Book Review: Queen of Shaba

Title: Queen of Shaba

Author: Joy Adamson

Date: 1980

Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

ISBN: 0-15-175651-1

Length: 180 pages

Illustrations: several photo inserts, one section in color

Quote: “[T]he behavior of leopards in captivity...has caused them to be regarded as very dangerous animals.”

Some animals are better known than their humans. Quick quiz: who were the humans associated with Lassie, Smokey, Misty, Morris, Barbaro? Elsa, the lion in Born Free, was one of these animals, and Joy Adamson was her human.

Adamson was interested in the other large felines too, and wanted the experience of living with a leopard on the same terms she lived with Elsa. Obviously this would have to be a young, orphaned animal, and it took some years for Adamson to find Penny, a cub who had been living with park rangers in Kenya for one of the two or three months since her birth. Penny accepted Adamson as a foster mother and various young men who worked at Shaba, the wildlife preserve, as friends.

As a kitten Penny posed and acted like a very large house cat...although, as Adamson discusses in detail, her playful-kitten moods could be dangerous. Sometimes she was cuddly. As her face develops more of an adolescent-cat look, Adamson says, the pictures show less cuddling. Penny wanted to practice her hunting skills in play, and her “jumping moods” reminded the humans that she was a leopard.

Over several months, Penny developed the skills to trek around Shaba by herself, find a mate, and raise cute little spotted cubs of her own. Her relationship with Joy Adamson became confused. Most animal mothers will chase even the fathers of their young, not to mention their friends, away from the den or nest. Adamson and her co-workers wanted pictures of Penny’s cubs. Penny chased one of the men away, then moved the cubs to a den that was not accessible to humans. She still recognized her human friends and seemed affectionate as long as the humans stayed away from her babies.

During this time, Adamson became ill and had to spend a few days in a hospital. When she came back to Shaba, Penny “approached, but stopped in front of me. When I talked reassuringly to her she calmed down, though not before she had made one jump at me.”

Adamson here raises the question of how well animals understand that humans change clothes, and how their understanding may reflect the way they perceive the world. Scent-dominant animals like dogs recognize their humans in whatever we wear. Hearing-dominant animals, like most house cats, may be taken aback when we put on different clothes, but recognize our voices. Sight-dominant animals, like some domestic fowl, may see us as a completely different type of animal when we change clothes; hence the jokes about the hens who panic when the human who’s fed them all their lives approaches the henyard in his Sunday clothes. When Adamson came back from the hospital, she looked different (wearing a dress) and smelled different (the clinging odor of disinfectant); it’s not surprising that Penny thought this alien might be dangerous, but it does reflect well on Penny’s intelligence that she recognized a familiar voice in spite of an unfamiliar shape and smell.

I would suggest to those who want to bond with a wild or feral animal that giving the animal a chance to see you put on and take off clothes may help. Let them see all the different surfaces and silhouettes you normally display outside the house. They don’t need to learn about underwear but they do need to learn that your shape and color may vary. Dogs seem to know this, because they’re so scent-dominant; many animals don’t. Horses, who are often trained to treat all humans alike, and hens, who are seldom expected to know one human from another, can be genuinely confused by their humans’ many guises.

This is one animal story that doesn't end with the animal's life. Instead, it ends with the human's life; it was published posthumously by Adamson's family.