The encounter was providential for both of them. B and Chester spent hours together playing games like bottle-cap fetch or hide-and-seek. They learned “words” in each other’s vocabularies. B developed a fetish for nostrils and a dislike of the color yellow. He grew anxious if Chester came home late from work. At bedtime he would rub his sleepy eyes on Chester’s thumb and settle to sleep in his palm. Chester ended up turning part of his house into an aviary and adjusting his social life to meet B’s demands. This was a small price to pay, though, for the trust and comfort of a twenty-five-gram friend who brought joy and wonder back into his life.

    Here pioneering zoological veterinarians—men and women on the cutting edge of a new medical frontier—tell real-life tales of daring procedures for patients weighing tons or ounces, treating symptoms ranging from broken bones to a broken heart, and life-and-death dramas that will forever change the way you think about wild animals and the bonds we share with them. From a root canal on a three-thousand pound hippo to one doctor’s heartbreaking effort to save a critically ill lemur, here are acts of rescue, kindness, and cross-disciplinary cooperation between zoo vets and other top scientists. We meet highly trained specialists racing against time and circumstance to save the lives of some of the most exotic animals in the world. Shoes designed for racehorses help a rhinoceros with a debilitating foot disease. A kangaroo survives spinal surgery performed by a leading human doctor. These unforgettable stories capture the bonds that develop between vets and their animal patients, the ingenious measures many vets have tried, and the remarkable new insights modern medical technology is giving us into the physiology and behaviors of wild animals.At once heart-quickening and clinically fascinating, the stories in this remarkable collection represent some of the most moving and unusual cases ever taken on by zoological vets. A chronicle of discovery, compassion, and cutting-edge medicine, The Rhino with Glue-on Shoes is must reading for animal lovers, science buffs, and anyone who loves a well-told tale.

    How has the climate changed in the past?How is it changing now?How do we know?And what kind of a future do we want to create?

    James Rebanks' isn't. The first son of a shepherd, who was the first son of a shepherd himself, he and his family have lived and worked in and around the Lake District for generations. Their way of life is ordered by the seasons and the work they demand, and has been for hundreds of years. A Viking would understand the work they do: sending the sheep to the fells in the summer and making the hay; the autumn fairs where the flocks are replenished; the gruelling toil of winter when the sheep must be kept alive, and the light-headedness that comes with spring, as the lambs are born and the sheep get ready to return to the fells.

    Spirited and determined, Anna quickly finds her feet and falls in love with rural life, including Ebbourne’s eccentric characters and their animals. Disasters, dramas, farmers and friendship – and not to mention a whirlwind romance with a local Wildlife Trust worker – this warm and witty memoir offers a window into what working with animals and country life is really all about.

      In the spring of 2011, Jon Katz received a phone call that would challenge every idea he ever had about mercy and compassion. An animal control officer had found a neglected donkey on a farm in upstate New York, and she hoped that Jon and his wife, Maria, would be willing to adopt him. Jon wasn’t planning to add another animal to his home on Bedlam Farm, certainly not a very sick donkey. But the moment he saw the wrenching sight of Simon, he felt a powerful connection. Simon touched something very deep inside of him. Jon and Maria decided to take him in.   Simon’s recovery was far from easy. Weak and malnourished, he needed near constant care, but Jon was determined to help him heal. As Simon’s health improved, Jon would feed him by hand, read to him, take him on walks, even confide in him like an old and trusted friend. Then, miraculously, as if in reciprocation, Simon began to reveal to Jon the true meaning of compassion, the ways in which it can transform our lives and inspire us to take great risks.   This radically different perspective on kindness and empathy led Jon to a troubled border collie from Ireland in need of a home, a blind pony who had lived outside in a pasture for fifteen years, and a new farm for him and Maria. In the great tradition of heroes—from Don Quixote to Shrek—who faced the world in the company of their donkeys, Jon came to understand compassion and mercy in a new light, learning to open up “not just to Simon, not just to animals, but to the human experience. To love, to risk, to friendship.”   With grace, warmth, and keen emotional insight, Saving Simon plumbs the depths of the bonds we form with our animals, and the rewards of “living a more compassionate, considered, and meaningful life.”Praise for Saving Simon   “Heartwarming . . . a touching tale.”—USA Today   “Highly recommended . . . an enjoyable and thoughtful work.”—Library Journal (starred review)   “[Saving Simon] handles the emotional highs and lows of living with animals with empathy and thoughtfulness, forcing readers to re-examine their own meanings of compassion and mercy.”—Kirkus Reviews   “The message of this true story will linger with the reader long after the book has been placed on the shelf.”—Bookreporter   “[An] uplifting and insightful memoir . . . Katz’s fans and animal lovers of all kinds will no doubt be delighted by Simon’s heartwarming story.”—Publishers Weekly   Praise for Jon Katz   “With wisdom and grace, Katz unlocks the canine soul and the complicated wonders that lie within and offers powerful insights to anyone who has ever struggled with, and loved, a troubled animal.”—John Grogan, author of Marley & Me   “Katz’s world—of animals and humans and their combined generosity of spirit—is a place you’re glad you’ve been.

