Into Africa
by Craig Packer
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Craig Packer takes us into Africa for a journey of fifty-two days in the fall of 1991. But this is more than a tour of magnificent animals in an exotic, faraway place. A field biologist since 1972, Packer began his work studying primates at Gombe and then the lions of the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater with his wife and colleague Anne Pusey. Here, he introduces us to the real world of fieldwork--initiating assistants to lion research in the Serengeti, helping a doctoral student collect show more data, collaborating with Jane Goodall on primate research. As in the works of George Schaller and Cynthia Moss, Packer transports us to life in the field. He is addicted to this land--to the beauty of a male lion striding across the Serengeti plains, to the calls of a baboon troop through the rain forests of Gombe--and to understanding the animals that inhabit it. Through his vivid narration, we feel the dust and the bumps of the Arusha Road, smell the rosemary in the air at lunchtime on a Serengeti verandah, and hear the lyrics of the Grateful Dead playing off bootlegged tapes. Into Africa also explores the social lives of the animals and the threats to their survival. Packer grapples with questions he has passionately tried to answer for more than two decades. Why do female lions raise their young in crèches? Why do male baboons move from troop to troop while male chimps band together? How can humans and animals continue to coexist in a world of diminishing resources? Immediate demands--logistical nightmares, political upheavals, physical exhaustion--yield to the larger inescapable issues of the interdependence of the land, the animals, and the people who inhabit it. show lessTags
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4 Works 58 Members
Craig Packer is a Distinguished McNight University Professor of ecology, evolution, and behavior at the University of Minnesota. He attended the University of Sussex in England, where he earned his Ph.D. Packer has served as director of the National Science Foundation's Serengeti Lion Project. Packer's early expertise as a student researcher with show more Jane Goodall's chimpanzees, as well as his own studies of lions in the Serengeti prepared him for the writing of his novel, Into Africa, as well as several articles included in Scientific American, American Naturalist, and Science. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Awards and Honors
Awards
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1994
- People/Characters
- Packer, Craig
- First words
- In spite of myself, my heart is racing toward Africa.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Look through the eyes of another species and perhaps the occasional good we do will stand out from the constant stream of wreckage.
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- Members
- 44
- Popularity
- 673,729
- Rating
- (4.00)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
- ASINs
- 1
