Babylon's Ark by Lawrence Anthony

 

   Lawrence Anthony’s inner calling launched his efforts to travel to a war zone to rescue the animals in the city of Baghdad in the year 2003. Those animals were deprived of food and water under temperatures of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Baghdad city was under siege; Saddam Hussein had been overthrown.

    Lawrence Anthony, author of The Elephant Whisperer, was determined to help the animals of the Baghdad Zoo, even though he had no clue on how he would proceed to accomplish his goal.

   Lawrence feared the worst, and his concerns were confirmed when he managed to reach the animals. He was able to witness how animals who had nothing to do with the human conflict and had no understanding of the political situation were neglected, attacked and abused in multiple ways. It was disturbing to read about imprisoned animals who had no way of defending themselves while they battled hunger and thirst amid the bombings. People vandalized the zoo. It was sad  to read that some of them even shot the animals for fun.

  Lawrence witnessed their trauma, and he was determined to rescue them. Babylon’s Ark is an engrossing account on how he was able to care for these animals against all odds. Initially, Lawrence Anthony had no connections or formal support from organizations. He was just a man with a clear purpose. Eventually, he was able to inspire others to support his mission and share his goal of saving the animals in Baghdad.

   Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator whose cruelty to human beings was also directed at the animals. Saddam and his son Uday had neglected, abused and abandoned several wild animals and dogs. They had been involved in the trafficking of wild animals, and Lawrence was able to find and rescue them under the most dangerous circumstances.

   I was in awe to read what he managed to accomplish despite the hopelessness of the situation. I was speechless to learn about the rescue of lions and dogs inside a cage in Uday’s palace. There were two cubs and three adult lions along with two emaciated dogs inside the same cage. Lawrence was shocked because the pride of lions had not devoured the dogs despite the fact that they had all been starving.

 “There was no explanation why the starving lions had not already killed and eaten the dogs. We guessed it was because the animals had huddled together through so much terror during the bombing raids that they had bonded in a way only nature could fathom, forging some mystical affinity that transcended the torment of hunger. Indeed, even in their sapped state, the two dogs were nuzzling and cuddling the cubs—testimony that nature is not always red in tooth and claw.”

   Babylon’s Ark is about finding common ground with others to develop solutions that align with kindness and ethical principles. Putting aside their differences, soldiers, conservationists and civilians came together to rescue the wild animals. However, this did not happen by chance. Lawrence had to work hard to convince people and garner their support and approval. I admire the ways in which he interacted with those around him to gain their respect and understanding. His book is an inspiration and a testament to his resilience and courage. His messages deserve to be shared across the world.  

  Lawrence Anthony risked his life to attain his goal. It was an adventure full of roadblocks and hazards, but the unsettling frustrations, setbacks and conflicts he had to contend with did not deter him. Being in a combat zone was not easy, but, thankfully, Lawrence survived the plight and wrote this fascinating book whose narrative will captivate your heart.

  Perhaps his quest for empathy and compassion will not be forgotten, and it may help people to understand that we need to come together to care for our home. Mother Earth needs our cooperation to support the ecosystems that make our life possible on the planet.

  Another important aspect of the book is the fact that it helps us to see how unfair and terrifying it is to live under the abuse of power of a dictator. I think the book plays an important role in explaining the dangers dictators pose to the livelihoods of its citizens.

  Last but not least, Lawrence Anthony’s musings and reflections at the end have the potential to summon people to do what is best for their communities, democracies and the planet. His statements are based on facts. Lawrence’s thoughts are as relevant today as they were when he wrote the book:

 “In our ruthless quest for technology, material wealth and scientific progress, the humanities have been sorely neglected. And, as most of us are almost completely ignorant of the character and function of other forms of life, we abuse the natural world and diminish once robust survival systems without any real understanding of the consequences—especially for our own continued existence. Why do we inflict harm on the only home we have? Most people intrinsically have empathy with nature. Everybody I speak to is against cruelty to animals; everybody wants fresh air, open spaces, unpolluted rivers, and a healthy livable planet. So why do we so dreadfully abuse our sole life-support system?”

