Ivory, Apes & Peacocks

Product Description

Alan Root is one of Africa's most bitten. In the course of his adventures he has been mauled by a leopard, a silverback gorilla & a hippo, & almost lost his life to a deadly puff-adder, which claimed one of his fingers. Root's unmatched experience of East African wildlife & his appetite for risk have made him a world-class naturalist & film-maker. He's one of the great wildlife pioneers. In Ivory, Apes & Peacocks, Alan tells the story of his life's work, from his arrival in Kenya as a young boy (furious at having to leave behind Britain's birds) to the making of his game-changing films. Instead of sticking to the Big Five animals, these looked up close at whole ecosystems
- baobab trees, termite mounds, natural springs
- & involved firsts such as tracking the wildebeest migration from a balloon, then flying it over Kilimanjaro, filming inside a hornbill's nest & diving with hippos & crocodiles. Along the way we meet Sally the pet hippo & Emily the house-proud chimp, watch as Dian Fossey catches sight of her first mountain gorilla & have sundowners with George & Joy Adamson. And here, too, is Joan Root, Alan's wife & collaborator for over thirty years, who was brutally murdered in retaliation for her environmental campaigning. In this extraordinary memoir we look at Africa's wonders through the eyes of a visionary, live through hair-raising adventure & personal sorrow, & also bear witness to a natural world now largely lost from view.