Wild: Endangered Animals in Living Motion

Wild: Endangered Animals in Living Motion is a nonfiction children’s book featuring descriptions of endangered animals alongside photographs using Photicular technology to bring the images to life. The book is a collaboration by authors Kathy Wollard and Dan Kainen. Workman Publishing Company published the unique book in 2017.

A photo of a panda bear eating leaves is on the front cover. The book opens with an essay about what an endangered animal is, what threats these animals are facing, and what steps conservationists are taking to help the animals overcome obstacles. The piece explores conservation efforts from around the world.

The first animal profile is of the leopard. The image shows a leopard lying on the snow-covered ground, licking his paws. This particular leopard, an Amur leopard or a Far Eastern leopard, is the most endangered of the big cats. Though there were 1,500 leopards in 1960, that number has since dwindled to only 60 to 70 adults. People have overhunted the population in search of furs and body parts for use in folk remedies.



Leopards come out mostly in the evenings and sleep during the day. While all leopards have the rosette-shaped spots to help them hide in shaded underbrush, Amur leopards have larger, wider-spaced markings. They usually live alone, only coming together to mate; they can sire up to four cubs in a litter. An adult leopard can run up to 35 miles per hour and leap up to 20 feet. This athleticism allows them to catch deer, their primary food source, quickly.

The Southern White Rhinoceros is worse-off than the Amur leopard. Once numbering in the thousands, the White rhinoceros population now consists of only three animals in a Kenya Conservation park. The rhinos have been hunted to extinction for their horns, which are ground into a powder and used for folk remedies, purporting to cure cancer, gout, and other ailments. A white rhino horn can cost up to $60,000 a pound and is three times more expensive than gold.

On the other hand, the Southern White Rhinoceros population, through extensive conservation efforts, has risen from 1,000 to 20,000 since 1980.



The second-largest land mammal, rhinos are herbivores and eat grass, fruit, and plants. They only calve once every two to three years and their horns, like human nails or hair, are made out of keratin. The photograph accompanying the rhino's profile shows a mother rhino running after a baby rhino in South Africa.

The armored pangolin, similar in appearance to an armadillo, is a small mammal that eats insects. The pangolin's scales, like the rhino's horn, are made of keratin and are used in folk medicine and for clothing. Pangolin meat is a delicacy, landing the animal on the endangered species list. The most trafficked animal, 60,000 pangolins are taken from the wild every year.

Pangolin tongues are 2.5 feet long and are curled up inside their bodies near their rib cage. They use their sticky tongues to consume tens of thousands of insects in a single night. When threatened, they roll up into a tight ball and protect themselves with their hard scales. The accompanying photograph depicts a pangolin scampering across the sand. He holds up his two front paws just centimeters from the ground and walks on his hind legs.



Other animals are featured with their photos include a giant Albatross taking flight, a gorilla mom grooming her baby, a bumblebee sipping nectar with his proboscis extended, and an elephant splashing water on his back with his trunk.

Dan Kainen is credited with designing and inventing the Photicular book and "The Motion Viewer." Kainen, coming from a background of laser light shows, went on to create laser sculptures. He became an applications engineer working with electro-optics and laser-optical systems before returning to lighting design. Eventually, his experimentation with integrated imaging and 3D images led him to create what he calls "photicular books."

The concept of photicular images has been around since 1692. An image is cut into vertical strips and interleaved with a composite image in front that only allows you to see one image at a time (some billboards use this concept). When plastic lenses are used instead of bars, multiple images can be seen at a time giving the appearance that the image is moving. This concept is reminiscent of a cartoon: numerous images are flashed on slides to create a fluid movement.



More photicular books from Kainen include Polar, Ocean, Jungle, Dinosaur, and Safari. All of these books are nonfiction and present factual wildlife information along with colorful, moving images.

Carol Kauffman wrote the text for Wild; the book was on The New York Times Children's Picture Book Best Sellers list in 2012. Kauffman is also the bestselling author of How Come? Every Kid's Science Questions Explained.