Heroes Not Zombies

First non-fiction read of the year. The Internet of Animals by Martin Wikelski. I loved this book. It opened my eyes to a whole world of scientific research I had no idea existed, and it’s expanded my vision of what’s possible into areas I hadn’t dreamed of.

There are three main themes to this book, and each of them is a total revelation. The first is the development of the methodologies and technologies to enable live tracking of all kinds of creatures, from giraffes to dragonflies wherever they are on the planet. Martin tells this story from the perspective of his personal experience which makes it both an engaging read, and, at times, even gives it the flavour of a thriller…hooking you in to wanting to know what they are going to do next. The second, is the way individual animals change their behaviour in relation to individual human beings. I already knew that certain birds, and even, bees, could recognise particular faces, and I had an experience here with a Redstart which got very agitated around me to let me know its chick had fallen down our chimney, and came down beside me, as if to say thank you, once I’d rescued the chick. But I had no idea that so many different species behaved differently according to the attitudes of the humans around them. The third, is about tapping in to the “wisdom of the crowds” in the animal world, and this third theme is really the core of the entire project. He gives many examples, from tagged giraffes and zebras, alerting wardens to the presence and exact location of poachers, to a better understanding of how various animals can predict earthquakes, tsunamis, and even the coming seasonal rainfall. He also describes much inter-species communication, which we haven’t really been aware of until now.

Martin gives a couple of imaginary “animal reports” in the future, where we humans can be alerted to changes in ecosystems and environments by the creatures which live there. In fact, he makes the excellent point that maybe instead of focusing on trying to find communications from potential extra-terrestrial beings, we’d be better served by learning how to interpret the communications from the other actual beings with whom we share this planet.

There’s a lot more to this book than I can summarise here. I highly recommend it. It’s really expanded my consciousness.