The Understory

Tragedy haunted her. Her instinct to survive drove her. On the savanna of Zimbabwe, Michelle Schuman watched the tears fall from the eyes of a baby elephant as it mourned its mother, a bloody emptiness where her trunk and face were missing because of ignorance and self-indulgence. Deep in the bamboo forest of the Virunga Mountains, she was touched by a Mountain Gorilla. On the once-pristine shores of Prince William Sound, she bore witness to the sobering spectacle of hundreds of seals ready to g