Summary of the book "Our Wild Calling" - By Richard Louv

Key Concepts in this book:

1. We are more likely to conserve wild animals if we appreciate their beauty.
2. Humans are on their way to a lonely future, but there is a way out.
3. Anthropomorphizing animals has both positive and negative consequences.
4. Animals communicate with us, and they also communicate with one another.
5. There are numerous ways in which we might interact with the natural environment.
6. Think globally and act locally to help the environment.

Who can benefit the most from this book:

• Nature lovers looking for inspiration.
• Office dwellers seeking ways to reconnect with nature.
• Anyone looking for direct ways to respond to global climate change.

What am I getting out of it? Take a chance on the wild side of life.

Do you ever feel a yearning for something that isn't present in your life, even if you don't know what it is?

The thing you're missing, as you'll see in this summary, could be your connection to nature. You'll learn about the profound and wonderful ways in which humans can connect with wild creatures and the natural world around them. You'll discover how different species can contribute joy and significance to our lives, as well as how we might develop a shared sense of identity with the billions of other creatures who share our planet.

This is your go-to reference for understanding the natural world through a new perspective, packed with innovative concepts as well as the newest research into animal behaviour.

• You'll learn how beauty may inspire us to defend animals.
• What do fruit bats talk about?
• And why the Maasai don't have a term for nature in this summary.

1. We are more likely to conserve wild animals if we appreciate their beauty.

A chance meeting with a wild animal could alter the course of your life forever. When the author was in Kodiak Island, Alaska, he had a life-changing experience. He was walking along a lakeside late one night when he observed a pair of dazzling eyes looking at him from the darkness. He was confronted by a massive black fox the size of a coyote.

He and the fox exchanged quiet glances, neither of them seeking anything from the other but the electric sensation of being in each other's company. The author eventually approached the fox and asked if it would like to accompany him to the cabin where he was going. Surprisingly, the fox followed suit. The fox vanished into the dense grass just as they approached the cabin.

The main message is that admiring the beauty of wild creatures motivates us to protect them.

The author has no recollection of many of the people he met on the island that summer, but he has always remembered his brief encounter with the black fox. He's also had other noteworthy animal interactions throughout the years.

He noticed a colony of ground squirrels living in his garden one year at his summer home. He began to enjoy their daily patterns, such as how their infants interacted, and how hard the squirrels worked to survive each day. He eventually came to appreciate the beauty of these common ground squirrels.

Appreciating the beauty of different species can help us change our perspective on the natural world as a whole.

How? Arne Naess, a Norwegian ecophilosopher, distinguishes between doing morally and acting artistically. When we act with clenched teeth out of a sense of moral obligation, we do so with clenched teeth. We're doing something that we don't want to do, but it's the correct thing to do. When we act in a beautiful way, on the other hand, we do something moral because we want to; the moral action is in line with our actual desires.

By recognizing and empathizing with other animals, we may appreciate their beauty. Any sense of superiority toward animals, and especially any sense of alienation from them, must be replaced by empathy. We can only sense a true desire to conserve other species when we identify with them. When this occurs, safeguarding them and the natural environment becomes a lovely deed that we want to participate in. To put it another way, we must act because we care, not just because we have a moral obligation.

2. Humans are on their way to a lonely future, but there is a way out.

Human beings have never been more linked, yet we've also never felt more alone, thanks to contemporary technology. Not only are loneliness rates rising in the Western world, but younger generations report feeling far more alone than their elders. How did we end up so isolated?

Some ecophilosophers feel that our loneliness stems not just from a desire for human companionship, but also from a desire to connect with other species. The phrase "species loneliness" was invented by ecologist Michael Vincent McGinnis to describe humanity's growing isolation from non-human life.

The main theme is that humanity is on the verge of a lonely future, but there is a way out.

Why is it important for our well-being to lose our connection to other animals? To comprehend, we must return to our own ancestral past and the myths that our forefathers told each other around campfires. It's worth noting that talking animals appear in practically every indigenous society's tales. This means that humans have believed for thousands of years that animals have something essential to say to us. Furthermore, these creatures have blazed brightly in our minds, inspiring many stories that we have shared with one another. These stories reaffirmed a strong sense of shared identity with other beings, a deep understanding that all species on the planet were interconnected and depended on one another.