 “As living organisms, we are all part of the greater whole, and as such, we are embodied with exactly the same fundamental purpose: to survive. And to do so—as individuals, families, groups, and as a species—we have to live in dynamic collaboration with the plant and animal kingdoms in a healthy, life-sustaining environment.”

  The experience of reading Babylon’s Ark was so immersive that I had vivid dreams at night related to the setting and situations he encountered. Read Babylon’s Ark and share it with others.

 

Feel free to read my posts on the following books:

What a Bee Knows: Exploring the Thoughts, Memories and Personalities of Bees, by Stephen Buchmann

Unlikely Friendships by Jennifer Holland

Volcanic Adventures in Tonga by Ann Goth

Sweet inTooth and Claw by Kristin Ohlson

 

 

 The photo of the lion is by Luke Tanis. Source: unsplash.com

 Here’s a conversation with Lawrence Anthony about his experiences in Baghdad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46fQBDfYAJo

 

 

The Creative Lives of Animals by Carol Gigliotti

 

  How do non-human animals’ creative processes contribute to the diversity of the planet we share? This question guided Carol Gigliotti through the maze of writing The Creative Lives of Animals. I had this book in my reading list before it won the 2023 Nautilus Book Award in the category of Animals and Nature, so it was a pleasant surprise to learn about this recognition.

  The author examines the scientific research on the multiple ways non-human animals create, blending into her narrative  insights, reflections and memorable personal experiences.

 Based on her detailed work of research, Gigliotti asserts that animals are creative in ways that are similar to humans and decidedly unique.

 Before delving into the examples of creativity in animals, she explores the concept of creativity, acknowledging some of the qualities that make up the mosaic of creativity, such as flexibility, curiosity, intelligence, persistence and comfort with complexity. Her book also reflects on how creativity intersects with empathy, cooperation and morality.

 The creative process engages emotional aspects as well as cognitive ones.

 “If you created anything, whether that something is a favorite recipe, a garden plan, or a new app, you know that thoughts about the past, the future, and the feelings of others often arise in the creative process you used to make that dish, plan that garden, or design that new app, and may influence it.”

  Traditional views of creativity used to be restricted to focus on the most celebrated human artists, scientists and innovators, but the concept has expanded to appreciate the creativity of ordinary individuals and the cooperation among groups of people. How can creativity play a role in a community and impact a culture? How does creativity manifest in the world in ways that go beyond the human contribution?

 “The creativity of animals exists on the individual, group, species and ecosystem level, and the loss of an individual animal is the loss of that individual’s contribution to those interactions.”

 We are only one species out of millions of species who inhabit the earth. The chapters of the book describe acts of creativity in various species of animals. 

 Over the last five years research has evolved considerably in the field of animal behavior. Non-human animals are no longer viewed as automatons that follow natural instincts but as complex individuals with personalities, intelligence, emotions, and even aesthetic sensitivity.  There is still a lot to be learned about their complexity.

  “I made the decision to focus on the creativity of animals not in comparison or in contrast to human creativity but to see both as part of a ‘deep source’ of encompassing creativity. “

 One of the most memorable experiences she shares in The Creative Lives of Animals takes us back to a remote mysterious place where the lives of humans are deeply intertwined with those of animals. Respect and knowledge are at the core of their coexistence. Her days there “opened her eyes to animals as members of families and cultures”. Gigliotti stayed with the Kitasoo/Xai’xais in the village of Klemtu on the island of Princess Royal in northern British Columbia, home to the Spirit Bear. There are still no roads there. “The ratio of humans to land is quite low and so, compared to many places on earth, untouched by humans.” The unemployment rate was reduced from eighty percent to ten percent. Money is used to protect the people and the animals, and to sustain their communities. The Coastal Guardian Watchmen protect the wolves, bears, raptors and other animals from trophy hunting.

 Gigliotti spent many hours talking to the people at Klemtu to understand the relationship between the community of indigenous people and the animals who inhabit the tribal lands.

