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List Price: £6.99
Our Price: £5.88
Author:
John Pukite
By Penguin Books Ltd
 Unique Collection of Interesting general background Pig Info, 2005-02-15
A cute collection of all kinds of interesting titbits of information about pigs.There is a good guide to the zoological and historical background of the porcine species. Fascinating titbits about pigs taken from literature. A review of common breeds and their identification features and geographical distribution plus general information about the behaviour, needs and lifestyle of pigs. It is a useful book for people who are new to the world of the pig and pig farming. Industry people looking for specialist husbandry info will be disappointed. Especially useful for smallholders and hobby or pet pigkeepers. A list of contents is available online at: www.pighealth.com/offers/pig.htm
List Price: £17.95
Our Price: £15.19
Author:
Pepperberg
By Harvard University Press
 Schooling psittacines, 2007-08-16
What can a bird learn? Irene Pepperberg set out to find out. As with children, the best way to assess what has been learnt is to ask. Primarily for that reason, she chose birds capable of forming human words. An African Grey parrot, who she dubbed Alex [Avian Learning EXperiment], became the subject of her investigations. Earlier efforts in laboratories were unsatisfactory. Why should Mynahs, reputedly excellent mimics, fail to learn speech in laboratory conditions? When in homes with several people providing input, they chatter endlessly, almost to distraction. The solution, Pepperberg decided, was the intense social environment. To that end, she developed a training method that produced astonishing results.
This book thoroughly documents the author's methods and results, providing a fascinating account of the cognitive abilities of at least one psittacine species, the Grey Parrot. Incorporating a technique she calls M/R - for Model/Rival, Pepperberg would "teach" an assistant what she wished Alex to learn. The bird observed this, then was encouraged to emulate the learning experience. This meant the bird had to understand what was to be learned and use its innate abilities to achieve it. Speech was the first lessons, but things moved well beyond simple words quickly. Shapes, colours and materials were the next level, with Alex discriminating among them both singly and in groupings. The object was to understand what Alex could comprehend and act on. Alex also learned to differentiate - "larger", or "different" or, most significantly for a bird - "abscence". He could note when something was missing, naming the missing object. The method resulted in Alex's expressing his own needs and wants, even ending a training session by declaring he wished to quit.
Pepperberg's research findings are in direct contradiction to past scientific efforts. The book is therefore richly detailed with the methods used and was information was obtained. There are photographs of test object layouts, even stills from X-ray videos of how Alex forms his speech. She is clearly challenging the received wisdom of established opinion. She's careful to avoid terms like "consciousness" or even "intelligence", although the latter comes in for some discussion late in the book. She finds only one example of Alex's communication she thinks can be deemed "creative". Much more important, in her view, is that we need to understand previously under-evaluated cognitive capabilities in parrots. They are a long-lived and social species, conditions which lead to interaction among individuals and reinforced learning. Social interaction, combined with carefully devised teaching methods are essential to proper learning, whether with children, other primates or psittacines. The capacity is there, and we need to recognise it. The Alex studies clearly demonstrate that at least these psittacines are capable of far more than the simply mimicry we've long attributed to them. Human primacy in learning, once considered fundamental to our place in Nature, is clearly at an end.
Pepperberg's narrative is thoroughly detailed and supported by an equally thorough bibliography. The reading may be a bit of a slog for the novice reader. The citation method breaks up sentences, a common technique with ethography studies, but cumbersome to cope with. The method is in line with her concern for academic acceptance. She excuses the approach as not desiring "to overwhelm readers with facts and figures" [although there are still plenty of those] but to encourage an enlarged sensitivity to the abilities of non-human species. She has certainly accomplished that task, and admirably. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
List Price: £17.99
Our Price: £3.71
Author:
Mark Bekoff
By New World Library
Bringing Animal Science and Common Sense Together, 2008-07-28
Once in a while it's a joy to come across an inspiring book which deserves to be consulted time and time again. Lesley Skipper's brilliantly researched and observed "Inside Your Horse's Mind" had that effect on me, as did Lucy Rees' "The Horse's Mind". For me, this beautifully written book, by the eminent animal biologist Marc Bekoff, will be sharing pride of place on my bookshelf.
