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Book Review: The Untapped Knowledge of Animals

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I N THE SPRING of 2022, while conducting research for a book, I spoke with a bird biologist who was studying meadowlarks, a grassland species with a lovely melodic song that for me signals the onset of spring. The biologist was heading out to the field soon to tag the birds, fitting some of them with tiny transmitters that would let researchers track their movements over several years. With grassland birds faring poorly — and meadowlark populations in particular in steep decline — the project sought to find out where the birds were going each spring and fall. Were they returning to the exact same breeding sites year after year? Did they follow the same route? This data could help inform conservation planning. BOOK REVIEW — “The Internet of Animals: Discovering the Collective Intelligence of Life on Earth,” by Martin Wikelski (Greystone Books, 272 pages). But the work had hit a roadblock: The new, high-tech tags she and other scientists had been eagerly awaiting, developed in Germany an

I n the spring of 2022, while conducting research for a book, I spoke with a bird biologist who was studying meadowlarks, a grassland species with a lovely melodic song that for me signals the onset of spring. The biologist was heading out to the field soon to tag the birds, fitting some of them with tiny transmitters that would let researchers track their movements over several years. With grassland birds faring poorly — and meadowlark populations in particular in steep decline — the project sought to find out where the birds were going each spring and fall. Were they returning to the exact s

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