Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Kindred Beings: What Seventy-Three Chimpanzees Taught Me About Life, Love, and Connection
    Unavailable
    Kindred Beings: What Seventy-Three Chimpanzees Taught Me About Life, Love, and Connection
    Unavailable
    Kindred Beings: What Seventy-Three Chimpanzees Taught Me About Life, Love, and Connection
    Ebook356 pages4 hours

    Kindred Beings: What Seventy-Three Chimpanzees Taught Me About Life, Love, and Connection

    By Sheri Speede

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Enter a world of tender friendships, staunch loyalties, violent jealousies—and enduring love.

    As a child, Sheri Speede knew that she wanted to advocate for animals in any way she could. But it was not until many years after veterinary school, when she was transporting a chimpanzee named Pierre away from a biomedical facility as part of her job as a conservation advocate in Cameroon, that Dr. Speede discovered her true calling. She began to search for land for a forest sanctuary for captive chimpanzees that were held on chains and in small cages at local hotels.

    Dr. Speede eventually founded the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center, a forested home for orphans of the illegal ape meat trade. One chim- panzee, Dorothy, was rescued by Dr. Speede and her colleagues from a bleak existence imprisoned on a chain and forged a deep friendship with her. Dr. Speede explains how chimpanzees, like humans, are capable of a broad spectrum of emotional behaviors—both hateful and loving. Dr. Speede also candidly reveals her own struggles as a stranger in a foreign culture trying to adjust to rural African village life. And she admits that unlike Dorothy, she was not always kind, gentle, and forgiving.

    Dorothy died of old age at the sanctuary, and a photograph of Dorothy's funeral, in which Dr. Speede cradled Dorothy's head while her family of chimpanzees mournfully viewed her body, went viral after being published in National Geographic. The world was surprised at the depth of the chimps' grief at the loss of their friend, but Dr. Speede was not. Through the chimps, she had come to understand the meaning of love, loyalty, and true connection.

    While this is a compelling story about the emotional complexity of the chimpanzees she rescued and befriended, it is also Dr. Speede's story. Major events in her personal life, including love affairs, dangerous run-ins with criminals, and the birth of her daughter, unfold as the development of her primate rescue center runs parallel to her own development. Ultimately, Kindred Beings is a story of profound resilience, of both the apes and the woman who loved them.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateSep 10, 2013
    ISBN9780062132505
    Unavailable
    Kindred Beings: What Seventy-Three Chimpanzees Taught Me About Life, Love, and Connection

    Related to Kindred Beings

    Related ebooks

    Biology For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Smart & collaborative KILLERS

      Apr 6, 2022

      Smart & collaborative KILLERS
      3 min read

    • Article

      Why Your Cat Doesn’t Have a Sweet Tooth: Moles don’t see, whales can’t smell, and snakes can’t hear a thing.

      Aug 14, 2014

      Humans are a self-centered lot. We take our senses for granted and generally assume that other creatures possess the same ones we do—sight, hearing, smell, taste, or more complex perceptions such as the ability to tell apart the seasons. But just lik

      5 min read

    • Article

      Alien Zoo

      Nov 2, 2023

      KARL SHUKER ponders a mysterious golden orb and greets an unexpected canine hybrid On 30 August 2023, a remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) run by the Seascape Alaska 5 expedition, launched by the USA’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NO

      3 min read

    • Article

      Limbo of the Patriarch

      Feb 18, 2017

      Limbo of the Patriarch
      2 min read

    • Article

      Scientists See Path For The Coronavirus To Invade The Brain

      May 5, 2021

      Scientists experimenting in the lab have found that the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is capable of infecting two types of brain cells — neurons and astrocytes. The findings could shed light on a possible reason for the bewildering array of neurol

      3 min read

    • Article

      How Taboos Can Help Protect the Oceans

      May 26, 2021

      In 1777—after whipping local people for trivial offenses, spreading venereal disease, and clumsily avoiding a plot to kill him—the English explorer James Cook left the shores of Tonga laden with treasures. Not least among them was a word scrawled in

      11 min read

    • Article

      Edward O.wilson

      Jul 1, 2020

      Edward O.wilson
      5 min read

    • Article

      'She Was Lying In Wait': Police Say Woman Killed Her Husband's Lover, Then Herself

      Apr 25, 2018

      Pennsylvania authorities said Jennair Gerardot found out her husband was cheating on her and then gunned down Meredith Chapman before turning the seven-shot revolver on herself.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Princess Catherine’s Family Values

      Jul 12, 2023

      Princess Catherine’s Family Values
      8 min read

    • Article

      Contributions

      Feb 14, 2024

      Contributions
      1 min read

    • Article

      Encounters With Orcas

      Oct 14, 2021

      Being chased, bumped and gnarled at by a pod of orca was ‘a mix of horror and love,’ says Yara Tibirica who encountered the animals while sailing her 35ft live-aboard catamaran, Slughunter. ‘It’s a rare privilege to see such mighty and majestic orcas

      7 min read

    • Article

      A Farewell to Summer

      Aug 29, 2019

      A Farewell to Summer
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Secret To Happiness

      Dec 8, 2023

      The Secret To Happiness
      3 min read

    • Article

      My Country Childhood

      Sep 14, 2022

      BORN IN CAIRNS IN 1981, Lachlan McIver grew up on a beef farm just outside the small town of Millaa Millaa on North Queensland’s Atherton Tablelands. The property was bordered on two sides by World Heritage rainforests and on the other by a cousin’s

      5 min read

    • Article

      Over To You

      May 16, 2023

      We pay £50 for Letter of the Month and £30 for all others Thank you, Reader’s Digest for the article “Steven Spielberg: How I Caught My Mother’s Affair On Camera” by Jonathan Dean. I grew up in America during the 1950s and 1960s and Spielberg’s films

      4 min read

    • Article

      Matters Of The Heart

      Jan 17, 2022

      Matters Of The Heart
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Symposium On The Mysterious

      Sep 1, 2023

      A Symposium On The Mysterious
      24 min read

    • Article

      Remembering RAPH

      Mar 28, 2024

      Remembering RAPH
      4 min read

    • Article

      On Healing

      Sep 4, 2020

      In 2016 my partner and I bought a wooden cottage on 10 acres of land, on an ecotone where the woodlands meet the foothills of the mountains. The area had been logged relentlessly in the 1950s. One by one, the tall trees of the old growth cedar forest

      7 min read

    • Article

      2022 500-Word Essay Contest

      Apr 29, 2023

      2022 500-Word Essay Contest
      4 min read

    Reviews for Kindred Beings

    4/5

    6 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      The author established a sanctuary for chimpanzees who had been kept in captivity, and for orphans. An interesting story, but written in a fairly flat and undramatic style that leaves one with a lot of questions about the personalities, motivations, and emotions of the people involved. Basically, the author seems to like chimps better than people, and even gets a bit defensive about justifying her time away from the chimps to give her daughter a marginally more normal life. Some historical information and perspective about other chimpanzee rescue operations, if any, and others who have studied chimps in the wild, would have been interesting.