Book-Cry of the Kalahari

This was an amazing book. The true story of Mark and Delia Owens, married zoology students, who start their post grad work by selling everything they have and moving to Africa, hoping to find an undisturbed area to set up a research project.

Taking place in the early 1970's there were even then few undisturbed areas, with almost none now...but they found one, in Botswana in the Kalahari. And without any funding, grants or otherwise, they started studying the animals around them. Jackals and lions, and then brown hyenas.

So many times they almost did not make it, but for the kindness of a few people...then, National Geographic gives them their first grant, and they are off and running! We get to know the animals they study, the Blue Pride, the lions in the valley they share, the hyenas, especially Star. Captain and Mate, the jackals. We discover how this environment shapes the animals so differently than does the Serengeti, so the lions have a very different social structure

And as the Owens discover that brown hyenas are not solitary animals, but have a complex social structure, we find out also.

But the book is more than this. It is a love affair. It is so obvious that these two love each other...they love the work they do and where they are doing it. And that shows through in every paragraph. The joy they feel at the new discoveries they find, at the generations of animals they come to know, it shines through. The sadness they feel at the wantonness of the destruction of man also comes out.

Cry of the Kalahari is really a brilliant book. It is funny, and uplifting, and at times you wonder why these crazy people did this at all. It is a wonderful experience spending time with the Owens and getting to know them and the work the did in the Kalahari.