The Parrot's Lament: And Other True Tales of Animal Intrigue, Intelligence, and Ingenuity

A gorilla shrewdly sells back a missing key chain to the highest bidder. An orangutan picks a lock to let himself out of his zoo enclosure and two elephants adopt a tag-team strategy to keep their handlers from putting them back into theirs.

In The Parrot's Lament, noted environmentalist Eugene Linden offers more than one hundred true anecdotes about animal acts of cooperation, heroism, escape--even tales of deception or manipulation of human beings. Drawing on the first-person experiences of veterinarians, field biologists, researchers, and trainers, Linden has compiled a warmly entertaining and powerfully persuasive argument for animal consciousness that, while not human, far exceeds what humans usually grant animals.

Scientifically sound and emotionally compelling, The Parrot's Lament contains remarkable stories that are sure to resonate with animal lovers, turning skeptics everywhere into believers.

Author: Eugene Linden
Publisher: Plume Books
Published: 08/01/2000
Pages: 224
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.40lbs
Size: 8.01h x 5.35w x 0.53d
ISBN: 9780452280687

Review Citation(s):
New York Times 09/17/2000 pg. 40

About the Author
Eugene Linden is an award-winning journalist and the author of The Parrot's Lament, The Future in Plain Sight, Silent Partners, and other books on animals and the environment. He has consulted for the U.S. State Department, the UN Development Program, and he is a widely traveled speaker and lecturer. Yale University named Linden a Poynter Fellow in recognition of his writing on the environment. He lives in Nyack, New York, and Washington, D.C.