Eavesdropping on Animals by George Bumann

Eavesdropping on Animals

What We Can Learn From Wildlife Conversations

George Bumann, Jon Young

Greystone Books · Print & ebook · June 10, 2025

"This book is fabulous and takes you close inside the wild world, where you feel the creatures whispering your old name."—Craig Foster, My Octopus Teacher Learn how to decode the secret conversations of wild animals all around you.

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Genres
Animal Behavior, Wildlife, Natural History
Published
Greystone Books, June 10, 2025

About this book

"This book is fabulous and takes you close inside the wild world, where you feel the creatures whispering your old name."—Craig Foster, My Octopus Teacher Learn how to decode the secret conversations of wild animals all around you. From a Yellowstone naturalist and expert in animal language comes “a tantalizing guide to revamping our approach to wild things.” (WSJ) Growing up in rural New York, as a young man George Bumann learned to track deer and turkeys as a hunter.

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Then everything changed. He left his hunting days behind and began an extraordinary journey into the more-than-human world … Humans once relied on the calls of wild animals to understand the natural world and their place within it. Now, this remarkable guide reveals what our ancestors knew long ago—that tuning in to the owl in the tree, the deer in the gully, can tell us important information and help us feel connected to our wild community. In Eavesdropping on Animals, George Bumann shares the fascinating stories and insights he has gained from studying wildlife around the world for more than forty years, the last twenty of which have been spent leading popular programs on animal language and intelligence in Yellowstone National Park. Bumann shares tips, tricks, and advice for readers living in urban, suburban and rural areas and clearly shows us that you don’t need an exotic vacation or a biology degree to have transformative wildlife encounters. Listening to and observing creatures in your own backyard, on nearby trails, and in local parks, seashores, fields, and forests can lead to extraordinary experiences and a profound sense of belonging. Are you ready to eavesdrop on your wild neighbors? Are you ready to learn how to tell a warning call from a mating call, a purr of satisfaction from idle chatter? Then this book is for you!

Wildlife Listening

Come here for

  • wildlife behavior, closely observed
  • field notes with something to say

Expect

  • layered animal-behavior insights
  • reference-friendly, discussion-ready framing

Where it sits

Animal Behavior56%
Wildlife55%
Natural History28%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • Wildlife
  • How Ecosystems Work
  • Ecology
  • Animal Behavior
Authors
George Bumann, Jon Young
Publisher
Greystone Books
Published
June 10, 2025
Format
Print & ebook
Reading lane
Wildlife