Sign-In
Cart
Horn of Darkness: Rhinos on the Edge
Paperback
Series: Rhinos on the Edge
Please select the version of book you would like to purchase.
ISBN10: 0195138805
ISBN13: 9780195138801
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: Mar 16 2000
Pages: 272
Weight: 0.88
Height: 0.64 Width: 5.99 Depth: 9.08
Language: English
ISBN13: 9780195138801
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: Mar 16 2000
Pages: 272
Weight: 0.88
Height: 0.64 Width: 5.99 Depth: 9.08
Language: English
The black rhino is nature's tank, feared by all animals. Even lions will break off a hunt to detour around one. And yet the black rhino is on the edge of extinction, its numbers dwindling from 100,000 at the turn of the century, to less than 2,500 today. The reason is that in places like Yemen, China, Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand, the rhino's horn is more valuable than gold, so valuable that people will risk their lives to harvest it. To deter rhino poachers, African governments have spent millions--on helicopters, paramilitary operations, fences and guard dogs, even relocation to protected areas. Finally, Namibia decided to de-horn its rhino population, in a last ditch effort to stop the slaughter. In 1991, Carol Cunningham and Joel Berger, and their eighteen-month-old daughter Sonja, went to Namibia to weigh the effects of de-horning on rhinos. In Horn of Darkness, they tell the story of three years in the Namib Desert, studying Africa's last sizable population of free-roaming black rhinos.
This is the closest most readers will come to experiencing life in the remaining wilds of Africa. Cunningham and Berger, writing nate chapters, capture what it is like to leave the comforts of civilization, to camp for months at a time in a land filled with deadly predators, to study an animal that is reclusive, unpredictable, and highly dangerous. The authors describe staking out water holes in the dead of the night, creeping to within twenty-seven meters of rhinos to photograph them, all the while keeping a lookout for hyenas, elephants, and lions. They recount many heart-pounding escapes--one rhino forces Carol Cunningham up a tree, an unseen lion in hot pursuit of hyenas races right past a frozen Joel Berger--and capture the adrenaline rush of inching closer to a rhino that might flee--or charge--at any moment. They also give readers a clear sense of the careful, patient work involved in studying animals, the frustration of long days without finding rhinos or seeing other people, coping with heat and thirst (the Namib desert is one of the driest on Earth), with dirt and insects, driving hundreds of kilometers in a Land Rover packed to capacity, slowing amassing records on one hundred individual rhinos over the course of several years. And perhaps most important, the authors reveal that the data they collected suggests that the de-horning project might backfire--that in the four years after de-horning began, calf survival was down (the evidence suggests that hyenas might be preying on calves and the horn less mothers couldn't defend their offspring). They also describe the dark side of scientific work, from the petty jealousy of other scientists--outside researchers were often seen as ecological imperialists--to the controversy that erupted after the authors published their findings, as furious officials of the Namibian conservation program denounced their findings and through delays and other tactics effectively withheld a permit to allow the couple to continue their study.
Weaving together the historical accounts of other naturalists, a vividly detailed look at life in the wild, and a behind-the-scenes glimpse of scientific work and the dark side of the conservation movement, Horn of Darkness is destined to be a classic work on the natural world.
Weaving together the historical accounts of other naturalists, a vividly detailed look at life in the wild, and a behind-the-scenes glimpse of scientific work and the dark side of the conservation movement, Horn of Darkness is destined to be a classic work on the natural world.
Also in
Zoology
The Pig and I: The Tale of Our Relationship with a Beast We Eat
Endresen, Kristoffer Hattleland
Hardcover
From $10.99
National Audubon Society Pocket Guide to Familiar Birds: Eastern Region: Eastern
National Audubon Society
Paperback
$6.99
The Story of Birds: A New History from Their Dinosaur Origins to the Present
Brusatte, Steve
Hardcover
$31.50
The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration Into the Wonder of Consciousness
Montgomery, Sy
Paperback
From $11.99
Our Wild Familiars: How Animals Are Adapting to Cities and Reshaping the Natural World
Werb, Dan
Hardcover
$27.00
Hidden Creatures: Luscious Leeches, Bashful Botflies, and the Wondrous, History-Shaping World of Parasites
Martins, Dino
Hardcover
$27.00
National Geographic the Photo Ark: One Man's Quest to Document the World's Animals
Chadwick, Douglas H.
Sartore, Joel
Hardcover
$19.99
A Bird's IQ: Innovation, Intelligence, and Problem Solving in the Avian World
Lefebvre, Louis
Hardcover
$26.60
The Creatures' Guide to Caring: How Animal Parents Teach Us That Humans Were Born to Care
Preston, Elizabeth
Hardcover
$28.50
Romp!: A Journey Through the Natural History of Otters and Why They Matter
Island, Heide, PhD
Hardcover
$27.55
Wildlife Anatomy: The Curious Lives & Features of Wild Animals Around the World
Rothman, Julia
Paperback
$18.04
National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of the United States and Canada, 8th Edition
Floyd, Ted
Paperback
$31.34
Outsider Animals: How the Creatures at the Margins of Our Lives Have the Most to Teach Us
Zuk, Marlene
Hardcover
$26.96
Yellowstone Wildlife: A Folding Pocket Guide to Familiar Animals of the Yellowstone Area
Kavanagh, James
Other
$8.50
Lab Dog: A Beagle and His Human Investigate the Surprising World of Animal Research
Kaplan, Melanie D. G.