    The familiar group of characters appear again, as do a few more waifs and strays. The plight of the rhino takes centre-stage in One Chance, bringing awareness to the risk they face on a daily basis.

    facilities. For Hargrove, becoming an orca trainer fulfilled a childhood dream. However, as his experience with the whales deepened, Hargrove came to doubt that their needs could ever be met in captivity. When two fellow trainers were killed by orcas in marine parks, Hargrove decided that SeaWorld's wildly popular programs were both detrimental to the whales and ultimately unsafe for trainers.After leaving SeaWorld, Hargrove became one of the stars of the controversial documentary Blackfish. The outcry over the treatment of SeaWorld's orca has now expanded beyond the outlines sketched by the award-winning documentary, with Hargrove contributing his expertise to an advocacy movement that is convincing both federal and state governments to act.In Beneath the Surface, Hargrove paints a compelling portrait of these highly intelligent and social creatures, including his favorite whales Takara and her mother Kasatka, two of the most dominant orcas in SeaWorld. And he includes vibrant descriptions of the lives of orcas in the wild, contrasting their freedom in the ocean with their lives in SeaWorld.Hargrove's journey is one that humanity has just begun to take-toward the realization that the relationship between the human and animal worlds must be radically rethought.

    Some past cultures even worshipped dolphins and condemned anyone who killed or wounded of them. Yet in recent decades, a paradox: on the one hand, we have discovered extraordinary depths of dolphin intelligence and their emotional lives, to the point of glimpsing their self-consciousness—on the other hand, in Japan, dolphins are slaughtered indiscriminately, and several nations keep them in cruel conditions.Diana Reiss is one of the world’s leading experts on dolphin intelligence who has helped lead the revolution in dolphin understanding for three decades. In addition, as an activist, she is a leading rescuer who helped inspire and served as an adviser for The Cove, and who continues to campaign against the annual Japanese slaughters. Here, she combines her science and activism to show us just how smart dolphins really are, and why we must stop mistreating them. Readers will be astonished at dolphins’ sonar capabilities; at their sophisticated, lifelong playfulness; at their emotional intelligence; and at their ability to bond with other species, including humans and even dogs! Her beloved companion dolphins, each with distinct personalities, create their own toys, type commands on a keyboard, tease and scold her playfully, and express their affection and delight. In Reiss’s most famous experiments, she used a mirror to prove that dolphins are self-aware, and even self-conscious. The Dolphin in the Mirror is both a scientific revelation and a emotional eye-opener, revealing one of the greatest intelligences on Earth.