This is a study which anyone who has an interest in animal behaviour will delight in. Behaviours such as loneliness and weaving amongst elephants, bereavement of donkeys and affection shared by whales remind us that all mammals share many neuroanatomical similarities, even if we cannot be sure that they experience emotion in the same way.
The book might be seen as a series of self-contained essays, tackling topics such as what animals feel and ethical questions about how we respond to what we know about animal emotion. Bekoff doesn't pretend to know the answers, but he challenges fellow scientists to use common sense alongside their quest for the perfect `scientific method' and to stop seeing animals as little more than moving objects. He argues that anecdotes gathered from repeated observations aren't to be brushed off as fool-hardy irrelevancies, and even suggests that there's a time and place for carefully applied anthromorphism.
Whilst backed by extensive research - the end notes alone reach over 30 pages - Bekoff's writing style is simple, speaking to the lay reader and written from the heart. I actually felt I could picture him sitting at his window wondering what it's like to be the fox standing on his lawn, whilst the whole book is written from a desire to better understand and co-exist with the animals he so loves. As his co-founder of Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Jane Goodall says in her Foreword, `I only hope [the book] will persuade many people to reconsider the way we treat animals in the future.'
List Price: £10.99
Our Price: £10.98
Author:
John Alcock
By OUP USA
Scientists tend to be a bit insecure about their position in society. Nowhere is this more evident than in the decades-old sociobiology debate, and in The Triumph of Sociobiology behavioural scientist John Alcock tries to shore up his side against the sometimes-hysterical opposition. Inevitably, the book is somewhat defensive and apologetic, but the author explains himself and his field well and will convince most readers that studying the evolution of behaviour is no more controversial than any other aspect of evolution. Between charming, engaging tales of field study and intriguing analyses of the chief arguments against sociobiology, Alcock disarms any natural discomfort with the topic and makes his case clearly. Humans have not always had all the cultural accoutrements of Hutus or Englishmen. At one time not so many million years ago, our ancestors could make only rudimentary tools while surely communicating in a far less sophisticated manner than we do currently. The immense increase in brain size over the last million or so years must have had profound consequences for our capacity to learn and acquire our culture. If you accept the less-than-revolution...
A truly satisfying read for the open-minded, 2007-11-21
The only reason I can think of for someone to give this book less than five stars would be because they peronsally objected to the content - an excellent analysis of the many criticisms of Sociobiology. Some of the examples are indeed novel but to say that they are only relevant to, say, Americans, is missing the point. If you are steadfastly against any form of Sociobiology then there is very little chance of gaining any satisfaction from this book whatsoever (seeing as it takes an objective view on the situation) but for the more open-minded readers I wholly recommend it as an excellent read. You may not in the end be swayed but the read alone is enough justification in itself to merit a closer look.
List Price: £14.99
Our Price: £9.14
Author:
Caitlin O'Connell
By Oneworld Publications
An Incredible Adventure, 2007-04-02
The Elephant's Secret Sense is an amazing adventure about a part of Africa I didn't think still existed, where elephants roam wild in their thousands and people are eaten by crocodiles while they wash their clothes on the river banks!
This book covers Caitlin O'Connell's thirteen year journey with the elephants and people of Namibia; a journey that started out of graduate school and continues today at Stanford University where she is now a researcher. It's an intimate look into how elephants and humans are struggling to live side by side and how experiments to keep elephants out of crops led Caitlin to figure out that elephants are using the ground like whales use the water, to send long distance messages to each other.
From the breathtaking description of an African storm surging over the floodplains to the delightful antics of Donna, a zoo elephant in California, Caitlin's inspiring writing moved me from tears to laughter, and left me with powerful and very visual images that I won't soon forget.
