Becoming a Tiger: How Baby Animals Learn to Live in the Wild [Hardcover]

Susan McCarthy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 29, 2004

It's a jungle out there. And survival is never a given. Somehow, a blind, defenseless tiger kitten must evolve into a deadly, efficient predator; a chimp must learn to distinguish edible plants from lethal poisons; a baby buffalo must be able to pick its mother out of a herd of hundreds. Contrary to common belief, not everything is "hardwired" -- or instinctual -- in the animal kingdom. Many skills a wild animal needs to thrive, to grow, to be what nature intended, must be developed through play, painstaking teaching, and often treacherous trial and error. The coming-of-age processes of the myriad creatures of plain, forest, ocean, and jungle are truly fascinating and often astonishing natural events.

In Becoming a Tiger, Susan McCarthy, co-author of the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller When Elephants Weep, offers readers an in-depth look into the amazing ways baby animals learn not only about themselves, but about their world and ours -- and how to survive in both. Based on extensive scientific research done in the lab, in controlled "natural" settings, as well as in the wild, her findings provide stunning new insights into the lives and development of Earth's nonhuman inhabitants -- not only tigers, but lions, bears, bats, rats, birds, dolphins, whales, apes, elephants, and dozens of other species.

Sharing stories and discoveries at once captivating, funny, breathtaking, provocative, and heartwarming, Susan McCarthy carries us on a remarkable journey into untamed places, immersing us in the fascinating, complex, and hitherto unimagined societies and cultures of the beasts and birds. Along the way she shines a brilliant new light on subjects scientists, biologists, and zoologists have only begun to explore, revealing startling truths about the behavior, and sometimes humanlike foibles, of creatures great and small.

Warm, informative, and beautifully written, Becoming a Tiger is an enthralling reading experience for animal lovers everywhere. In the transformation tales of playful pups, big-footed cubs, and scrawny chicks becoming deadly hunters, able foragers, and deft nest-builders are valuable and enriching life lessons for members of our own inquisitive, ever-developing species.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Although all animals come into the world with certain innate behaviors, such as sneezing, most life skills do need to be learned, says McCarthy, even things as simple as cramming fingers into one's mouth. Take Cody, an eight-week-old orangutan: "He wanted to put his fingers in his mouth and suck on them, but it was hard to get them to the right place," writes McCarthy, coauthor of the bestselling When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Life of Animals. After "waving his hand around, jamming it in his ear, [and] making expectant sucking noises with his mouth," he seemed confused. Baby animals like Cody, McCarthy explains, learn in a variety of ways, like trial and error, copying adults and conditioning. She divides the book into broad categories, such as finding food ("How to Make a Living"), avoiding predators ("How Not to Be Eaten") and communicating ("How to Get Your Point Across"), and then uses hundreds of examples gleaned from scientific journals, books and wildlife rehabilitators who care for orphaned animals to show how animals learn. McCarthy writes clearly and her penchant for humor (she explains early on that imprinting "will be discussed in scandalous detail later") makes the book an easy read, both for students of learning and those who can't get enough of television's Animal Planet.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School–McCarthy synthesizes a great deal of research in this entertaining overview. Many of the same cases turn up again and again as she examines such topics as whether or not animals can learn language, how they imprint on their parents, and how predators learn to hunt while prey learns to avoid being eaten. Her writing is straightforward and anecdotal, but it is supported by copious notes and an extensive bibliography. The studies include not only creatures observed in the wild, but also those raised by wildlife rehabilitators and by humans as pets. This fascinating book is sure to pique the interest of science students and animal lovers.–Susan Salpini, TASIS–The American School in England
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Harper; First Printing edition (June 29, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0066209242
• ISBN-13: 978-0066209241
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,328,397 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Accessible And Entertaining, July 26, 2004

By 

E. Richards "Herself" (Alone with my thoughts) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Becoming a Tiger: How Baby Animals Learn to Live in the Wild (Hardcover)

Ms McCarthy assembled this book based on research about animal learning patterns. Most of this research is based on readings of scientific reports and journals and some is based on her conversations with experts in various animal-related fields. The result is a compendium of anecdotes and excerpts rendered into a witty and accessible form for the layperson.

Normally, scientific literature can be pretty arcane and not exactly snappy reading. Ms. McCarthy flavors her excerpts with witty parenthetical commentary and questions that, in no way, detract from the matter at hand.

She covers not just tigers, but birds (her favorite seems to be a very clever parrot species called the kea), primates, and other mammals. She describes interesting stories about how young animals practice behavior when no one is looking (such as baby birds who test vocalize sotto voce), animal cultures (where one troop of primates would suddenly start performing some behaviors while other troops would not), and how animals need to see members of their own kind in order to socialize and mate later on.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining Learning Experience, September 13, 2004

By 

J. Vilches (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Becoming a Tiger: How Baby Animals Learn to Live in the Wild (Hardcover)

Almost every living creature has the ability to learn in some form or fashion. Imitation, trial and error, conditioning, play, and observation are just a few of the different types of learning that McCarthy covers through anecdotes and research results. From birds to primates to lowly worms, the methods and reasons that different animals learn what they need to survive proves to be a fascinating topic. Animals clearly have both innate behaviors and learned behaviors and it's very interesting to see where the two intersect.

Becoming a Tiger is broadly broken out into chapters that cover different areas important to survival: knowing your species, what and how to eat, how to get around, how not to be eaten, who makes a good mate, and so forth. It's fairly humbling to find out just how many types of animals use tools, since that used to be a benchmark for human and then primate supremacy. Many of the stories from rehabilitators and field researches are very touching. It's nice that McCarthy tries to stick with research results from non-harmful scientific studies, and when she does reference an older, less-humane study she does so apologetically.

McCarthy's sense of humor shines through in wry asides and tongue-in-cheek chapter headings. Her writing style is easy to follow, even when she delves now and then into scientific terminology. While chatty in tone and geared towards the general reader, McCarthy backs up her information with impressive sections of notes and bibliography. Her passion for the subject shines through and makes this a highly recommended read for anyone interested in learning or animals.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Betting on the complexity of nature, September 27, 2004

By 

Anson Cassel Mills (Lake Santeetlah, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Becoming a Tiger: How Baby Animals Learn to Live in the Wild (Hardcover)

Becoming a Tiger is really about animal behavior of all sorts, instinctual as well as learned, that of adult animals as well as of young. The book is completely understandable picked up anywhere and with no knowledge of what came before or interest in what comes after. What McCarthy has done is given us a series of short animal behavior stories taken from scientific literature but run through her considerable wit and sprightly--even sassy--literary style. The author has a thesis of sorts, but the true message of this book is that anyone who believes animal behavior to be simplistic or consistent across species is ridiculously mistaken and that no one will ever go broke betting on the complexity of the natural world.