Hardcover
From $12.99
Adorable Animals (National Geographic Kids Readers, Level 2)
Quattlebaum, Mary
National Geographic Kids
Paperback
$5.69
A Horse's Life: The Neuroscience of Equine Welfare
McDonald, Crissi
Peters, Stephen
Rashid, Mark
Paperback
$23.74
What Sheep Think about the Weather: How to Listen to What Animals Are Trying to Say
Thomas, Amelia
Paperback
$16.19
Backyard Birds of North America: A Guide to Identifying and Attracting Your Favorite Birds
O'Sullivan, Daniel
Hardcover
$33.25
Gifts of the Crow: How Perception, Emotion, and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave Like Humans
Marzluff, John
Angell, Tony
Paperback
$18.99
Running with Sherman: How a Rescue Donkey Inspired a Rag-Tag Gang of Runners to Enter the Craziest Race in America
McDougall, Christopher
Paperback
$18.05
Animal Diaspora: Decoding Ice Age Mysteries to Reveal the Future of Migration
Struzik, Edward
Hardcover
$30.40
The National Parks Traveler's Companion: A Journal Featuring Bucket Lists, Writing Prompts, and Passport Stamp Logs
Federman, Rachel
Potter Gift
Paperback
$20.90
Tigers Between Empires: The Improbable Return of Great Cats to the Forests of Russia and China
Slaght, Jonathan C.
Hardcover
From $19.99
Elephants and Their Fossil Relatives: A 60 Million Year Journey
Larramendi, Asier
Ferretti, Marco P.
Hardcover
$37.95
The Elephant Whisperer: My Life with the Herd in the African Wild
Spence, Graham
Anthony, Lawrence
Paperback
$19.00
What the Chicken Knows: A New Appreciation of the World's Most Familiar Bird
Montgomery, Sy
Hardcover
From $12.99
A Year with the Seals: Unlocking the Secrets of the Sea's Most Charismatic and Controversial Creatures
Morris, Alix
Hardcover
$28.50
Crayfish, Crawfish, Crawdad: The Biology and Conservation of North America's Favorite Crustaceans
Graham, Zackary A.
Paperback
$26.60
The Last Animal: Human History and the Fate of Life on Earth from the Ice Age to the Sixth Extinction
Harper, Kyle
Hardcover
$35.96
East Africa Wildlife: A Folding Pocket Guide to Familiar Species in Kenya, Tanzania & Uganda
Kavanagh, James
Paperback
$8.50
Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence
Bridle, James
Paperback
From $11.99
The Secret Lives of Bats: My Adventures with the World's Most Misunderstood Mammals
Tuttle, Merlin
Paperback
$18.99
Common Native Bees of the Eastern United States: Your Way to Easily Identify Bees and Look-Alikes
Holm, Heather
Paperback
$9.45
The Secret Lives of Dinosaurs: Unearthing the Real Behaviors of Prehistoric Animals
Lomax, Dean R.
Nicholls, Robert
Hardcover
$37.00
The Julia Rothman Wild Collection: Ocean Anatomy, Wildlife Anatomy, Insect Anatomy
Rothman, Julia
Paperback
$54.15
National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of the United States and Canadaâ "West, 2nd Edition
Floyd, Ted
Paperback
$23.74
The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration Into the Wonder of Consciousness
Montgomery, Sy
Hardcover
$27.54
Pacific Coast Bird Finder: Identifying Common Birds Along the Pacific Coast
Lederer, Roger J.
Paperback
$7.55
The Handbook Of Nature Study in Color - Fish, Reptiles, Amphibians, Invertebrates
Comstock, Anna
Paperback
$21.24
The Bird Way: A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent, and Think
Ackerman, Jennifer
Paperback
$18.05
What the Bears Know: How I Found Truth and Magic in America's Most Misunderstood Creatures--A Memoir by Animal Planet's the Bear Whisperer
Searles, Steve
Erskine, Chris
Paperback
$18.95
Introduction to Animal and Veterinary Anatomy and Physiology
Cappello, Melanie
Aspinall, Victoria
Paperback
$52.50
Animal Tracks of the Northeast: Your Way to Easily Identify Animal Tracks
Poppele, Jonathan
Paperback
$9.45
Caterpillars of Eastern North America: A Guide to Identification and Natural History
Wagner, David L.
Paperback
$33.25
National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of the United States and Canada--East, 2nd Edition
Floyd, Ted
Paperback
$23.74
Amazon Animals (National Geographic Kids Readers, Level 3/Fact Reader): 100 Fun Facts about Snakes, Sloths, Spiders, and More
Davidson, Rose
National Geographic Kids
Paperback
$5.69
Cryptozoology A to Z: The Encyclopedia of Loch Monsters Sasquatch Chupacabras and Other Authentic M
Clark, Jerome
Coleman, Loren
Paperback
$20.90
Wildlife of the Pacific Northwest: Tracking and Identifying Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, Amphibians, and Invertebrates
Moskowitz, David
Paperback
$28.49