Worryingly, climate scientists announced in 2016 that our planet has entered the Anthropocene age. This is a climate period in which human activity has a significant impact on and changes the climate, landscapes, and oceans of the Earth. Worse yet, the Anthropocene logical culmination is that human beings, their cattle, and their crops will someday be the only living beings remaining on Earth.

Is it any surprise, then, that we're becoming increasingly lonely as we lose so many of the beings around us?

What is the answer to this devastation and isolation? Thomas Berry, a Catholic priest and eco-theologian, though he had the solution. Berry believes that people should reject the Anthropocene and work toward the ecozoic epoch instead. Humans and other creatures have mutually beneficial relationships in their ecozoic age, according to him. Our current technologies would still exist, but instead of being used to oppress and exploit nature, they would be combined with a deep spirituality that guided our decisions.

3. Anthropomorphizing animals has both positive and negative consequences.

Is it true that humans and other animals share the same emotions? The scientific community had previously assumed that the answer was no. Indeed, any scientist who suggested that animals might have the same thoughts or emotions as humans was accused of anthropomorphism, one of the most heinous sins of all.

Anthropomorphism is the practice of ascribing human-like characteristics to animals. The danger of anthropomorphizing animals is that we overlook their inherent, distinct features by thinking of them as human-like. As a result, we continue to be unaware of them. Youngsters who were taught about the natural world through the use of caricatured, cartoonish talking animals, for example, absorbed less knowledge than children who were simply told the facts, according to one research.

But, unfortunately, science's complete rejection of anthropomorphism has had disastrous effects on animals.

Here's the main point: Anthropomorphizing animals has both positive and negative consequences.

René Descartes, a French philosopher, coined the term "Bête machine" (animal machine) in the seventeenth century. Animals, he believed, were nothing like people. In fact, he claimed, they were little more than robots with no feelings or thoughts.

Descartes' ideas on animals became widely accepted during the next two hundred years. Hundreds of billions of animals were harmed as a result of his views, which justified anything from industrialized farming to horrifying vivisection. After all, if animals didn't have feelings, people wouldn't have to worry about their well-being. They simply became resources that we could use in any way we wanted.

Fortunately, a new generation of scientists has begun to deconstruct our assumptions about anthropomorphism, as well as Descartes' terrible legacy, in recent years.

These researchers believe that humans and animals share some sensations and thinking. On the other side, they strive to comprehend animals on their own terms, moving beyond anthropomorphism. They accomplish this by learning about a species' abilities and motives, both those that humans share and those that they don't. Dogs, for example, are social animals just like people. This implies that they are motivated similarly to us. Dogs, on the other hand, have an enormously stronger sense of smell than humans, so at least some of what it's like to be a dog must be based on the millions of odours that surround them. Scientists endeavour to piece together an accurate picture of a species' mental life, using both direct observation and their imaginations.

4. Animals communicate with us, and they also communicate with one another.

Even if humans and other animals don't speak the same language, they can still communicate. The author tells the account of a professor who was stuck in the Alaskan bush at a rural bus stop. On the road ahead, a huge male wolf sprang out of nowhere. For a minute, the wolf stared at him carefully before turning and wandering away. The wolf continued peeking over his shoulder at the professor as he walked. It seemed as though the wolf was pointing with his entire body toward something. It became evident after a time that he intended the professor to follow him, which he did. The man somehow sensed that the wolf had no intention of harming him. These two species, man and wolf, were efficiently communicating.

The professor later discovered that the wolf pack had killed a moose in the vicinity of the bus stop. The wolf was attempting to entice him away from the kill so that its family could eat in peace. This is only one example of how animals can communicate if we pay attention.

The most important message here is that animals communicate with us and with one another.

Researchers are only now realizing how many diverse creatures use language.

Scientists at Tel Aviv University, for example, have decoded the sounds of thousands of Egyptian fruit bats using speech recognition technology. Surprisingly, the researchers discovered that the cacophony of squeals emanating from fruit bat colonies is really the sound of bats bickering. The bats specifically fight about four main issues, each with its own sound. They fight about where they sleep, how near other bats sit to them, unwanted sexual behaviour, and food.

Other animals appear to have more intricate communication, even creating phrases.

