Description
Over the last fifteen years, Dale Peterson has collaborated with photographer Karl Ammann to produce three books about apes, elephants, and giraffes. For this book, Peterson accompanied the iconoclastic Swiss photographer through Africa and Southeast Asia, serving as his Boswell and discovering along the way magnificent splendor, unexpected humor, and tragic loss.
Where Have All the Animals Gone? includes photos and an afterword by Ammann, who has lived for decades in Kenya with his wife, two adopted chimpanzees, and a home-raised cheetah.
Peterson divides the book into three sections. Part I deals with the bushmeat (wild animal meat) trade in Central Africa, and how human consumption of endangered and vulnerable species like apes, elephants, and giraffes has become a critical conservation issue. Part II is based on subsequent travels in Asia and Africa, as Peterson and Ammann researched and took photos for a book about how the bushmeat and ivory trades threaten the elephant population. It also includes a visit to a bear bile farm in Myanmar’s Special Region 4. Part III shows Peterson and Ammann returning to Africa in search of wild giraffes at Lake Nakuru and Samburu, and in the Mara and Namibia.
Dale Peterson transitioned early in his writing career from publishing books on computers to studying and writing about highly intelligent animal species, focusing on primates. His book The Deluge and the Ark: A Journey into Primate Worlds attracted the attention of Dr. Jane Goodall, with whom he collaborated to produce Visions of Caliban: On Chimpanzees and People. Peterson has received numerous awards including New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 1993 and 2006. Peterson lectures part time at Tufts University and was just elected president of PEN New England. He was instrumental in establishing PEN’s Thoreau award, promoting nature writing and writers. Peterson lives in Arlington, Massachusetts.
Karl Ammann is a wildlife photographer and conservation activist whose photography and writings on the African bushmeat trade have been featured in many publications including: the New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, Stern Magazine, Natural History Magazine, Outdoor Photographer (USA), Airone (Italy), Focus (Germany), and National Geographic’s Earth Almanac. He has received many awards for his work and conservation efforts. In 2008 Time Magazine fittingly named him one of their “Heroes of the Environment.”
