My thanks to Yann Martel, whose beautiful novel Life of Pi made me want to chronicle daily life inside a zoo. I read Life of Pi in the summer of 2003, just as Lowry Park was preparing to transport the elephants from Swaziland, and when I saw news accounts of the court battle and the marathon flight, I knew the zoo was ripe for exploration.

I am indebted to Lowry Park’s administration and staff, past and present, for allowing me to wander inside their world for so long—especially Lex Salisbury, Craig Pugh, Heather Mackin, Rachel Nelson, Trish Rothman, Larry Killmar, Andrea Schuch, Kevin McKay, David Murphy, Jeff Ewelt, Melinda Mendolusky, Brian French, Steve Lefave, Dustin Smith, Virginia Edmonds, Bob Scheible, Brian Morrow, Dan Costell, Kelly Ryder, Pam Noel, Brian Czarnik, and Carie Peterson. I am also indebted to many others outside the zoo, including Ed and Roger Schultz, Maggie Messitt, Monica Ross, Elena Sheppa, Don Woodman, Ian Kruger, Kevin Zippel, David Gardner, and Jeff and Coleen Kremer, and to the family of Char-Lee Torre. I thank Peter Wrege and Katy Payne at Cornell’s Elephant Listening Project for lending me their expertise as they read over my sections on elephant communication and behavior. I am especially grateful to Mick and Ted Reilly for helping me understand how they got elephants to fly and for showing me Mkaya and Hlane. My heartfelt thanks to Lee Ann Rottman for her unwavering patience with a reporter who, in the beginning at least, was afraid of animals. By the time we were done, she had me cradling a baby chimp.

This book is based on a series originally published in the St. Petersburg Times, and I would like to thank everyone in that remarkable newsroom whose support made that work and this book possible, including Paul Tash, Neil Brown, Stephen Buckley, Patty Cox, Patty Yablonski, Nikki Life, Dawn Cate, Lane DeGregory, Kevin McGeever, Tim Nickens, Desiree Perry, Boyzell Hosey, Gretchen Letterman, and Jill Wilson, gone but not forgotten. I am deeply grateful to Alex Zayas, Ben Montgomery, Don Morris, and Kelley Benham, whose reporting on the escape of the patas monkeys and on Lex Salisbury’s downfall informs so much of the book’s final chapters. Special thanks to Kelley for her patience, advice, and ferocious line revisions. She remains the Enshalla of editors. Also to Stefanie Boyar, who snapped hundreds of startling images during all those years I was taking notes, including the cover photo of Rango, and to my editors Neville Green and Mike Wilson, whose insights and sensibilities shaped my reporting from start to finish.

Special thanks to my agent, Jane Dystel, and my editor at Hyperion, Gretchen Young, as well as her assistant, Elizabeth Sabo, all of whom helped me reimagine this work and coax it into a book. Also to Bridget Nickens at the University of South Florida, who graciously assisted me with research; to Patsy Sims and the rest of my colleagues at Goucher College’s creative nonfiction MFA program, who indulged me with their enthusiasm through six summers of my working on this project; and to Brad Hamm, the dean of Indiana University’s journalism school, whose support and vision kept me going during the home stretch. Also to Stephanie Hayes and Mallary Tenore for their eagle eyes as they read over the manuscript. And to Anne Hull and David Finkel for decades of listening and prodding.

I am grateful to the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which gave me a quiet home where I could write and pace, and thoughtful colleagues who offered friendship and guidance. My humble gratitude to Karen Dunlap, Butch Ward, Keith Woods, Chip Scanlan, Jeff Saffan, and finally David Shedden, who tracked down hundreds of articles for me. I am indebted, as always, to my mentor and brother Roy Peter Clark, who was writing his own book down the hall at Poynter and who urged me on every step of the way, often materializing at my office door with a few words of encouragement just as the sun was rising over Tampa Bay.

Deepest thanks and love to my sons, Nat and Sam, and my wife, Kelley, for their inspiration and neverending support. I owe them everything.