Wild About Pets: How to Do or Know Something

Susan McCarthy explains the differences between open & closed programs in animal learning, or what animals know as opposed to what they need to learn. We’ll also find out how some animals learn the basics, like cats land climbing, or birds with flying.

Wild About Pets: Learning the Basics

How do elephants learn to use their trunks? How do monkeys learn to climb trees? Or birds learn to migrate? We’ll explore all of that and more in part two of our conversation with Susan McCarthy.

Wild About Pets: Learning Your Species

In part three, we learn about imprinting, and how some animals adopt other animals as their own. We’ll use eagles, geese, monkey and humans as examples. Plus, how animals learn to hunt.

Look While You Listen!

Click here to view the photos Susan and her guest are discussing.

To Order \"Becoming A Tiger\"

Every animal is born with the instinct to survive but not necessarily the skills to do so. Just as our parents guide us as we learn to find food and communicate, so do tiger, bird, and bonobo moms and dads. McCarthy, coauthor of When Elephants Weep , considers the myriad tactics employed by parents across the animal kingdom to help their young survive and flourish.

Susan McCarthy

Susan McCarthy is the co-author of WhenElephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals and author of Becoming a Tiger: How Baby Animals Learn to Live in the Wild. A science writer and a humor writer, she especially loves true stories that illuminate animal behavior, and give us hints of what goes on in their hearts and minds.

Click here to read Susan\'s Blog