Caitlin O'Connell

Wild Rituals explores how embracing the rituals of the animal kingdom can make us more connected to ourselves, nature, and others. Behavioral ecologist and world-renowned elephant scientist Caitlin O'Connell dives into the rituals of elephants, apes, zebras, rhinos, lions, whales, flamingos, and many more. This fascinating read helps us better understand how we are similar to wild animals, and encourages us to find healing, self-awareness, community, and self-reinvention. Filled with fascinating stories on 10 different animal rituals Features original full-color photos, from the Caribbean to the African savannah Demonstrates the profound way we are similar to the wild creatures who captivate usWild Rituals journeys into the desert, tundra, and rainforest to reveal the importance of rituals and how they can help us find a simpler, more meaningful way of living. In a culture of technology where we find ourselves living at a greater distance from nature and each other, this remarkable book taps into the unspoken languages of creatures around the world. Caitlin O'Connell is a Harvard assistant professor and award-winning author who spent more than 30 years studying animals in the wild. Makes a great gift for anyone curious about nature, animals, and how humans compare to and interact with both Add it to the shelf with books like Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel by Carl Safina; Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal; The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion—Surprising Observations of a Hidden World by Peter Wohlleben; and The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery.

Hear crisp sounds of the hornbill in the cool air. Listen to the morning symphony that greets you as you enter the front gate. Then, step onto a leafy path that leads to a secret world of animals, each of whom you won't want to forget, here at Zoo Atlanta. Over five days we meet a menagerie of magnificent animals--pandas, elephants, gorillas, meerkats, flamingos and more--alongside the longtime animal lover, scientist, and researcher Caitlin O'Connell. With inside access to the guidance and knowledge of their beloved zoo caretakers and with stunning photographs, we are able to see the day-to-day marvels--and sometimes misfortunes--behind the animals' enclosures that often go unseen by the everyday zoo visitor. In this example of narrative nonfiction at its best, O'Connell has created a bridge to wild, a rare chance to look beyond the zoo and to inspire guests to see for themselves just how special the animals we share our world with are.

Meet Greg. He’s a stocky guy with an outsized swagger. He’s been the intimidating yet sociable don of his posse of friends—including Abe, Keith, Mike, Kevin, Torn Trunk, and Willie. But one arid summer the tide begins to shift and the third-ranking Kevin starts to get ambitious, seeking a higher position within this social club. But this is no ordinary tale of gangland betrayal—Greg and his entourage are bull elephants in Etosha National Park, Namibia, where, for the last twenty-three years, Caitlin O’Connell has been a keen observer of their complicated friendships. In Elephant Don, O’Connell, one of the leading experts on elephant communication and social behavior, offers a rare inside look at the social world of African male elephants. Elephant Don tracks Greg and his group of bulls as O’Connell tries to understand the vicissitudes of male friendship, power struggles, and play. A frequently heart-wrenching portrayal of commitment, loyalty, and affection between individuals yearning for companionship, it vividly captures an incredible repertoire of elephant behavior and communication. Greg, O’Connell shows, is sometimes a tyrant and other times a benevolent dictator as he attempts to hold onto his position at the top. Though Elephant Don is Greg’s story, it is also the story of O’Connell and the challenges and triumphs of field research in environs more hospitable to lions and snakes than scientists. Readers will be drawn into dramatic tales of an elephant society at once exotic and surprisingly familiar, as O’Connell’s decades of close research reveal extraordinary discoveries about a male society not wholly unlike our own. Surely we’ve all known a Greg or two, and through this book we may come to know them in a whole new light.

In the sprawling African scrub desert of Etosha National Park in Namibia, they call her "the mother of all elephants." Holding binoculars closely to her eyes, American scientist Caitlin O'Connell could not believe what she was seeing from these African elephants: as the mighty matriarch scanned the horizon, the other elephants followed suit, stopped midstride, and stood as still as statues. This observation would guide the scientist to a ground-breaking discovery about elephant communication: elephants actually listen with their limbs.

Meet Greg. He's a stocky guy with an outsized swagger. He's been the intimidating, yet sociable don of his posse of friends - including Abe, Keith, Mike, Kevin, and Freddie Fredericks - but one arid summer the tide begins to shift and the third-ranking Kevin starts to get ambitious and seeks a higher position within this social club. But this is no ordinary tale of gangland betrayal - Greg and his entourage are bull elephants in Etosha National Park, Namibia, where, for the last twenty years, Caitlin O'Connell has been a keen observer of their complicated friendships. In Elephant Don, O'Connell, one of the leading experts on elephant communication and social behavior, takes us inside the little-known world of African male elephants, a world that is steeped in ritual, where bonds are maintained by unexpected tenderness punctuated by violence. Elephant Don tracks Greg and his group of bulls as O'Connell tries to understand the vicissitudes of male friendship, power struggles, and play. A frequently heart-wrenching portrayal of commitment, loyalty, and affection between individuals yearning for companionship, it vividly captures the incredible repertoire of elephant behavior and communication. Greg, O'Connell shows, is sometimes a tyrant and other times a benevolent dictator as he attempts to hold on to his position at the top. Though Elephant Don is Greg's story, it is also the story of O'Connell and the challenges and triumphs of field research in environs more hospitable to lions and snakes than scientists. Readers will be drawn into dramatic tales of an elephant society at once exotic and surprisingly familiar, as O'Connell's decades of close research reveal extraordinary discoveries about a male society not wholly unlike our own. Surely we've all known a Greg or two, and through this book we may come to know them in a whole new light.

Naturalist Caitlin O’Connell tells the fascinating story of her discovery of a previously unknown mode of elephant communication. One day, while observing elephants in the wild, O’Connell saw the matriarch suddenly turn, flatten her ears, and lift a leg off the ground. Several others followed suit, and soon another elephant appeared. Could elephants feel vibrations through the ground, literally ‘listening’ with their feet? Like 'Gorillas in the Mist', The Elephant’s Secret Sense is O’Connell’s unforgettable account of her relationship with the animals she studied for fourteen years in the Namibian wilderness - a poverty-stricken land threatened by expanding human populations and unstable politics. This is an enthralling story about the resilience of nature and the inspiring, astonishing, and often heartbreaking places where humans and wild animals come together.

While observing a family of elephants in the wild, Caitlin O'Connell noticed a peculiar listening behavior in which the matriarch lifted her foot and scanned the horizon, causing the other elephants to follow suit, as if they could 'hear' the ground. "The Elephant's Secret Sense" is O'Connell's account of her path-breaking research into seismic listening and communication, chronicling the extraordinary social lives of elephants over the course of fourteen years in the Namibian wilderness. This odyssey of scientific discovery is also a frank account of fieldwork in a poverty-stricken, war-ravaged country. In her attempts to study an elephant community, O'Connell encounters corrupt bureaucrats, deadly lions and rhinos, poachers, farmers fighting for arable land, and profoundly ineffective approaches to wildlife conservation. "The Elephant's Secret Sense" is ultimately a story of intellectual courage in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles.