Carl Safina
Author of Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel
About the Author
Carl Safina is the vice president for Marine Conservation and founder of the Living Oceans Program at the National Audubon Society. He is also an adjunct professor at Yale. He lives in Islip, New York.
Works by Carl Safina
Song for the Blue Ocean: Encounters Along the World's Coasts and Beneath the Seas (1998) 229 copies, 5 reviews
Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace (2020) 222 copies, 14 reviews
Learning to Be Wild (A Young Reader's Adaptation): How Animals Achieve Peace, Create Beauty, and Raise Families (2023) 11 copies, 1 review
Threats to Wildlife and the Platte River (Environment Policy Analysis Department Report No. 33) 2 copies
Scorched Earth Fishing 1 copy
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1955
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Rutgers University (PhD)
- Occupations
- professor
- Organizations
- Stony Brook University
Safina Center - Awards and honors
- Lannan Literary Award (Nonfiction, 2000)
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- New York, New York, USA
- Places of residence
- Long Island, New York, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- New York, USA
Members
Reviews
When a baby eastern screech owl is found abandoned and alone, in very bad shape, ecologist and natural history writer Carl Safina, his wife Patricia and their three dogs take the avian orphan in and raise her. They worry that this new charge won't find her wings and take to flight, living the life she is meant to do, but eventually she does just that, returning to the wild but retaining the Safinas' back yard as her home base. Here she returns, with her new mate Plus-One, nesting and raising show more a trio of little owlets...
Published last year (2024), Owls in Our Yard!: The Story of Alfie is the children's version of Safina's adult memoir from 2023, Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe. It is the second book I have read from this writer, following upon his beautiful work of natural history for adult readers, Voyage of the Turtle: In Pursuit of the Earth's Last Dinosaur. Because I love that earlier book, and because I love both owls and rescue stories, I was fairly certain I would enjoy this one, and I was not wrong! The story itself is simply told and very engaging. Safina captures the important elements of Alphie's story, as well as his own reaction to and feelings for his strigine friend. Alfie's inspirational role during the period of Covid, as well as the saga of her first owlets, was very well told indeed. The accompanying photographs are lovely, and Alfie herself a beauty! Most of the photographs were taken by Safina, a few by his wife, while the interior illustrations were done by Tatsuro Kiuchi (credited only on the colophon). Highly recommended to young owl lovers, and to anyone who enjoys animal rescue stories. I will have to see about tracking down the adult version of this one. show less
Published last year (2024), Owls in Our Yard!: The Story of Alfie is the children's version of Safina's adult memoir from 2023, Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe. It is the second book I have read from this writer, following upon his beautiful work of natural history for adult readers, Voyage of the Turtle: In Pursuit of the Earth's Last Dinosaur. Because I love that earlier book, and because I love both owls and rescue stories, I was fairly certain I would enjoy this one, and I was not wrong! The story itself is simply told and very engaging. Safina captures the important elements of Alphie's story, as well as his own reaction to and feelings for his strigine friend. Alfie's inspirational role during the period of Covid, as well as the saga of her first owlets, was very well told indeed. The accompanying photographs are lovely, and Alfie herself a beauty! Most of the photographs were taken by Safina, a few by his wife, while the interior illustrations were done by Tatsuro Kiuchi (credited only on the colophon). Highly recommended to young owl lovers, and to anyone who enjoys animal rescue stories. I will have to see about tracking down the adult version of this one. show less
Safina falls strongly on the “continuity” side of discussions about the relationships between humans and other animals, especially “intelligent” animals. But while others, like Frans de Waal, call attention to the continuity between human and animal intelligence, Safina focuses on “culture.”
He relies on a relatively simple characterization of culture. “Behavior” is what an animal does, e.g., feeding, mating, hunting, . . . “Culture” is how it does it, especially where show more this “how” is something passed along from generation to generation in a community or family. Communities of sperm whales, one of the three species Safina discusses in detail, have particular ways of feeding, even particular ways of breathing (given the coordination needed among deep dives to feed, care-giving and protection for the young, and the need to surface in order to breathe). And, more famously, sperm whales have particular ways, through audible clicks and other sounds, to identify themselves as members of a group, a family, and as an individual. Instinct takes a sperm whale, or any other animal, only so far. in order to live successfully in the wild, an infant whale must learn the “culture” of his or her family and community — the norms of behavior that give each individual a chance to cope successfully with its environment and to coordinate successfully with others.
Safina casts that characterization in open-ended terms in order to allow for and group together the diversity of distinctively human cultures and the cultures he attributes to other animals. He means to avoid a bias, the idea that in order to have a culture at all, an animal must do human-like things — speaking, writing, building artifacts . . . . Animals like sperm whales (and macaws and chimpanzees, the other two species he discusses) may well do things like those human cultural activities, but his point is that anything they do is to be understood as an activity of their own distinctive cultures, not by its similarity to what humans do. Such things count as “culture” because they are the way a species does what it does and passes its ways along to its young, not because it is similar to what humans do.
The book is divided into three sections, each devoted to one of those three species — sperm whales, macaws, and chimpanzees. For each, Safina identifies a particular aspect of culture to organize his observations around.
For sperm whales, it is family. Sperm whales have strong family bonds, with families in turn bound to groups and then into larger clans. Young whales are taught by their mothers (fathers do not contribute directly to child-rearing) how to feed, hunt, mate, and, crucially, how to communicate with other members of its group and clan. The clicks we commonly associate with whales have distinctive patterns and rhythms, identifying individuals, groups, and clans.
Interestingly, whale clans do not interact. When whales hear a series of clicks identifying a whole or group with different clan membership, they ignore them. That exclusivity helps to introduce one of Safina’s more controversial claims, that cultural differences can grow into new branchings of distinct species.
One example that stuck with me was from another kind of whale, orcas. In the same waters of the Pacific Northwest, different orca groups have divided into ones that feed on fish and others that feed on sea mammals. Those differences are passed from generation to generation in hunting and feeding cultures. Over time, the orcas who hunt and feed on mammals have developed stronger jaws and teeth. Although not yet recognized as a separate species, the mammal-eaters have developed genetic differences from their fish-eating peers. Safina discusses other examples of cultural differentiation developing into new species branches — various fish and bird species.
The topic of species development arises during Safina’s discussion of macaws, with a focus on beauty. He wonders how to account for the beautiful plumage of macaws — what is the survival advantage of not only bright plumage but downright beautiful plumage?
Things get speculative there, but Safina defends the idea that “beauty” itself can be a factor operating in evolutionary selection (or filtering as he would prefer). Mate selection can certainly influence the evolution of traits. Darwin himself identified “sexual selection” as a complement to “natural selection.” Over generations, preferences that may have at one point conferred a survival advantage (e.g., robust antlers) can then become valued in mate selection regardless of survival advantages. It’s an open question whether such a development even needs to begin with survival advantage.
The third species, chimpanzees, take Safina to his third theme, “peace.” Chimpanzees, at least on the surface of things, are anything but peaceful. After all, they are our closest relatives. But, like us, chimpanzees have enough social intelligence to allow them to afford a volatile social environment. They have conflict, but they have ways of settling conflicts, albeit in many cases violently (at least among males). A successful alpha chimp is not just the strongest and the best fighter, he’s the best at maintaining the group, its hierarchical structure, its mating activities, its cooperative hunting and feeding activities, its community-level involvement in the rearing of infants, its defense against threats from other groups, and other activities.
Chimpanzees live a complex social life, and it can differ widely from group to group. Social intelligence, and the passing on of learned lessons from generation to generation, is the key to maintaining such a dynamic cultural environment.
Of course, as with de Waal, when Safina is talking about chimpanzees, he’s also talking about humans and human culture. This section is probably the most enlightening, if your interests run, like mine, toward learning about ourselves as we observe our biological relatives.
The more we discover we have in common with other animal species, the more continuity we discover between us and them. Here, throughout Safina’s book, it is our sharing of the role of “culture” at such a basic level that, as he says, humans aren’t born humans, they become humans through their absorption of culture. And he says the same of the three species he discusses. Sperm whales have to become sperm whales, a particular kind of sperm whales, through cultural development. There is no such thing as how sperm whales feed, mate, or even breathe — there are diverse ways, provided by the diverse cultures of sperm whales. As for humans.
Of course, the greater commonality and continuity we discover between ourselves and other species, the more we build the ground for empathy and fellow-feeling. Again, as with de Waal’s work, realizing how much we are like other animal species makes it more and more difficult to accept how we have come to treat them — as food, as research subjects, as pests, . . .
And that theme comes through as well. It is unsettling, but it’s something we’re going to have to deal with if we see ourselves and other species for what we and they are. show less
He relies on a relatively simple characterization of culture. “Behavior” is what an animal does, e.g., feeding, mating, hunting, . . . “Culture” is how it does it, especially where show more this “how” is something passed along from generation to generation in a community or family. Communities of sperm whales, one of the three species Safina discusses in detail, have particular ways of feeding, even particular ways of breathing (given the coordination needed among deep dives to feed, care-giving and protection for the young, and the need to surface in order to breathe). And, more famously, sperm whales have particular ways, through audible clicks and other sounds, to identify themselves as members of a group, a family, and as an individual. Instinct takes a sperm whale, or any other animal, only so far. in order to live successfully in the wild, an infant whale must learn the “culture” of his or her family and community — the norms of behavior that give each individual a chance to cope successfully with its environment and to coordinate successfully with others.
Safina casts that characterization in open-ended terms in order to allow for and group together the diversity of distinctively human cultures and the cultures he attributes to other animals. He means to avoid a bias, the idea that in order to have a culture at all, an animal must do human-like things — speaking, writing, building artifacts . . . . Animals like sperm whales (and macaws and chimpanzees, the other two species he discusses) may well do things like those human cultural activities, but his point is that anything they do is to be understood as an activity of their own distinctive cultures, not by its similarity to what humans do. Such things count as “culture” because they are the way a species does what it does and passes its ways along to its young, not because it is similar to what humans do.
The book is divided into three sections, each devoted to one of those three species — sperm whales, macaws, and chimpanzees. For each, Safina identifies a particular aspect of culture to organize his observations around.
For sperm whales, it is family. Sperm whales have strong family bonds, with families in turn bound to groups and then into larger clans. Young whales are taught by their mothers (fathers do not contribute directly to child-rearing) how to feed, hunt, mate, and, crucially, how to communicate with other members of its group and clan. The clicks we commonly associate with whales have distinctive patterns and rhythms, identifying individuals, groups, and clans.
Interestingly, whale clans do not interact. When whales hear a series of clicks identifying a whole or group with different clan membership, they ignore them. That exclusivity helps to introduce one of Safina’s more controversial claims, that cultural differences can grow into new branchings of distinct species.
One example that stuck with me was from another kind of whale, orcas. In the same waters of the Pacific Northwest, different orca groups have divided into ones that feed on fish and others that feed on sea mammals. Those differences are passed from generation to generation in hunting and feeding cultures. Over time, the orcas who hunt and feed on mammals have developed stronger jaws and teeth. Although not yet recognized as a separate species, the mammal-eaters have developed genetic differences from their fish-eating peers. Safina discusses other examples of cultural differentiation developing into new species branches — various fish and bird species.
The topic of species development arises during Safina’s discussion of macaws, with a focus on beauty. He wonders how to account for the beautiful plumage of macaws — what is the survival advantage of not only bright plumage but downright beautiful plumage?
Things get speculative there, but Safina defends the idea that “beauty” itself can be a factor operating in evolutionary selection (or filtering as he would prefer). Mate selection can certainly influence the evolution of traits. Darwin himself identified “sexual selection” as a complement to “natural selection.” Over generations, preferences that may have at one point conferred a survival advantage (e.g., robust antlers) can then become valued in mate selection regardless of survival advantages. It’s an open question whether such a development even needs to begin with survival advantage.
The third species, chimpanzees, take Safina to his third theme, “peace.” Chimpanzees, at least on the surface of things, are anything but peaceful. After all, they are our closest relatives. But, like us, chimpanzees have enough social intelligence to allow them to afford a volatile social environment. They have conflict, but they have ways of settling conflicts, albeit in many cases violently (at least among males). A successful alpha chimp is not just the strongest and the best fighter, he’s the best at maintaining the group, its hierarchical structure, its mating activities, its cooperative hunting and feeding activities, its community-level involvement in the rearing of infants, its defense against threats from other groups, and other activities.
Chimpanzees live a complex social life, and it can differ widely from group to group. Social intelligence, and the passing on of learned lessons from generation to generation, is the key to maintaining such a dynamic cultural environment.
Of course, as with de Waal, when Safina is talking about chimpanzees, he’s also talking about humans and human culture. This section is probably the most enlightening, if your interests run, like mine, toward learning about ourselves as we observe our biological relatives.
The more we discover we have in common with other animal species, the more continuity we discover between us and them. Here, throughout Safina’s book, it is our sharing of the role of “culture” at such a basic level that, as he says, humans aren’t born humans, they become humans through their absorption of culture. And he says the same of the three species he discusses. Sperm whales have to become sperm whales, a particular kind of sperm whales, through cultural development. There is no such thing as how sperm whales feed, mate, or even breathe — there are diverse ways, provided by the diverse cultures of sperm whales. As for humans.
Of course, the greater commonality and continuity we discover between ourselves and other species, the more we build the ground for empathy and fellow-feeling. Again, as with de Waal’s work, realizing how much we are like other animal species makes it more and more difficult to accept how we have come to treat them — as food, as research subjects, as pests, . . .
And that theme comes through as well. It is unsettling, but it’s something we’re going to have to deal with if we see ourselves and other species for what we and they are. show less
I got more than I had bargained for when I borrowed Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe from OverDrive. I read about it in (I think) the New York Times. This is not a typical human & wild animal love story, though there is that aspect to it. This is a dissection of all that is wrong with Western thought that has led us to the brink of ecological disaster. Carl Safina is a biologist, ecologist and a wildlife rehabilitator. This book is about one third olwy tidbits of goodness show more and two thirds pondering of philosophical thought through several millennia. I liked it, but, like I said, it was not what I was expecting.
Just going to share a few of my favorite passages.
I will definitely be looking into this author's other books. show less
Just going to share a few of my favorite passages.
Silent in flight, vocal by disposition, predatory by vocation, with the power to command impenetrable darknesses that humans seldom dare venture into, owls are a formidable presence.
I’ve seen many pets pass. It actually gets a little harder each time. Pets become family because in some ways they are a bit better than us. More peaceful, less manipulative, more forgiving, more eager to reconcile and smooth things over and move on. They show us how to be better than we are.
Francis of Assisi (1181–1226) is reputed to have said, “If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.”
For the messianic billionaires stroking their rockets, heaven is Mars.
Written in every rock and leaf and the lyrics of every bird’s song are invitations. If we accept, and attend, we see that billion-year histories are the thrust that sends each blade of grass, that dreamscapes whir within each traveling shadow.
I will definitely be looking into this author's other books. show less
"Magic is the simplicity of rightness" declares Carl Safina in this book devoted to the story of Dermochelys coriacea, the great Leatherback turtle, and nowhere is this more evident than in the book itself - an almost flawless blend of keen observation and heartfelt prose.
Survivors from the time of the dinosaurs, these giant sea turtles have been afloat for over 120 million years, only recently endangered by (what else?) human activity. Divided into two main sections, Voyage of the Turtle show more analyzes the current status of Leatherback communities in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, seeking to uncover the factors that have contributed to the very different condition of the two populations.
There is much here that will dishearten the reader, whether it is the wasteful nature of certain fishing practices, the seemingly endless capacity of government agencies to drag their feet when they should be more active, or the destruction caused by polution and overconsumption. But I was surprised and pleased to discover that this was by and large a hopeful book, focusing on the actions of the many scientists and activists who have made it their life's work to save these beautiful creatures.
It is also a marvelously well-written book, with many passages of striking beauty, in which Safina steps back and ponders the significance of the Leatherback - its connection to the environment, and to humanity:
"Turtles may seem to lack sense, but they don't do senseless things. They're not terribly energetic, yet they do not waste energy. Turtles don't have the intellect to form opinions about greed, oppression, superstition, or ideology, yet they don't inflict misery on themselves or other creatures. Turtles cannot consider what might happen, yet nothing turtles do threatens anyone's future. Turtles don't think about their next generation, but they risk and provide all they can to ensure that there will be one. Meanwhile, we profess to love our own offspring above all else, yet above all else it is they from whom we daily steal. We cannot learn to be more like turtles, but from turtles we could learn to be more human. That is the wisdom carried within one hundred million years of survival. What turtles could learn from us, I can't quite imagine."
I do not often read works of natural history, owing not to a lack of interest, but to the scarcity of available time. But I was so entranced by Safina's tale of these "ancient, ageless, great-grandparents of the world," who are like "a sudden remembrance of a world before memories," that I think I may have to make the time - starting with Safina's other titles. show less
Survivors from the time of the dinosaurs, these giant sea turtles have been afloat for over 120 million years, only recently endangered by (what else?) human activity. Divided into two main sections, Voyage of the Turtle show more analyzes the current status of Leatherback communities in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, seeking to uncover the factors that have contributed to the very different condition of the two populations.
There is much here that will dishearten the reader, whether it is the wasteful nature of certain fishing practices, the seemingly endless capacity of government agencies to drag their feet when they should be more active, or the destruction caused by polution and overconsumption. But I was surprised and pleased to discover that this was by and large a hopeful book, focusing on the actions of the many scientists and activists who have made it their life's work to save these beautiful creatures.
It is also a marvelously well-written book, with many passages of striking beauty, in which Safina steps back and ponders the significance of the Leatherback - its connection to the environment, and to humanity:
"Turtles may seem to lack sense, but they don't do senseless things. They're not terribly energetic, yet they do not waste energy. Turtles don't have the intellect to form opinions about greed, oppression, superstition, or ideology, yet they don't inflict misery on themselves or other creatures. Turtles cannot consider what might happen, yet nothing turtles do threatens anyone's future. Turtles don't think about their next generation, but they risk and provide all they can to ensure that there will be one. Meanwhile, we profess to love our own offspring above all else, yet above all else it is they from whom we daily steal. We cannot learn to be more like turtles, but from turtles we could learn to be more human. That is the wisdom carried within one hundred million years of survival. What turtles could learn from us, I can't quite imagine."
I do not often read works of natural history, owing not to a lack of interest, but to the scarcity of available time. But I was so entranced by Safina's tale of these "ancient, ageless, great-grandparents of the world," who are like "a sudden remembrance of a world before memories," that I think I may have to make the time - starting with Safina's other titles. show less
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