Travels with brainy and sensitive animals

DINERSTEIN remembers an especially helpful elephant when he was studying rhinos in Nepal. He didn’t realise he had dropped his research notebook until the elephant he was riding reached down with its trunk, picked up the notebook and returned it to him.

“Amazing,” said Dinerstein with a laugh. “Elephants are among the most sensitive, intelligent animals on Earth.” As a wildlife conservationist, Dinerstein works to protect wild animals and their habitats.

About 40 years ago, elephants helped him move around the jungles of Nepal as he gathered information on tigers and rhinos. And now elephants, tigers and rhinos rumble, glide and canter through his novel.

The story follows Nandu, 13, who works at the Royal Elephant Breeding Centre, and his favourite elephant, Hira Prashad. One of Nandu’s closest friends, Rita, works there too. She cares for

elephant calves, orphaned rhinos and deer.

The book is the sequel to Dinerstein’s first one, What Elephants

Know, and continues the adventures of Nandu and Hira Prashad. Through his writing, Dinerstein brings the countryside alive. You hear the trumpeting of elephants.

But there is danger, too. Poachers are closing in. They are after the local rhinos for their horns and Hira Prashad for his long, beautiful tusks. Nandu and his friends must find a way to stop the poachers and safeguard the animals they love.

Kids who read Dinerstein’s books often wonder how, like Nandu, they can help protect wildlife. “Start close to home,” said Dinerstein from Big Sur, California, where he and other scientists were testing a new type of camera to catch poachers before they kill.

He suggests that young people watch and enjoy the wild animals that are part of their everyday life.

Kids might learn more about the habits and needs of local insects, birds, squirrels and rabbits – and create backyard habitats that provide food and shelter. – The Washington Post