Sentinels

Humans have long observed animals for advanced warnings of danger. What can they tell us about the growing threat of contagion in the age of climate change?

Diseases today reveal our close ties to animals. Viruses leap from bats to camels to humans. Cats catch the flu, and tourists pass tuberculosis to elephants. In recent years, however, something has changed. Exploitation of the environment is causing more diseases to jump species than ever before - a threat to life that rivals climate change. The science is clear- the cause of this great acceleration is us.

In Sentinels, Michael Dulaney takes readers from southern China to the Andes, from the Arctic to Australia, to tell the gripping stories of the people and animals at the forefront of this enormous change. Dulaney joins ecologists tracking flying foxes through Australia's eastern forests, and frog hunters netting endangered species on Indonesian mountains. Along the way, we meet lemmings that resist global warming, coastal seals with bird flu, and genetically engineered disease-proof pigs.

Combining vivid field reporting with natural history, these stories move beyond the fear of contagion to explore the beauty and resilience of life, and the human capacity to regenerate as much as to destroy. Urgent, moving, and deeply informed, Sentinels is an essential reckoning with our intimate connection to nature, and a call to build a fairer world for all.



'Dulaney has given us an elegant and urgent exploration of humanity's interconnectedness with the natural world, which we ignore at our peril. A must-read.'
-Sarah Krasnostein, multi-award-winning author

'Compulsively readable, politically astute, and meticulously researched, Sentinels is a brilliant book about humans and animals; about viruses, vulnerability, and ecological violence in an age of climate catastrophe. It is a meditation on the great web of being and an urgent call to arms. The new environmental journalism is here, and Dulaney is its finest correspondent.'
-Alecia Simmonds, author of Courting- An Intimate History of Love and the Law, winner of the 2024 Australian History Prize in the NSW Premier's History Awards

'Visceral, vivid, and propulsive, Michael Dulaney's writing is impossible to put down. A staggering feat of investigative reporting, Sentinels pulses with heart while asking the urgent questions of our time. Dulaney plunges us into tiny worlds with enormous consequences, rendering a piercing portrait of the world as it is and an honest look at what lies ahead, while leaving the reader with something rarer still- hope. Armed with knowledge, perhaps we can finally face the long-overdue reckoning.'
-Sheree Joseph, author of Juicy- How to Live a Life in the Wreckage of Expectations