Mousy Cats And Sheepish Coyotes

A wildlife expert explores what science tells us about animals as unique individuals and why animal personality matters for the human-animal bond and for adaptation in nature. Why are some cats cuddly and others standoffish? Why are some dogs adventuresome, others homebodies? As any pet owner can attest, we feel that the animals we’ve formed bonds with are unique, as particular (and peculiar) as any human friend or loved one. Recent years have brought an increased understanding of animal intelligence and emotion. But is there a scientific basis for animal personality and individuality, or is this notion purely sentimental? It turns out that science has been reluctant to even broach the subject of individuality until recently. But now, a fundamental shift in scientific understanding is underway, as mainstream scientists begin to accept the idea that animals of all kinds—from beloved beasts like apes and birds to decidedly less cuddly creatures like crabs and spiders—do indeed have individual personalities. In Mousy Cats and Sheepish Coyotes, veteran wildlife expert Dr. John A. Shivik brings us stories from the front lines of this exciting new discipline. Drawing on his scientific training, as well as his storytelling gifts, Shivik serves as an accessible, humorous guide to the emerging body of research on animal personalities. Shivik accompanies researchers who are discovering that each wolf, bear, and coyote has an inherent tendency to favor either its aggressive nature or to shyly avoid conflicts. Some bluebirds are lovers, others are fighters. And some spiders prefer to be loners, while others are sociable. Unique personalities can be discovered in every corner of the animal kingdom—even among microscopic organisms. The array of personality types among all species is only beginning to be described and understood. As Shivik argues, animals’ unique personalities are important not only because they determine which animals we bond with. Individual animal traits are also fundamental but still inadequately understood drivers of evolution, adaptation, and species diversity. Ultimately, Mousy Cats and Sheepish Coyotes offers insight into the similarities humans share with animals and presents evidence of an unbroken biological connection from the smallest organisms to Homo sapiens.

This book presents interdisciplinary research to examine the ongoing debates around nonhuman animals in urban spaces. It explores how we can better appreciate and accommodate animals in the city, while also exploring the ecological, health, ethical, and cultural implications of the same. The book addresses seven interrelated themes such as blurred boundaries between the human and the nonhuman, the right of nonhuman species to the city, interactions between the human and nonhuman animals, the fabric of urban space, human and nonhuman complex systems, and collective welfare that forms the basis of a transspecies urban theory. It explains how a holistic understanding of the city requires that these blurred boundaries are acknowledged and critically examined. Chapters analytically consider the need to bring interspecies relationships to the fore to tackle questions of legitimacy and who has the "right" to the city. These also consider important intersections between the economic, political, social, and cultural aspects of the urban experience. The research contained in this book focuses on the development of an urban theory that would eradicate the divide between humans and other species in cities, and it depicts nonhuman animals as social actors that have voices within urban spaces. With global insights on human–animal relationships in a contemporary context, this book will be useful reading for scholars and students of urban studies, animal sciences, animal law, animals and public policy, anthropology, and environmental studies who are interested in the study of animals in cities.

One of Kirkus Review's Best Nonfiction Books of 2022 A deep-time history of animals and humans in North America, by the best-selling and award-winning author of Coyote America. In 1908, near Folsom, New Mexico, a cowboy discovered the remains of a herd of extinct giant bison. By examining flint points embedded in the bones, archeologists later determined that a band of humans had killed and butchered the animals 12,450 years ago. This discovery vastly expanded America’s known human history but also revealed the long-standing danger Homo sapiens presented to the continent’s evolutionary richness. Distinguished author Dan Flores’s ambitious history chronicles the epoch in which humans and animals have coexisted in the “wild new world” of North America—a place shaped both by its own grand evolutionary forces and by momentous arrivals from Asia, Africa, and Europe. With portraits of iconic creatures such as mammoths, horses, wolves, and bison, Flores describes the evolution and historical ecology of North America like never before. The arrival of humans precipitated an extraordinary disruption of this teeming environment. Flores treats humans not as a species apart but as a new animal entering two continents that had never seen our likes before. He shows how our long past as carnivorous hunters helped us settle America, initially establishing a coast-to-coast culture that lasted longer than the present United States. But humanity’s success had devastating consequences for other creatures. In telling this epic story, Flores traces the origins of today’s “Sixth Extinction” to the spread of humans around the world; tracks the story of a hundred centuries of Native America; explains how Old World ideologies precipitated 400 years of market-driven slaughter that devastated so many ancient American species; and explores the decline and miraculous recovery of species in recent decades. In thrilling narrative style, informed by genomic science, evolutionary biology, and environmental history, Flores celebrates the astonishing bestiary that arose on our continent and introduces the complex human cultures and individuals who hastened its eradication, studied America’s animals, and moved heaven and earth to rescue them. Eons in scope and continental in scale, Wild New World is a sweeping yet intimate Big History of the animal-human story in America.

