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Book

Secrets of the Savanna : twenty-three years in the African wilderness unraveling the mysteries of elephants and people

Call Number

  • 599.674 O977 (CEN)

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Publication Information

Boston : Houghton Mifflin Company, [2006]

Physical Description

xxiii, 230 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : color illustrations, maps ; 22 cm

Summary

When Mark and Delia Owens settled in Zambia, they found elephants and other wildlife decimated by poachers; the local villagers, who depended on the wildlife, were driven to desperate acts--including poaching themselves. To save people and animals, the Owenses started a microlending program that lifted the villagers out of poverty. But older elephants had been slaughtered, taking with them knowledge that had been passed along for generations. Left behind was social chaos--single moms, solitary orphans, rowdy gangs of young males--and a scientific mystery: how could there be so many babies and so few females old enough to be mothers? An orphan eventually provided the clue to a remarkable discovery. Meanwhile, the poachers shifted their sights from the elephants to the Owenses, finally driving them out of the country. After two decades in Africa, Mark and Delia returned to America to find social changes frighteningly similar to what they had seen among the elephants of Zambia.

Contents

  • Foreword / Prologue
  • Authors' note
  • Maps
  • North Luangwa National Park
  • Mpika District
  • 1. Gift
  • 2. Poacher cum Miller
  • 3. Upside-down elephants
  • 4. The song of the winterthorn
  • 5. Grandpa
  • 6. Any time from now
  • 7. Gullywhumper
  • 8. No school for Gift
  • 9. The women of Katibunga
  • 10. My troop
  • 11. Mountain elephants
  • 12. The commerce of understanding
  • 13. The Kakule club
  • 14. Too much sugar
  • 15. Chipundu pride
  • 16. A present from Gift
  • 17. A dangerous dinner
  • 18. Wildlife drama
  • 19. When I close my eyes I see elephants
  • 20. A dance with Survivor
  • 21. Grass huts and leopard stumps
  • 22. Camp Arrest
  • 23. Adrift
  • 24. The stones of my stream
  • Epilogue
  • Appendix : The North Luangwa Conservation Project
  • Suggested reading
  • Acknowledgments
  • Index.

Subjects

Added Authors

Delia Owens