List Price: £15.99
Our Price: £11.57
Author:
James L. Gould, Carol Grant Gould
By Basic Books
Maps charting reasoning, 2008-06-25
Asking a lone wasp dragging a cricket across a paddock how she finds her way home won't elicit much response. Interrogating a honeybee about why she's doing this task now, while she was engaged in something entirely different a short time ago will net you little information. The Goulds, however, delve into some of the motivations behind animal behaviour. In this easily accessible volume, they provide some interesting and challenging answers to the question of how animal minds work. In doing so, they overturn some long held misconceptions - most notably the one that declares only humans have broken the bonds of innately determined behaviours.
This is highly speculative material, but the proposals are well thought out and amply supported by the workers cited. The underlying proposal is simple: the other animals are only slightly more prompted by innate drives than we are. Categorizing the behavior of other animals as "just intuition" is demonstrably fallacious. Whether we label it "reasoning power" or "cognitive ability" is irrelevant. The point is that even that solitary wasp is confronted with the need to make decisions that will take her from a fixed path. She can, and does, survey changed conditions in order to achieve a desired goal. She is not fixed in her responses and can adapt using her mental resources efficiently.
The authors use various forms of "mappings" to explain how variations of cognitive capacity and ability are found in nature. That solitary wasp, for instance, needs to locate the burrow where she's left her egg. Somehow, tucked in her miniscule brain, there's record of landmarks around that tiny hole in the soil, allowing her to move with confidence. Shift the landmarks - a stone or twig - and she's confused. Her Local Area cognitive map has become unreliable. Yet, if she's typical, she'll have other nests - each with their own landmarks to tax her mental map. Moving up the cognitive ladder, there are wasp groups who build nests of mud or paper. They must perform a sequence of operations in the construction process to ensure the nest is the proper shape, weight and balance. From this start, the Goulds demonstrate how animal constructions reflect cognitive abilities requiring decision-making and adaptive variations. From the complexities of spiders building webs, birds constructing an extensive variety of nests and beavers' wide-area engineering projects, "animal architects" refute our common belief that "instinct" is the central controlling factor.
The Goulds propose that cognitive mapping can be shown to advance from the individual and its surroundings, through various levels of complex reasoning needed to complete the organism's task to complete a goal. It's important to note that these are in no way predictable, hence, innately driven, steps. Adjustments must be made for local conditions. When those adjustments mean interacting with co-workers in different ways, then the group must make decisions. The authors use bees as a significant example. Too often classified as a "socialist" species, the Goulds demonstrate honeybees are the finest example of free enterprise in Nature. Individuals must shift roles as conditions change, with each bee making independent decisions on a course of action. The steps involved require the insect to sift through several available options, using mental processes the authors describe as "Tiers". Sets of Tiers may include Local Area Mapping, Social Mapping - which likely includes Hierarchical Mapping of status, and the ultimate, Network Mapping where many forms are brought together to complete one or several tasks.
This book is awarded five stars with some reluctance. Although the ideas themselves are well presented and supported by good examples, a glance at the "Readings" for each chapter gives one pause. The list suggests that little on these topics has been published during the past generation - except their own, of course. The authors deal with many forms of life, with insects predominating. Yet, their only reference to Edward O. Wilson is a single work. John Alcock's studies don't appear, nor do those of Bert Hölldobler, Thomas Eisner, Bernd Heinrich or other workers. None of those researchers' efforts would challenge the Goulds' proposals and their omission is an enigma. Instead, there are long renditions of the pioneers in various related fields. Valuable, but necessarily incomplete. Even so, this work is too innovative and challenging to ignore or dismiss lightly. Cognition, whether human or other animal, is a significant field, growing rapidly. The authors list many topics requiring further study. One can only hope this book will inspire younger readers to take them up and help resolve them. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
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