• Explains how to determine your shadow planets and zodiac signs through the oppositions of your birth chart • Details the meaning and challenges of each shadow counterpart for every astrological sign and planet that appears in a traditional astrological chart • Looks at the alchemical nature of the dark side of the human mind and shadow-work methods for bringing the oppositional self into personal awareness Recently rediscovered by modern psychology, the shadow self was recognized in ancient teachings as an inseparable part of the human being, a vital portion of who we are. The ancient Egyptians regarded working with the shadow as a necessary part of spiritual growth, and shadow work practices are alluded to in the oldest writings. In this practical guide to shadow astrology, Maja D’Aoust explains how to determine the shadow polarities of your natal chart and explore the hidden wisdom and challenges of the oppositional identity within. She shows how finding your shadow planets is easy—they are the opposite sign of the planets in your birth chart. For example, someone with the sun in Libra will have their shadow sun in Aries. She explains how, just like the traditional planets of astrology, each shadow planet governs a specific area of human activity: Venus shadows speak of tainted love, while Mercury shadows reveal challenges of the mind. Each of these shadow planets presents a specific type of negative challenge that emerges when opposition arises. Providing vivid examples, the author details the meaning of each shadow counterpart for every astrological sign and planet that appears in a traditional astrological chart and explains how to interpret and work with their challenges. In addition to chart interpretation, the author also explores the history of this astrological method, including its roots in ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Western magic tradition. She looks at the alchemical nature and subconscious influences of the dark side of the human mind and the shadow-work methods necessary for bringing the oppositional self into personal awareness. Revealing how to interpret astrological charts for personal growth and conscious evolution, this guide invites you to explore the darkness within in order to know the totality of your whole self.

Reveals how our survival depends on embracing complexity consciousness and relating to nature and all life as sacred • Rejects the “survival of the fittest” narrative in favor of sacred symbiosis, creative cooperation, interdependence and complex thinking • Provides examples from complexity studies, cultural history, philosophy, indigenous spirituality, biomimicry, and ecology to show how nature’s intelligence and creativity abound everywhere • Documents how indigenous cultures lived in relative harmony with nature because they perceived themselves as part of the “ordered whole” of all life In Future Sacred, Julie J. Morley offers a new perspective on the human connection to the cosmos by unveiling the connected creativity and sacred intelligence of nature. She rejects the “survival of the fittest” narrative--the idea that survival requires strife--and offers symbiosis and cooperation as nature’s path forward. She shows how an increasingly complex world demands increasingly complex consciousness. Our survival depends upon embracing “complexity consciousness,” understanding ourselves as part of nature, as well as relating to nature as sacred. Morley begins by documenting how indigenous cultures lived in relative harmony with nature because they perceived themselves as part of the “ordered whole” of all life--until modernity introduced dualistic thinking, thus separating mind from matter, and humans from nature. The author deconstructs the fallacy behind social and neo-Darwinism and the materialist theories of “dead matter” versus those that offer a connection with the sentient mind of nature. She presents evidence from complexity studies, cultural history, philosophy, indigenous spirituality, biomimicry, and ecology, highlighting the idea that nature’s intelligence and creativity abound everywhere--from cells to cetaceans, from hydrogen to humans, from sunflowers to solar panels--and that all sentient beings contribute to the evolution of life as a whole, working together in sacred symbiosis. Morley concludes that our sacred future depends on compassionately understanding and integrating multiple intelligences, seeing relationships and interdependence as fundamental and sacred, as well as honoring the experiences of all sentient beings. Instead of “mastery over nature,” we must shift toward synergy with nature--and with each other as diverse expressions of nature’s creativity.

We are a restless, world-changing species. We are the only organism that combines a multitude of abilities to harness the rules of nature, continuously manipulating our environment, its resources and even our own bodies to fit our ever-changing needs and desires. What is it that enables us to share some 99 percent of DNA as well as some basic behaviors with other organisms, yet at the same time be so different and powerful?Coalescing understandings driven from biology, psychology, anthropology, history and more, Ben David addresses the above question using a new paradigm: The Gordian knot between five human traits — imagination, creative making, complex communication, change and intergenerational transfer — evolutionary developed and co-amplified as the ultra-complex system called Homo sapiens. Weaving personal stories with professional experience, Ben David narrates innovative definitions of technology, education, science and their co-dependence; emphasizes their roles in the development of human societies; deliberates their implications on everyday life; discusses the crucial role of science education; and offers a fresh look at who we are as the leading species on this planet.Dr Liat Ben David is the CEO of the Davidson Institute of Science Education, the educational arm of Israel's acclaimed Weizmann Institute of Science. She holds a PhD in Molecular Biology and has more than 30 years of experience in the field of STEM education. Ben David teaches regularly in various spheres, including academia and TEDx; she is an accomplished author who has published numerous articles and books.This book is a 2023 Nautilus Book Awards winner.This book is an INDIES Award-Winning Finalist.

A newspaper-style activity book for the discerning dinosaur, packed with paleo puzzles, fearsome facts and giganto games. Meet real-life reptiles and read fascinating features, which include: Seeking a self-defence class? Hear what a cetiosaur has to say about staying safe. Wondering what's happening with the weather? See whether meteor showers are here to stay with our fail-safe forecast. Confused why #trees are trending? Learn why the hypsilophodons think branches are best. And much, much more...

A “superior thriller”(Oakland Press) about a man, a dog, and a terrifying threat that could only have come from the imagination of #1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz—nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read. On his thirty-sixth birthday, Travis Cornell hikes into the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains. But his path is soon blocked by a bedraggled Golden Retriever who will let him go no further into the dark woods. That morning, Travis had been desperate to find some happiness in his lonely, seemingly cursed life. What he finds is a dog of alarming intelligence that soon leads him into a relentless storm of mankind’s darkest creation...