The Bond: Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them (eBook)

Description

A fascinating exploration of humanity's eternal bond with animals, and an urgent call to answer the needs of millions of at-risk creatures

A landmark work, The Bond is the passionate, insightful, and comprehensive examination of our special connection to all creatures, written by one of America's most important champions of animal welfare. Wayne Pacelle, the president of the Humane Society of the United States, unveils the deep links of the human-animal bond, as well as the conflicting impulses that have led us to betray this bond through widespread and systemic cruelty to animals.

Pacelle begins by exploring the biological and historical underpinnings of the human-animal bond and reveals our newfound understanding of animals, including their remarkable emotional and cognitive capacities. In the book's second section, Pacelle shows how the bond has been disastrously broken. He takes readers to a slaughter plant shuttered for inhumane practices, as well as the enormous egg factory farms of California. We visit Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas to speak with NFL star Michael Vick, then serving his sentence for dogfighting. Pacelle paints a portrait of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and highlights the heroic actions of residents and volunteers to reunite pets with their owners. Pacelle's narrative also leads the reader to remote locations in which conflicts over the killing of wildlife continue to play out-from the fields outside of Yellowstone National Park where bison are slaughtered with the encouragement of federal authorities, to the ice floes of Atlantic Canada where seal nurseries turn into killing fields.

In its final section, The Bond takes on the arguments of opponents and critics of animal protection and spotlights the groups and industries standing in the way of progress-from the National Rifle Association and agribusiness organizations like the American Farm Bureau, to surprising adversaries like the American Veterinary Medical Association and the American Kennel Club. Ultimately, Pacelle points the way to a new, humane economy-one not built on extraction, suffering, and killing, but on the celebration, stewardship, and care of animals.

An eye-opening must-read, The Bond reminds us that animals are at the center of our lives, they are not just a backdrop. How we treat them is one of the great themes of the human story.

About the Author

Wayne Pacelle is president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, the nation's largest animal protection organization.

Praise for The Bond: Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them…

“If the animals knew about this book, they would, without doubt, confer on Wayne Pacelle, their highest honor.”
-JANE GOODALL

“The Bond is the best overall book on animals I have ever read. Brilliant and moving, it will change the way we see the world and the way we see ourselves.”
-JOHN MACKEY, CEO and Co-founder of Whole Foods Market

Majestic in sweep and beautifully written, The Bond is a monumental achievement. I can’t think of any other book that is so valuable. It is truly wonderful!”
-JEFFREY MASSON, New York Times bestselling author of When Elephants Weep