The Complicated Lives, and Social Roles, of Elephants

The Leonard Lopate Show | Apr 3, 2015

Caitlin O’Connell is a leading expert on elephant communication and social behavior. For the last twenty-three years, O’Connell has been a keen observer of the complicated friendships of an entourage of bull elephants in Etosha National Park, Namibia. One arid summer the tide begins to shift and a hierarchy threatens to be dismantled. O’Connell tells the story in Elephant Don: The Politics of a Pachyderm Posse.

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