What are animals thinking and feeling?

This is the book upon which Carl Safina’s TED talk is based.

The main take-away from this book for me is the author’s argument that emotional trauma in elephants is identical—not just analogous—to emotional trauma in humans, because the brain structure and chemistry that facilitates emotional bonding and responds to trauma in both species is essentially identical. That idea prompted me to ask myself a question about why I feel differently about certain animals such as fish than others such as elephants, dolphins, or apes.

I believe this is the first book about killer whales (also called orcas). The author has worked with them in captivity and then, for most of his career, as free-living creatures in charge of their own lives. He has deep knowledge and insights, first-hand experience and broad historical perspective on humanity’s very mixed relationship with this astonishing being.

This is his latest book, due to come out in 2016.

After we better understand who we are here on Earth with—as exemplified in the books above—we need to know what we are doing to our co-voyagers. There are many books and many sites about conservation, as well as constant news stories. But for book form, this is a good summary of the main message. A good website about conservation news, by the way, is Mongabay.com.

In particular, the chapter "A Large-Brained Social Mammal"