''Cry of the Kalahari'' (1984) is an autobiographical book detailing two young American zoologists, Mark and

Delia Owens Delia Owens (born c. 1949) is an American author, zoologist, and conservationist. She is best known for her 2018 novel ''Where the Crawdads Sing''. Owens was born and raised in Southern Georgia, where she spent most of her life in or near true ...

, and their experience studying wildlife in the Kalahari Desert in

Botswana Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label=Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahar ...

in the mid-1970s. There they lived and worked for seven years in an uninhabited area named Deception Valley in the

Central Kalahari Game Reserve Central Kalahari Game Reserve is an extensive national park in the Kalahari Desert of Botswana. Established in 1961 it covers an area of (larger than the Netherlands, and almost 10% of Botswana's total land area), making it the second largest game ...

. With no roads and the nearest civilization eight hours away they had only each other and the animals they studied as company, most of which had never seen humans before. Their research focused mainly on

lions The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large cat of the genus ''Panthera'' native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphic; adult ...

brown hyena The brown hyena (''Parahyaena brunnea''), also called strandwolf, is a species of hyena found in Namibia, Botswana, western and southern Zimbabwe, southern Mozambique and South Africa. It is the only extant species in the genus ''Parahyaena''. It ...

jackals Jackals are medium-sized canids native to Africa and Eurasia. While the word "jackal" has historically been used for many canines of the subtribe canina, in modern use it most commonly refers to three species: the closely related black-backed ...

and other African carnivores. ''Cry of the Kalahari'' is the personal story of the Owens' encounters with these and a myriad of other animals and depicts their own struggle to live and work in such an inhospitable and unforgiving environment. ''Cry of the Kalahari'' was a national and international bestseller, translated into seven languages and is the 1985

John Burroughs Medal The John Burroughs Medal, named for nature writer John Burroughs (1837–1921), is awarded each year in April by the John Burroughs Association to the author of a book that the association has judged to be distinguished in the field of natural hist ...

winner.

References

External links

''Cry of the Kalahari''
book website American autobiographies Natural history books Works about Botswana Environmental non-fiction books 1984 non-fiction books American travel books {{environment-book-stub