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The Parrot's Lament
And Other True Tales of Animal Intrigue, Intelligence,
and Ingenuity

by Eugene Linden

ISBN 0-452-28068-0
204 pages, 5 1/4 x 8; Paperback.

A gorilla shrewdly sells back a missing key chain to the highest bidder. An orangutan picks a lock to let himself out of his zoo enclosure and two elephants adopt a tag-team strategy to keep their handlers from putting them back into theirs. Author Eugene Linden offers more than one hundred true anecdotes about animal acts of cooperation, heroism, escape—even tales of deception or manipulation of human beings. Drawing on the first-person experiences of veterinarians, field biologists, researchers, and trainers, Linden has compiled a warmly entertaining and powerfully persuasive argument for animal consciousness that, while not human, far exceeds what humans usually grant animals. Scientifically sound and emotionally compelling, The Parrot’s Lament contains remarkable stories that are sure to resonate with animal lovers, turning skeptics everywhere into believers.

“Eugune Linden reveals how animals demonstrate aspects of intelligence as they escape from, cheat, and outfox humans.”
—Time

“These amazing true stories confirm what many of us always suspected—that animals would make better humans than most humans would.”
—Carl Hiaasen