Immagine dell'autore.

George B. Schaller

Autore di The Year of the Gorilla

32+ opere 657 membri 9 recensioni

Sull'Autore

Zoologist George B. Schaller was born in 1933. He is the science director of international programs for the New York Zoological Society's Center for Field Biology and Conservation. After studying wildlife in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, Schaller wrote The Serengeti Lion: A Study of mostra altro Predator-Prey Relations, which won the 1972 National Book Award. After studying the panda in China, Schaller wrote The Last Panda, a book detailing his discoveries. (Bowker Author Biography) mostra meno
Fonte dell'immagine: Beijing Zoo lecture, Aug. 10, 2005 (photo credit: Smartneddy, Wikipedia user)

Opere di George B. Schaller

The Year of the Gorilla (1964) 114 copie
The Last Panda (1993) 110 copie

Opere correlate

American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau (2008) — Collaboratore — 414 copie
Ants, Indians, and little dinosaurs (1975) — Collaboratore — 191 copie
Our World's Heritage (1987) 94 copie
The Great Apes: Between Two Worlds (1993) — Collaboratore — 36 copie
National Geographic Magazine 1986 v169 #3 March (1986) — Contributor & Photographer — 20 copie
Cricket Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 1, September 1974 (1974) — Collaboratore — 7 copie
Cricket Magazine, Vol. 5, No. 12, August 1978 (1978) — Collaboratore — 1 copia

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A much better read than The Serengeti Lion, this book details what the field work was like on a personal level. Schaller describes the difficulties he encountered, from getting vehicles stuck in ruts, to loosing track of animals (radio-tracking was in its infancy). One chapter is about how his family handled living in the bush and their various wild pets (at different times, a warthog, mongoose and lion cub). There’s a chapter about dealing with poachers and examining the significance of that problem, listing man right up there alongside the prominent predators. I enjoyed greatly the chapters on wild hunting dogs, cheetah and leopards, but of course it is mostly about lion prides. It has all the same information as The Serengeti Lion (some of the sentences repeated word-for-word) but with far fewer statistics and more inclusion of personal descriptions and interesting incidents. Especially Schaller’s own feelings and perceptions about the work, the animals’ individualities, and the landscape around him. It’s very palpable through his words how much the author loved the land and admired the animals he studied. Very interesting is a final chapter where he and a companion roamed the landscape to see how many opportunities they would have of scavenging food or finding weak prey they could easily tackle- once he laid hands on a sick zebra foal, another on a blind giraffe calf- in order to estimate how well primitive hominids could have lived in the area. I don’t know how well his assumptions stand up to
modern anthropology, though... I highly recommend this book over the prior one. It’s just the kind of work a casual reader like myself can appreciate, enjoy and learn from.

more at the Dogear Diary
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
jeane | Feb 19, 2022 |
A very early work from research on African lions, conducted by the author over a three-year period. At the time very little was known about lions- only a few people had studied them. Schaller's intent was to find out what impact lions had on various prey species, and since the lives and habits of all the animals in the area are so interconnected, he included other predators in his study too. Mostly of course, it is about the lions- how they used the land, pride dynamics, hunting methods, how often they hunted and how much they ate (compared to how much other animals stole or what the lions abandoned), mortality rate of different age groups, numbers of prey animals killed per species, age group, location, time of year, etc. There's lots of numbers, percentages and charts which makes it valuable scientific data but rather dry reading. More interesting for me are the details about the lion's lives. I had no idea, for example, that the pride structure was so fluid- males being replaced every three to six years, young often moving out, large numbers of nomads, mating between residents and nomads, etc. I'm surprised at how indifferent the lionesses seemed towards their own cubs- when food was scarce the lioness would eat herself and leave the cubs to starve- and they were also not actively protected much it sounds. Curious to the reason, but Schaller had no insight. (In contrast, wild dogs would carry food to their young, and let them eat first at a carcass). Sounds like the cubs had an advantage in another way though- they would often nurse from other females in the pride, not just their own mother. And here's an unimportant but very odd detail which surprised me- did you know some lions have a horny nail protruding from the end of their tail? Like a manticore spike, hidden in the tuft of fur there. I'd never heard of this before!

The book also looks at the different prey species- how they react to lions, how their numbers are impacted by predation, what animals in the population are most vulnerable, etc. Also details on the main predators that live in the same area as lions- cheetah, hyenas, wild dogs, jackals, vultures, leopards and man. Interesting to note that lions don't seem to choose the weakest or sick prey, whereas wild dogs and cheetah apparently do. Schaller's final conclusion was that lions are an important part of the system in keeping prey numbers in check (even though they don't necessarily eat the sick ones) and should be protected. At the time, predators were wantonly killed for all kinds of reasons- wild dogs and hyenas just because people thought their feeding methods and habits were distasteful, lions for trophies or to protect livestock- so I believe his research helped a lot to provide a true picture of how important the lion's place is in the ecosystem.

from the Dogear Diary
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
jeane | Feb 16, 2022 |
I'd never heard of Schaller before but wanted to read it because it concern the same 1970s trip Peter Matthiessen was on when he wrote The Snow Leopard. Apparently Schaller was at the time considered the world's premier field biologist. On this trip he was scouting for regions in Pakistan, Nepal and Tibet that governments might set aside for parks. He was searching for large mammals and finding most of the Himalayas had been decimated by hunters and farmers. It was mostly empty except for local stories of the abundance of what once existed. The writing is evocative but episodic, nothing like the quality of Matthiessen. Schaller writes like a mere mortal, cribbing events from his daily journal giving equal space to everything boring or not. But it is readable and occasionally fascinating.… (altro)
½
 
Segnalato
Stbalbach | Nov 24, 2019 |
A "walk in the woods" science but quite entertaining because of it.
 
Segnalato
Firewild | 1 altra recensione | Jan 3, 2019 |

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Opere
32
Opere correlate
8
Utenti
657
Popolarità
#38,400
Voto
3.9
Recensioni
9
ISBN
71
Lingue
4

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