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Susan McCarthy is co-author with Marjorie Ingall of Sorry, Sorry, Sorry: The Case for Good Apologies. Ingall & McCarthy write Sorrywatch.com, a website which analyzes apologies. McCarthy also writes about wildlife and animal behavior. She’s co-author of the international bestseller When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals, and author of Becoming a Tiger: How Baby Animals Learn to Live in the Wild. Not literally raised by wolves, McCarthy lives in San Francisco.

Category: Enrichment

  • What shall I do with this prehensile tail?

    I had heard that the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans was a really great zoo. The people who told me this (not zoo aficionados) were never able to say what was great about it. They didn't mention rare species, successful breeding programs, or brilliant enrichment schemes. It was just really great. I recently got to…

  • Three hacks

    The experimenters were trying to enliven the lives of zoo animals while simultaneously gathering data. As often happens, not all the data they gathered was in the categories expected. As Hal Markowitz recounts in Behavioral Enrichment in the Zoo, date (1981), he was trying to set up a game for mandrills (Papio sphinx) in a…

  • Spotty isn’t really being challenged by the curriculum

    Afternoon at the zoo. Fake savannah, real giraffes. Fake rocks, real plants. In a real crevice on top of a fake cliff, real weeds growing in real dust. Child: “That giraffe is sleeping on the rock!” It did look as if the giraffe had approached the simulated sandstone cliff and laid her head along the…