  Animals that are considered “ferocious”, evil” or “hunting trophies” by other human cultures are treated with respect in Klemtu. Doug, a former chief leader, as well as other bandmates are very knowledgeable about bears and other animals in the region, and their curiosity and understanding of bears contribute to a peaceful coexistence.  For example, they understand the bears’ reactions to different colors. They’d researched this by wearing different-colored clothes on different days.

  After an interesting journey by tugboat through glacier-carved fjords, a visitor asked Doug about a case he had been carrying. The visitor was convinced it was a gun. Nothing could be further from the truth. The case contained a camera. Guns would have made things tense; bears and other animals would have treated them with distrust if Doug had been carrying a gun. Those were not needed.

  Perhaps her book will inspire humans to embrace ideas and actions that appreciate and respect the unique lives of animals as contributors to the diversity of the world. This intriguing book will hopefully encourage the newer generations of people to open up in the direction of new paths of cooperation and empathy not only toward non-human animals but also toward each other.

 I am sharing a couple of videos about the region and culture I mentioned in my post: Klemtu.

This one is about bears in Klemtu:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTD4-FfRf3I

This one is about  how they have addressed unemployment and so much more:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3JLBcLXnNA

 

 

If you enjoyed this post, you may be inclined to read my reviews on the following books:

The Wisdom of Wolves by Jim and Jamie Dutcher.

Sweet inTooth and Claw by Kristin Ohlson.

Inside Animal Hearts and Minds by Belinda Recio

 

“If a cat and an iguana nuzzle each other and nap together, and a dog and a fish can ‘kiss’ upon meeting at the boundary between their terrestrial and aquatic worlds, then it’s time for humans to take a lesson from other animals in how to get along.”

Belinda Recio

 You wouldn’t imagine a crow saving the life of a kitten. Yet this is what happened in Massachusetts. Ann and Wally Collito knew that people would find the situation difficult to believe, so they videotaped the interactions between the crow and the kitten. Initially, they thought the crow would attack the kitten.

  The kitten had been abandoned on their property, and the couple witnessed how the crow, which they named Moses, fed insects and worms to the kitten, which they named Cassie. Moses nurtured Cassie and made sure she was safe at all times. This was a clear act of empathy and altruism between species.

 Cooperation used to be understood as one of the qualities that distinguishes human beings from other animals, but scientists are now starting to understand that cooperation is an important element of survival in the natural world. It is not unique to humans. Examples of cooperation in the animal world abound, and this book brings some of those together in a delightful, inspiring read.

   Qualities like loyalty, friendship, a sense of fairness, curiosity, empathy, creativity and even spirituality are not unique to humans. With both research and anecdotes, this book will broaden your perspective. It will help you to dissolve negative stereotypes attached to many animal species, and will enhance your understanding of the world around you.

 The book contains a foreword by ethologist Jonathan Balcombe, who has published over fifty scientific research papers on animal behavior and protection, and is also the author of Second Nature, which I reviewed in My Writing Life blog last year.

 Belinda Recio’s book showcases an amazing variety of heart-warming photos that make this reading adventure even more vivid and vibrant.

 The bad reputation assigned to rats is not justified. Research showed that 50 to 80 percent of the time rats were more interested in helping another rat in trouble than in a chocolate treat. Female crocodiles respond empathetically not just to their own hatchlings but also to those of other crocodiles. They even have playful relationships with river otters. You will learn about dolphins, octopuses, prairie dogs, orangutans, gorillas, parrots, goats, and many other animals.

 Albert Einstein once said that it is easier to disintegrate an atom than a prejudice. Hopefully, Belinda Recio’s book will prove him wrong.

Dive into Inside Animal Hearts and Minds, and immerse yourself in a world of wonder, awareness and empathy. Make sure you share it with the children in your life as well.

If you enjoyed this post, feel free to read my writing on Unlikely Friendships and Unlikely Heroes.

 Till next time.

Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals

 

  

 Soon after I wrote my post on “Unforgotten” an interesting synchronicity took me by surprise: I came across the book Second Nature: The inner Lives of Animals, by animal behaviorist Jonathan Balcombe, in which he points out that referring to animals to insult humans is rooted in deep-seated prejudices and lack of knowledge. It is also an act that debases both humans and non-human beings.

