinks to his political base, those who support keeping him in office. Humans in office hand out political favors. For Chimpanzees, meat is often a political favor.”
Does this sound familiar? Not all Chimpanzee alphas are tyrants, some are consensus builders, practice reconciliation, and peace making within their own groups. To outside groups conflict and warfare is more the norm. 10% of males meet their end in intergroup warfare. Can this kind of culture change? There is an example that can be instructive for our own violence prone and war-making culture.
One group of chimpanzees dispersed across the Congo river two million years ago. There they changed their culture and became a matriarchal society, and in the process, dispensed with intergroup violence and warfare. They also became a different species called Bonobos validating Safina’s theory of cultural selection.
This beautiful passage at the end of the book resonated: “Life in our tiny part of the universe taking charge and directing its own destiny. And life has, in the most real ways, chosen random acts of beauty. Not all life, not all the time, over hundreds of millions of years of this wonderous journey, this has been a trend: Life has created a perceptual capacity that is felt as beauty, and then has sought more and more of what is beautiful. Life prefers what is lovely and sees as lovely what it prefers. Life has chosen to see itself, and our fleck of the sky as beautiful. That realization is so stunning it can quite take our breath away. It makes our living world not just a cosmic accident of physics and chemistry, but a miracle.
Miraculous doesn’t mean safe. It used to be that animals did not need us. Now they do. Unless we value their existence, the modern tide will engulf and obliterate them. Will we let them continue to exist or will we finalize their annihilation? That’s our stark choice.”
In many years of sailing in the waters of Puget Sound, many times I would just be ghosting along under sail and then unexpectedly, I would hear the breathy spouting of marine mammals. A pod of the most beautiful and powerful creatures on earth, deep black with curving white markings, would surround our boat. You could sense you were in the presence of an alien and great intelligence as they playfully interacted with us. This is indeed an experience of the universe creating beauty. And yet tragically these wonderous creatures are under threat because of our dumping toxins into the water and our destruction of the spawning grounds of their primary sustenance; Coho Salmon. If more people could have this kind of experience would it instill an awareness that destroying these wonderous creatures as a consequence of our greed and carelessness would be a terrible, irretrievable loss to our planet and to ourselves? JACK

[Izalette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book about animals and wilderness. I wish the author covers more animals in addition to whales, macaws and chimps/apes.

Whales descend from land mammals who slowly re-entered the sea 50 million years ago.
Sperm whale is the only surviving members of a family called Physeter lasting more than 20 million years.
Water is 800x denser than air so sound travels 4x faster and longer distances - hence animals hear faster. Shrimp uses water as stun guns.
Sonar sperm whale is loud about 200 decibels.
Japan kills many whales, and wrongfully said they are doing research while doing no science. A lot of humpback whales.
Fats can hold lots of toxins - whale is poor at getting rid of chemicals so it’s more concentrated in their bodies. Pesticides, mercuries, are all in fishes. We have toxify our lives. These days we kill whales by looking for petroleum.
Airgun threatens sea turtle hearing, induces hearing loss and physiology stress, and affects fish eggs and breathing holes. Interfere Scallops larvae

Macaws 350 parrot species. The reptilian lineage bequeath birds 300 million years ago from dinosaurs. Parrots est fruits, nuts or seeds but not insects. If you offer them wild fruits they can get, they toss them. But they like bread.
Why would birds evolve such beauty? Colors, songs.
Probabilities reasoning - right in large number of trials. Parrot can generalize a concept of shape and apply it to drawing.
Songs are for territorial claim and mating; calls are for staying in touch, close contact or bonding, identification when searching for each other.
Crow is a song bird, it’s non musical calls are a song.
Geography isolation - sickle fishes - group identify can form.

Birds sing because evolution is not just survival of the fittest but also survival of the beautiful.
Beauty so the living may love being alive in it, we inherited beautiful to make us feel at home. Beauty is not superficial or mere or luxury, it is a birthright of living being. Without beauty, why bother with procreating, competing. Beauty makes life worth the time it takes, the risks and struggles that being alive requires, beauty is the reward our brain gives us for making the effort to stay in the world, ease into joy, and overcome misery.

Bonobo, elephant and orca whale - matriarch.
Bonobos split from chimpanzees 2M years ago.
Make exerts power by force and intimidation, female exerts power by choosing what to do or not to do.

1990s-2000 chimpanzees in the cote declined 90%. 2000s Borneo lost 50% orang utans (100k) due to oil palm plantations destroying their habitats. They give birth every 4-6 years.

[Dayton Martindale · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book I wish would be read widely, in particular by all those (including otherwise thoughtful philosophers who should know better) who assert mindlessly that other animals act solely by instinct. Safina shows convincingly that pure instinct is only a small part of many animals’ lives; who they are and how to live must be learned, and differs between different groups—different cultures—even of the same genetic species. This has clear implications for conservation: it’s not enough to conserve genetic diversity, we must also try to conserve cultural heritage and learned ways of life if wild species are to survive and thrive.

The book is divided into three main parts: he follows three groups of scientists who study wild sperm whales, macaws, and chimpanzees. All these creatures are fascinating, and he also looks at evidence of culture in other species from crows and orangutans to bees and cichlid fishes. Safina likes his poetic language, and while this sometimes landed, it was sometimes a bit meandering and repetitive, especially in the first section on whales. I thought the book got better as it went on, full of fun animal facts. What most stands out is how the scientists who spend every day watching these creatures can’t help but think of them as complex, unique individuals with full and vibrant lives. Would that we all could look at other animals this way.