My Serengeti Years: The Memoirs of an African Games Warden

Circle of Life in East Africa Documented in Stunning Photographs.......2006-08-29

But it is only a coffee-table book, and there it will remain, because pictures is all it is. You get no sense of place; it is impossible to orient yourself ... a nice picture of an elephant is just that, and this book provides no context whatever.

The Serengeti Lion won the National Book Award in 1973.

"This is an important book, not just for its valuable information on lions, but for its broad, open,and intelligent approach to problems that cut across the fields of behavior, populations, ecology, wildlife management,evolution, anthropology, and comparative biology. "—Richard G. Van Gelder,Bioscience

Cheetahs of the Serengeti Plains is the most comprehensive account of carnivore social behavior to date. Synthesizing more than a decade of research in the wild, this book offers a detailed account of the behavior and ecology of cheetahs. Compared with other large cats, and other mammals, cheetahs have an unusual breeding system; whereas lions live in prides and tigers are solitary, some cheetahs live in groups while others live by themselves. Tim Caro explores group and solitary living among cheetahs and discovers that the causes of social behavior vary dramatically, even within a single species.

Why do cheetah cubs stay with their mother for a full year after weaning? Why do adolescents remain in groups? Why do adult males live in permanent associations with each other? Why do adult females live alone? Through observations on the costs and benefits of group living, Caro offers new insight into the complex behavior of this extraordinary species. For example, contrary to common belief about cooperative hunting in large carnivores, he shows that neither adolescents nor adult males benefit from hunting in groups.

With many surprising findings, and through comparisons with other cat species, Caro enriches our understanding of the evolution of social behavior and offers new perspectives on conservation efforts to save this charismatic and endangered carnivore.

Photographer Carlo Mari has followed these animals for ten years and watched them stampeding relentlessly from one horizon to another in vast unbroken columns. His photographs portray the dynamism and courage of the herds, their rhythms, their conquest of new spaces, and their struggle to live and perpetuate themselves. Set within the context of the whole of African wildlife, these images, accompanied by Harvey Croze's authoritative text, stretch beyond the migration itself and provide a glimpse into a journey without end, a perpetual circle of passage. A safari through the pages of this memorable book is the next best thing to being there.

Jonathan and Angie achieve an intimacy with their subjects that is born of infinite patience and insatiable fascination with the lives of the animals and the people. This book is a tribute to their accomplishments and a lasting record of a land that is truly A Photographer's Paradise. For wildlife lovers, photography buffs, and those interested in Africa.

The animal photographs are mostly grouped by subject and include lions, leopards, zebras, wart hogs, impalas, cheetahs, wildebeest, hyenas, crocodiles, vultures, and wild dogs. The subjects are usually of animal families, migration, killing, and eating in often symbolic settings for these activities. The Masai images come at the book's end, sort of completing the evolutionary progression of the food chain.

You probably have heard of the Serengeti. It's a vast grassland in Tanzania, and is now protected as the Serengeti National Park there. The Masai Mara National Reserve is in neighboring Kenya, and the two lands are connected geographically, if not politically. A map in the book will display all of this for you. This site is the area where humans probably first walked the face of the Earth, and the dwindling of these remarkable spaces marks the potential for us to lose our ability to visualize our roots.

The name, Serengeti, in Masai means "land of endless space." The closest we have to this habitat in the United States that I have seen is the brief enclosure in the wild animal park that the San Diego zoo maintains near Escondido, California.

The action photographs impressed me the most. These show predators literally flying and spinning in the air just before they land while the terrorized prey wheels desperately away. The action is captured almost like a key play in a sporting event. That's pretty typical of the photography here. The images emphasize action and perspectives that you do not yet have, and this book will add wonderfully to your sense of the special nature of the grasslands of Africa.

After you have finished expanding your vision of natural selection, I suggest that you think about the ways that our lives are enhanced by understanding our origins and how our lives are not. How can we draw inspiration from nature and stand in our most meaningful role?