  With clear evidence, Balcombe shatters the prejudices that have dominated the minds of people for centuries, and this makes me wonder why this book did not get the attention it deserves.

 

Are you aware, for example, of the altruistic behaviors of vampire bats? Balcombe’s book details how vampire bats share and help each other in times of need. You will probably be astonished to learn that rats restrain themselves when they know their actions would cause pain to another individual.

 “Research has shown that rats would stop pressing a bar to obtain food if doing so delivered an electric shock to a rat next to them. Another experiment confronted rats with a fellow rat who was strapped tightly into a suspended harness. By pressing a lever, the witnessing rat could lower the other to the floor. This is what the witnessing rats did.”

    The facts he shares afford us the chance to reflect.

  

  It is not uncommon to hear stories that vilify sharks. Yet there are less than ten attacks on humans by sharks worldwide per year, whereas humans kill between 26 million and 73 million sharks per year.

   You may have been told that animal groups are autocracies. Evidence is mounting to prove the opposite; animal societies tend to function as democracies. Studies by Tim Roper and Larissa Conradt from the University of Sussex found that when a group of animals makes a decision to move somewhere, they respond to the “vote” of a majority (about 60%). In deer, the individual vote is expressed by standing up. African buffalo vote with the direction of the gaze. Whooper swans use head movements.

  Democracy also guides actions in social insects. For instance, when honeybees decide they need to move, the decision is democratic in nature.

 The mainstay of the survival of species is based on cooperation, not competition. When Jane Goodall discovered the behavior of sharing among chimpanzees, she awakened a new perception in scientists, who, from that point on, began to acknowledge sharing behaviors in other animals. You can learn more about this from Jonathan Balcombe’s book Second Nature.

 

 Balcombe sheds light on the ways animals cooperate with each other,  express gratitude and are prone to choose peace over violence. He gives examples of compassion among animals and on how they do  selfless acts for no tangible benefit to themselves. Their individual experiences, emotions and feelings play a role in their lives and in the ways they interact with each other.

  It has always been convenient for human beings to consider animals as irrational and savage to excuse the exploitation and abusive treatment of them. (Indeed, people may choose to believe what they want to believe, but this does not make humans morally superior).

  If you encounter people who think that cruelty against animals has nothing to do with societal human violence, you can let them know that various studies have shown there is a link between the two. Research done at Yale University has shown that there are strong associations between adult criminal behavior and childhood histories of animal cruelty.  Secondly, when cultural anthropologist David Levinson surveyed violence against women in ninety different human societies around the world, he found that victims were significantly more likely to be permanently injured, scarred, or killed by their husbands in societies in which animals were treated cruelly.

  Last but not least, “an extensive analysis of 581 American counties with and without slaughterhouses found that, compared to other industries, slaughterhouse employment increases arrest rates for violent crimes, rape, and other sexual offenses, presumably because the worker is desensitized to violence and cruelty.”

  Are humans morally superior? Jonathan Balcombe, animal behaviorist, does not think so. 

  Second Nature offers research and entertaining anecdotes that illuminate the inner lives of animals and inspire human beings to open their minds and hearts to the paths of wisdom, empathy and curiosity, and to become humble in this process of discovery.

  “When we make compassionate personal choices according to how they affect another, we are practicing Second Nature. The distinguished American biologist Edward O.Wilson coined the term biophilia to describe the connections that human beings unconsciously seek with the rest of life. Biophilia is the natural affinity—literally the love for life—that we may feel for a forest, the sound of ocean waves rolling onto a beach, the open sky or a butterfly.”

   Second Nature is a conscientious form of biophilia that happens when we extend this affinity to all individuals, recognizing that they have lives of value and that they want to live as much as we do. In Balcombe’s own words:

 “Extending our empathy and concern toward all who experience the ups and downs of life is neither strange nor radical. It is, after all, Second Nature.”