    Over the next twenty-five years, Tompkins built these modest shops into 2 of the world’s most beloved brands. Esprit became the envy of retail, upending the way fashion apparel is produced, marketed, and sold. Breaking from traditional corporate leadership, Tompkins practiced what he called, “management by absence,” calling into the office four to six months a year from Tibet, the Swiss Alps, Siberia, and other remote locations where he could kayak, ski, trek across a glacier, or climb mountains.  Successfully summiting the peaks of capitalism, Tompkins realized he had climbed the wrong mountain. Determined to make a change, he sold his company and flew 6,400 miles south to Patagonia to live amid the wild beauty in a shack he dubbed “The Hobbit House.” From there Tompkins launched an unprecedented conservation campaign to create a National Parks system—a 12-million-acre swath of protected land stretching from Patagonia to Tierra del Fuego—and prevent the destruction of South American ecosystems. But the battle wasn’t easy. Opposed by anti-environmental forces, including the Chilean military and Catholic Church, Tompkins waged a multi-million-dollar Monkey Wrench-style guerrilla campaign targeting national and international companies devastating the environment for profit. Though Tompkins died in a kayaking accident in 2015, his legacy endures. In addition to his conservation victories, Tompkins also inspired a new generation of environmentalists and conservationists who continue the fight.  A tale of determination, innovation, and triumph, illustrated with black-and-white photographs throughout, A Wild Idea is a celebration of a complicated and often contradictory man, a stern taskmaster who obsessed over detail yet often ignored his children; a multi-millionaire who preferred to sleep on a couch; an environmentalist who drove a red Ferrari; and a visionary who pursued his dreams, abandoned them, then chased new ones, becoming among most notable conservationists of his time.

    A group of young scientists, under the guidance of Dr. George Church, the most brilliant geneticist of our time, works to make fantasy reality by sequencing the DNA of a frozen woolly mammoth harvested from above the Arctic circle, and splicing elements of that sequence into the DNA of a modern elephant. Will they be able to turn the hybrid cells into a functional embryo and bring the extinct creatures to life in our modern world?Along with Church and his team of Harvard scientists, a world-famous conservationist and a genius Russian scientist plan to turn a tract of the Siberian tundra into Pleistocene Park, populating the permafrost with ancient herbivores as a hedge against an environmental ticking time bomb.

    Unlikely Friendships tells one story after another of animals who, with nothing else in common, bond in the most unexpected ways and thrive on the warmth, closeness, and trust that come with being true friends.Imagine a predator cuddling its prey. Or a bird befriending a mammal. Or a fish poking its nose out of the water to nuzzle a dog. Or a massive gorilla - the one named Koko, famous for her ability to communicate in sign language - embracing a tiny kitten.Science writer Jennifer S. Holland narrates each story, and also offers insights into these relationships. Sometimes there are plausible scientific explanations: an orphan seeking comfort from an older animal; an adult yearning for a younger creature to nurture. Consider the lioness who befriended and protected a baby oryx - unexpected, but not inexplicable. Sometimes a friendship is about need, as in the case of the blind Lab and her "seeing-eye" cat. B ut sometimes it's just a lovely mystery. How else can one explain the story of Owen the hippo and Mzee the tortoise, two notoriously surly creatures who became bosom buddies?Each story reveals the true power of friendship and, to some degree, the many forms of "love" that seem to exist in the animal kingdom. Yes, scientists might scoff at that notion, but readers may feel a little differently about the world after they finish this book.

    * From the award-winning writer, following her memoirs, Skating to Antarctica, Stranger on a Train, On Trying to Keep Still - a unique book about animal watching

     A powerful, heart-warming and inspiring memoir from the UK's most famous and beloved vet, Professor Noel Fitzpatrick - star of the Channel 4 series The Supervet. Growing up on the family farm in Ballyfin, Ireland, Noel's childhood was spent tending to the cattle and sheep, the hay and silage, the tractors and land, his beloved sheepdog Pirate providing solace from the bullies that plagued him at school. It was this bond with Pirate, and a fateful night spent desperately trying to save a newborn lamb, that inspired Noel to enter the world of veterinary science - and set him on the path to becoming The Supervet.Now, in this long-awaited memoir, Noel recounts this often-surprising journey that sees him leaving behind a farm animal practice in rural Ireland to set up Fitzpatrick Referrals in Surrey, one of the most advanced small animal specialist centres in the world. We meet the animals that paved the way, from calving cows and corralling bullocks to talkative parrots and bionic cats and dogs. Noel has listened to the many lessons that the animals in his care have taught him, and especially the times he has shared with his beloved Keira, the scruffy Border Terrier who has been by Noel's side as he's dealt with the unbelievable highs and crushing lows of his extraordinary career. As heart-warming and life-affirming as the TV show with which he made his name, Listening to the Animals is a story of love, hope and compassion, and about rejoicing in the bond between humans and animals that makes us the very best we can be.

    At the heart of their survival was their unshakeable belief in each other and their determination to survive, making Hostage an unlikely love story; for Paul and Rachel, death, at times, seemed preferable to being separated.