Дивото наследство на природата

by Sally Carrighar, Сали Каригар, Весела Илиева (Translator)

"In the natural behavior of the other animals we discover much about ourselves: our social life and play, our passions and aggressions, our patterns of courtship, parenthood and sex." - From the cover.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Nature, Natural History, Animals

221 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Sally Carrighar (1898–1985) was an American naturalist and writer. She is known for her series of nature books chronicling the lives of wild animals.

She attended Wellesley College for two years and would have graduated with the class of 1922, but had to leave due to sickness.

Carrighar's work is based on years of observation. She spent seven years observing at Beetle Rock in California and ten years in the Arctic before writing her books. They are considered classics of nature writing and may be viewed as a specialized form of travel literature.

She wrote eleven books during her life, the most popular of which was her first One Day on Beetle Rock (1944). Several of her other titles are The Twilight Seas (1975), Icebound Summer (1953), One Day at Teton Marsh (1947), Home to the Wilderness (1973), and Wild Heritage (1965). Other books by this author include Wild Voice of the North: Chronicle of an Eskimo Dog (1959), Moonlight at Midday (1958), The Glass Dove: A Novel of the Underground Railroad (1962), A Husky in the House (1960) and Blue Whale (1975).

Reviews

[Nadienne Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delving into animal sentience is a recent interest of mine and, from some of what I've read, is a rather recent interest to mainstream science...and yet, here I find a book published 55 years ago which tells the story of many different types of animals and observations of their behavior which can only be described as play. These are tales of animals frolicking with other animals, both of their own and differing species, as well as with objects in the world, for no other purpose than just to play. I find it hard to understand people who feel that we are something apart from animals, when everything that we are can be found in them. The only difference between the Human brain and our other primate cousins is measured in degree, not type. We have all of the same analogous structures, and the places from which our emotions are generated are fundamentally unchanged from those of the animals with whom we share this planet.

If you love reading about observations in nature, and just animals being happy little animals going about their daily lives, definitely read this book.

More and more, I feel that the fight for animal rights, as it were, is insufficient. Keeping them safe, protecting them, preventing harm from befalling them is far from enough. "We no longer enslave animals for the purposes of food" is a line from Commander Riker (Star Trek: The Next Generation), and I feel that this just scratches the surface. There is far more potential within our animal companions than even some of the most ardent activists I believe give them credit. The issue of animal sentience should be discussed. We share this world with them - hell, we are them. There is no "us vs. them" for we are animals - of a very unique type, for sure - but, fundamentally, we are naked, sweaty, persistence-hunting primates. It's time that we begin to evaluate animal sentience, figure out ways to explain our issues to them, and in turn learn to listen to their issues with us, and somehow reach some kind of mutual understanding.

I'm sure I sound like a crazy person to some, but granting some animals, at the very least, actual "human rights," citizenship, voting rights, etc., is not really that unreasonable.

[Cydni Perkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually thrifted this book because I liked the illustrations, and I intended to pull the whole thing apart and cannibalize the pages for use in scrapbooking. But whenever I would flip through to find an illustration to rip out, I would find myself sitting and reading the text. The author makes some really astute and articulate observations about the behavior of humans and animals. Besides that, the pictures really are wonderful and expressive. I never expected to want to read it, but it won me over.

[Maryanne]

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