 This is the kind of book that leaves you thinking long after you finish it.

 

 I am horrified by the atrocities Vladimir Putin is causing in Ukraine. I stand with the people of Ukraine in their fight for freedom, life and liberty.

     

 

 

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard

 

“But man is part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.” Rachel Carson

   Working in the logging industry, Suzanne Simard introduced the concept of cooperation among trees; it was based on a discovery for which she was mocked and shunned. Her finding had the potential to turn forest practices upside down. 

  Policies and practices in forestry had been established on the basis of competition as the key to the survival of trees.

  Decades ago, Suzanne Simard’s discovery on the way birch trees support the health of the fir trees was the beginning of an ongoing journey that would study the kind of interaction the field of forestry had ignored for so long: cooperation among trees.

 

You may wonder how trees cooperate with each other when all you’ve heard in school was about competition.

 Just as Albert Frank was fiercely criticized when he introduced the concept of symbiosis, Suzanne Simard was dismissed when she explained the need to let birch trees coexist with fir trees to support the health of the desired fir trees. Birch trees were considered “weeds”; therefore, policies to spray and kill those trees had always been in place.

 Thankfully, Simard found another job at the University of British Columbia and she continued to work hard on her path of research, asking questions that challenged the blindsided system and paved the way to comprehend how trees communicate with each other.

 

Suzanne Simard’s research showed that trees connect underground with the roots of other trees through an intricate network of fungi (the mycorrhizae), and their health and resilience depend on this complex web.

  In her book Finding the Mother Tree, Simard details the story of her research and threads into it her own life experiences, delving into her childhood, youth, family relationships, motherhood, and other relevant matters, like her cancer diagnosis and treatment.

 I appreciate how she was able to integrate so many subjects into a thought-provoking book, and I could empathize with her on every aspect of her journey.  

 “I have come full circle to stumble onto some of the indigenous ideals: Diversity matters. And everything in the universe is connected—between the forests and the prairies, the land and the water, the sky and the soil, the spirits and the living, the people and all other creatures.”

  

Suzanne Simard also focuses on the role of Mother trees. These are the oldest trees in a forest, and they are pivotal to the survival of young seedlings and various other trees, for they provide nourishment, making the forest strong and resilient. Mother trees are the foundation that underpins the integrity of a forest, and they are vital to the diversity of the woods.

  Simard reveals the power of her scientific observations by adding poetical reflections:

  “Imagine the flow of energy from the Mother Trees as powerful as the ocean tide, as strong as the sun’s rays, as irrepressible as the wind in the mountains, as unstoppable as a mother protecting her child. I knew that power in myself even before I’d uncovered these forest conversations. I’d felt it in the energy of the maple in my yard, flowing into me as I contemplated Dr. Malpass’s wisdom about embracing the mystery of life, sensing that magical emergent phenomena when we work together, the synergy that reductionist science so often misses, leading us to mistakenly simplify our societies and ecosystems.”

  After she survived her breast cancer treatment, she asked for some kind of reassurance to get on with her life, but all she encountered was the mystery of life, so she used her knowledge and passion for trees to create The Mother Tree Project. 

 “Our goal is to further develop an emergent philosophy: complexity science. Based on embracing collaboration in addition to competition—indeed, working with all the interactions that make up the forest—complexity science can transform forestry practices into what is adaptive and holistic and away from what has been overly authoritarian and simplistic.”

 Perhaps this book will confirm what your intuition perceives in your own interactions with trees and forests; or it may offer you a new window of contemplation, immersed in a deeper understanding of the trees, inviting you to cherish those moments of communion.

 “There is no moment too small in the world. Nothing should be lost. Everything has a purpose, and everything is in need of care. This is my creed. Let us embrace it. We can watch it rise.”

  Feel free to visit The Mother Tree Project:

https://mothertreeproject.org

 To keep marveling at the ways trees communicate, check this video by Suzanne Simard:

 

You may want to read my writing on Entangled Life if you haven't had a chance to read it yet:

https://juliahoneswritinglife.blogspot.com/2021/12/entangled-life.html