Most humans knowingly or unknowingly live among widely diverse nonhuman animals (animals) and thinking of them as intelligent and sentient neighbors with unique personalities can help us connect with them and foster coexistence. Many people met these amazing beings during a period called the anthropause as COVID-19 ravaged the world.

In Meet the Neighbors: Animal Minds and Life in a More-than-Human World, acclaimed science journalist Brandon Keim explores what animal personhood—knowing these neighborly animals as thinking, feeling beings—means for our relationships with wild animals and nature. He asks what would it mean to take a knowledge of animals as fellow persons out onto the landscape. Can thinking of nonhumans as our neighbors help chart a course to a kinder, gentler planet? Here's what Brandon had to say about his important book that offers many reasons for rewilding ourselves, taking sentience seriously, and for all of us to routinely take in many breaths of fresh air.

Marc Bekoff: Why did you write Meet the Neighbors?

Brandon Keim: Because I love nature and animals! That’s the short answer. The longer answer is that in the late 2000s and 2010s, I found myself fascinated by research on animal intelligence. That’s the book I first imagined writing: a compendium of findings about empathetic rats, problem-solving crows, optimistic bumblebees, fish who recognize themselves in a mirror, and so on.

Over time, though, I became equally interested in what people do with this knowledge of other animals as thinking, feeling beings. As fellow persons. Much had been written about farmed animals from that perspective, and also companion animals and animals used in research—but not so much about nature and wild animals. And so began Meet the Neighbors.

MB: Who do you hope to reach with this book?

BK: Everyone,........

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