Books

Animal Underworld: Inside America’s Black Market for Rare and Exotic Species

by Alan Green

Ever wonder where your neighbor got her pet monkey? Chances are, she bought that monkey from a dealer, who very likely got the parents of that monkey from an AZA-accredited zoo—maybe even the zoo in your town! Animal Underworld takes the closest and hardest look ever at the sleazy world of animals dumped by zoos and research laboratories into the burgeoning exotic animal market. Green painstakingly documents the movements of hundreds of animals, from zoo exhibit to butcher block, canned hunt and backyard. If you care about animals, or wonder what you’re supporting when you buy a ticket to the zoo, this book is a “must read.” -Rachel Weiss

Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals

by Steven M. Wise

Steven Wise, an animal rights lawyer and Harvard law professor, demands legal rights and legal personhood for chimpanzees and bonobos. Wise intends Rattling The Cage to be a guide for judges and lawyers as well as those personally concerned or merely interested in the issue. He provides twelve chapters of history on the issue of humans, nonhumans, thinghood and the law; insight into the mind of the human as well as the chimp; and discussion about the future of the “legal wall” erected between humans and all other animals. This book is readable and comprehensive. It answers every question you have regarding how and why nonhuman animals should and can become “persons” under American law. Jane Goodall wrote the introduction. It’s dedicated to Jerom Chimpanzee, who died of AIDS in 1996 and with whom I worked during the time of his illness. AND it’s an important book—one that will open eyes, plant ideas and change opinions. -Rachel Weiss

The New Work of Dogs: Tending to Life, Love, and Family

by Jon Katz

The New Work of Dogs profiles a dozen human-dog relationships in the author’s hometown. Through his encounters with various dog owners, author Jon Katz recognized that many pet dogs are being treated as surrogates for human relationships. He surmised that in our increasingly fragmented society of long commutes, spread out families, divorce, isolation and overwork more people are turning to animals for much-needed emotional support. While many of these relationships are healthy and mutually beneficial, Katz noticed that an increasing number are having negative consequences on the dogs, who often become stressed and neurotic when humans’ expectations exceed or contradict their innate abilities.

At the PRC we see identical motives for purchasing primates, and similar negative outcomes for the animals. People mistakenly perceive nonhuman primates as children who will never grow up—a permanent source of unconditional love, one they can control. Such owners feel especially confused and betrayed when the primate inevitably attacks them later on. Unlike dogs, which have been evolving for millennia to be compatible human companions, primates are still wild animals and nearly all attempts to keep them as pets fail. Sadly, we see the results of these failed relationships every day.

I strongly recommend this book for anyone interested in psychology, sociology or animal welfare. Katz skillfully combines engaging anecdotes with the observations and research of breeders, veterinarians, rescuers, trainers and psychologists to create a compelling look at our evolving expectations of our pets and the impact this has on their behavior and well-being. By xtension, the question as to why humans are increasingly seeking deep emotional support from nonhuman animals points to some of modern society's most disturbing trends—trends that need to be addressed for the sake of human and nonhuman animals alike. -Jen Caravello

Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey

by Jane Goodall

As a young woman, Jane Goodall was best known for her groundbreaking fieldwork with the chimpanzees of Gombe, Africa. Goodall’s work has always been controversial, mostly because she broke the mold of research scientist by developing meaningful relationships with her “specimens” and honoring their lives as she would other humans.

Now at the age of 60, she continues to break the mold of scientist by revealing how her research and worldwide conservation institutes spring from her childhood callings and adult spiritual convictions. Reason for Hope is a smoothly written memoir that does not shy away from facing the realities of environmental destruction, animal abuse, and genocide. But Goodall shares her antidote to the poison of despair with specific examples of why she has not lost faith. For instance, she shares her spiritual epiphany during a visit to Auschwitz; her bravery in the face of chimpanzee imprisonment in medical laboratories; and devotes a whole chapter to individuals, corporations, and countries that are doing the right thing. But most of all Goodall provides a beautifully written plea for why everyone can and must find a reason for hope. -Gail Hudson

Making Kind Choices: Everyday Ways to Enhance Your Life Through Earth- and Animal-Friendly Living

by Ingrid Newkirk

Karen Armstrong, major scholar of religions, recently commented that the one factor uniting all traditional religions is compassion. From this perspective, Ingrid Newkirk, President of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, has written a religious book, one that extends compassion, quite naturally, to nonhuman animals.

