A response to the devastating 2019–20 bushfires, Animals Make Us Human both celebrates Australia’s unique wildlife and highlights its vulnerability.
This book features 44 essays from some of Australia’s finest writers and is accompanied by spectacular wildlife photography.
Co-editor and contributor of ‘Animals Make Us Human’, a book celebrating Australia’s wildlife, Meg Keneally is an accomplished author, SCUBA enthusiast and AMCS Sea Guardian. For Meg, the ocean is “a place of calm, rejuvenation. The best way to switch off in our busy world is to float around and watch the fish swimming all around you.”
Meg’s delightful essay describes diving encounters with the Eastern Blue Groper: “It’ll come along with you, photobomb you, follow you, look under a rock with you, they are just wonderful. Look into the eyes of a Blue Groper, there is something there, this creature has an intelligence that we don’t understand.”
Through words and images, writers, photographers and researchers reflect on their connection with animals and nature. They share moments of wonder and revelation from encounters in the natural world: seeing a wild platypus at play, an echidna dawdling across a bush track, or the inexplicable leap of a thresher shark; watching bats take flight at dusk, or birds making a home in the backyard; or following possums, gliders and owls into the dark.
Hopeful, uplifting and deeply moving, this collection is also an urgent call to action, a powerful reminder that we only have one world in which to coexist and thrive with our fellow creatures. By highlighting the beauty and fragility of our unique fauna, Australia’s favourite writers, renowned researchers and acclaimed photographers encourage readers to consider it in a new light.
The book is a fundraiser for our wildlife, from land, sea and sky. Proceeds go to the Australian Marine Conservation Society and Australian Wildlife Conservancy.
Proceeds go to the Australian Marine Conservation Society and Australian Wildlife Conservancy.