Dolphins, for example, appear to build words by clicking sounds of varying loudness and frequency. They then put these words together in phrases of around five "words" each. Surprisingly, another dolphin will listen to one of these sentences without interrupting it and then respond with its own sentence. A beluga whale has also been observed joining a pod of dolphins and learning to communicate with them. The whale began to imitate the noises of the dolphins it was swimming with over time. This appears to be an uncommon instance of one species acquiring the language of another. However, researchers are still unsure of the meaning of the dolphins' remarks.

5. There are numerous ways in which we might interact with the natural environment.

What are your relationship with nature and other animals? Perhaps your interpretation of the word "nature" reveals how you feel about it. Consider that the Maasai, the indigenous people of Southern Kenya, have no term for nature. Why? They don't need one since they regard themselves as completely intertwined with nature. Our relationship with nature, however, is more uncertain for most modern people.

Patricia Hasbach, an ecopsychologist, argues that humans have three distinct ways of relating to other species: wild, domestic, and distorted. We interact with animals in their natural settings when we have a wild relationship with them. For example, we could be struck with wonder or even dread when we see a lion in the Serengeti. Alternatively, we may interact with animals in a home setting, such as with a pet dog. We have a natural reciprocal feeling of enjoyment because we know our dog and it knows us.

The main lesson is that we can engage with the natural environment in a variety of ways.

Our relationships with other creatures become warped when we cross the threshold from what feels natural to what feels completely technological. Keeping animals in tight factory farms and industrial slaughterhouses, for example, may feel wild and natural, but it is a perversion of nature. Similarly, beating on the bars of wild animals' cages in a zoo distorts the experience compared to peacefully seeing them in their natural surroundings in the wild.

The author feels there is another method in which we can connect with animals. We can become them, and they can become us, rather than just interacting with them. This is what he refers to as co-becoming. If you value and love your pet dog, for example, your dog will value and love you as well, and merely engaging with each other will have a beneficial impact on both of you. You become one in this way.

We can also co-evolve with wild animals. If you try to outwit a raccoon, for example, the raccoon will reply by trying to outsmart you as well. You are each affecting the other and blurring the barriers between humans and the natural world as you participate in a war of wits.

The concept of co-becoming has long been understood by indigenous peoples in Northern Australia's Arnhem Land. Their culture opposes the Western separation of humans and environment, as well as the distinctions we draw between humans and other animals, and even plants and rocks.

6. Think globally and act locally to help the environment.

You may not be able to alter the globe, but you can influence the area in which you live. Growing up in a poor Denver area, James Garcia discovered this for himself. When James was a teenager, he saw a bird in his neighbourhood park with an old fishing hook stuck in its throat. He couldn't save the bird, but the fact that an innocent animal had died because humans couldn't be bothered to pick up their trash saddened him. After his ordeal, James resolved to make a positive difference.

When he looked around his neighbourhood, he saw how little his neighbours cared about the environment and other creatures. He was angry at first, but as time went on, he began to feel empathy. After all, his neighbours were all impoverished; they worked many jobs and had little time or energy to think about the environmental consequences of their decisions.

Here's the main point: Think globally and act locally to help the environment.

If things were going to change, James recognized it had to start with him. He now works as an outreach educator for a local zoological charity, visiting local schools to teach youngsters how to treat animals, nature, and, most importantly, one another.

People all throughout the world, like James, are beginning to help the natural environment and its many creatures. But, most importantly, they aren't attempting anything on a huge scale. Instead, they're taking action on a smaller scale, restoring a small section of natural habitat. Many individuals are banding together in their communities to help local wildlife, such as swans and raccoons, that have been hit by cars or become tangled in debris. Others are transforming their gardens into a welcoming haven for insects and other wild animals.

Caring for nature in your neighbourhood may have just as many benefits for you as it does for the environment.

Glenn Albrecht, an ecophilosopher, has coined the term solophilia to define a philosophy in which people aid the natural world, as well as themselves, by banding together to help heal the environment. They are lessening their sense of anguish about the harm that humans are wreaking on the planet by doing so. Albrecht calls this grieving solastalgia, and he has put his views into action in his own life by restoring a barren patch of wetland in New South Wales, allowing a variety of creatures and plants to thrive once more.

The essential lesson in this summary is that we lose far more than we gain when we sacrifice the natural environment to harvest its riches. We not only become lonely without a connection to wild animals, but we also lose perspective on ourselves. As science uncovers other species' amazing skills, it's past time for us to appreciate animals for the beauty and purpose they provide to our lives — before it's too late.