FOREWORD

      PETER WOHLLEBEN’S PREVIOUS book, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from a Secret World, became a sensation in Germany when it was first published in 2015, and it went on to equal success in many other countries, as well. With good reason. The book is a passionate, intelligent, lyrical account of the emotions (yes, you read that right) trees experience on their own and for others, and sometimes even for others of a different plant species (something we call altruism). Trees take care of other trees that are weak or sick, they cry out when they are thirsty, and they possess other astonishing, long-overlooked abilities. The Hidden Life of Trees was an update to the vastly popular but scientifically dubious book by the American World War II spy Peter Tompkins, published in 1973: The Secret Life of Plants. With Wohlleben, we were on the right track.

      And now comes the same treatment given to the inner life of animals. The only difference is that this subject has, especially in the last ten years or so, taken off as a field of serious research and popular books, especially by Jonathan Balcombe, the oceanologist Carl Safina and many others. The trend was started, I believe, way back in 1982 by the great Harvard biologist Donald Griffin, who wrote the book The Question of Animal Awareness. These books have proved immensely popular precisely because the general population knows that what is being described is true from their own experiences. Who, living