This book, however, is not a theoretical treatment about why we should treat animals compassionately. Rather, it is a How-To book of impressive dimensions and almost disconcerting concreteness and variety. In brief, readable chapters she scouts an immense amount of territory. Is your interest tweaked by elephants or whales? Read about the elephant Jenny’s journey from her Sumatra home, through the tortures of circus life, to her current happy existence at the Elephant Sanctuary. Other chapters cover making a will, dealing with breast cancer, and cooking for Passover or Thanksgiving.

Quite helpful chapters treat creating animal-compassionate spaces, choosing cosmetics, clothing, shoes, coffee. Interested in vegetarian recipies? Got ’em. Seeking an animal-compassionate getaway? This is your book. Want to start a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle? Go no further. Not only does each chapter outline clearly what to do, whom to contact, or what the issues are, but the ensuing Resources section points you to a wealth of other books, websites, and videos to appreciate.

The general consumer who might not normally be found scanning a PETA website but who understands compassion will want this volume. Few will read it starting from one chapter and moving serially through to the end, but most will be drawn to read on beyond their interests, finding something fresh and stirring in every section. -Dr. Jack Furlong

Primates in Question: The Smithsonian Answer Book

by Robert W. Shumaker & Benjamin Beck, Photos by Gerry Ellis

Primates in Question was developed in response to the thousands of calls and letters the Smithsonian Institute receives regarding the group of animals comprised of humans, apes, monkeys and prosimians. Written by two leading primate experts from the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, the book answers nearly 100 questions ranging from the broadest and simplest: “What are primates?” to more complex inquiries that ferret out the differences and similarities of the 200+ species that make up this fascinating group of animals. Some of the most fascinating sections emerge from questions regarding social behavior and intelligence. Primates’ complex thinking and socializing abilities have been the subject of both rigorous scientific study and pop-culture mythology. The authors do an excellent job of dispelling some common myths surrounding grooming, pet ownership, language abilities and emotions, to name but a few topics. Additionally, the authors have included an extensive discussion about primate conservation and resources for individual involvement.

Primates In Question is a must for anyone with an interest in primates. Whether you have a casual curiosity, or a professional need for such information, this book answers the most commonly asked primate-related questions clearly and concisely – and is accompanied by fantastic pictures and a comprehensive reference list! I can say with certainty that our organization will be regularly referencing Primates In Question, both to refresh our own knowledge and to better share our love of primates with others. -Jen Caravello

What Animals Want: Expertise and Advocacy in Laboratory Animal Welfare Policy

by Larry Carbone

Consider animal experimentation from the point of view of veterinarians, dedicated to the health and welfare of nonhuman animals every bit as much as physicians are to human health and welfare. A veterinarian with animal protectionist tendencies working in a research laboratory in which animals live for the sake of being experimented upon and perhaps are ultimately “sacrificed”—isn’t this situation at least intolerable and at worst desperate? What happens to veterinarians when their professional commitment to animal care runs headlong into their fellow biomedical researchers professional commitment to animal use?

Carbone, a laboratory animal veterinarian for two decades, asks a fresh and crucial question about that professional train wreck: who knows best about what animals think and feel? He addresses this question in all of its complexity, involving the tangled history of policy development attempting to protect animals, research in animal cognition and emotions, styles of political advocacy and defense on both sides of animal rights controversies. “…though most of the scientists I know are decent, bright, caring people,” Carbone states early-on, “they can lose their focus on animal welfare as they perform their experiments, or sometimes just don’t know enough about animals to assure their welfare.” Though he states that he cannot call for an abolition to animal research, he also asserts at the end of his study that “Someday, animal experimentation will come to an end. I would like to live to see that day.”

If you have ever wanted to acquire a well-informed and responsible position on animal experimentation, I can think of no better book to crack than Carbone’s balanced, passionate, and well-reasoned What Animals Want. Just don’t expect easy answers. -Dr. Jack Furlong

The Monkey Wars

by Deborah Blum

Scientists who use monkeys and other animals in biomedical research face mounting opposition from animal-rights advocates. Basing this detailed report largely on interviews, Blum, a journalist at the Sacramento Bee in California who won a 1992 Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles that inspired this middle-of-the-road book, accuses both sides of caricaturing their opponents as fanatics. Striving for evenhandedness, she seeks compromise and negotiation, perhaps best exemplified by Jan Moor-Jankowski. Director of the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Sterling Forest, N.Y., Moor-Jankowski listens to animal-rights activists and incorporates some of their criticisms into his methodology. We also meet Christine Stevens of the Washington, D.C.-based Animal Welfare Institute; outspoken Alex Pacheco of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals; and Peter Gerone, crusader for animal research and director of Tulane's Primate Research Center. Blum credits the animal-rights movement with holding researchers to a standard of compassion and changing the way scientists think about the use of animals. -Publisher’s Weekley