The novel’s first-person elephant narrator reflects many findings from elephant ethology, the scientific study of animal behavior. The book is dedicated to Dame Daphne Sheldrick, a pioneering Kenyan conservationist whose work at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust contributed significantly to public and scientific understanding of elephant behavior and orphan rehabilitation. By successfully raising orphaned elephants, Sheldrick and her team observed behaviors that suggest strong emotional and social attachments. Orphaned calves often showed signs of distress after losing family members, formed close bonds with caregivers and other elephants, and demonstrated long-term recognition of familiar individuals and places. These observations contributed to growing scientific interest in elephant memory, social relationships, and responses to loss.

These observations help explain why the novel presents an elephant narrator with rich emotional and social awareness. One of the most influential discoveries in elephant ethology was made by Katy Payne in the 1980s, when she demonstrated that elephants communicate using low-frequency sounds called infrasound that can travel over several kilometers. Her research showed that elephants use these calls to maintain contact with distant herd members, helping contextualize the novel’s depiction of Ishi and his herd communicating over long distances. When Ishi states, “[W]e have conversations just as you do, sometimes over long distances” (7), his claim aligns with real-world observations of elephant behavior. Lasker uses this scientific grounding to create a believable non-human perspective, allowing readers to understand the poaching crisis from the perspective of an animal directly affected by it.