"Beautiful, strong, majestic, and playful bears collectively capture the imagination and hearts of many humans. The bear is the world's largest land predator, and it comes in many different colors, sizes, and species. Bear Country: North America's Grizzly, Black, and Polar Bears is award-winning nature photographer Steven Kazlowski's stunning full-color ode to this multifaceted icon of North America's wilderness places."--Amazon.com.
Three species of bear inhabit North America: the grizzly, the polar bear, and the black bear. But the American black bear is truly North America's bear, found only in North America. Black bears range from Canada to Mexico, from New England to California. There may be as many as 750,000 black bears roaming the forests and mountains of the continent. With its large population, and with more people moving into black bear territory, it's important that we understand this magnificent animal. Stephen R. Swinburne takes us to where black bears live. He joins biologists in search of bears in the Pennsylvania woods, where a mother bear is examined and her cubs tagged. He visits a "school teacher" for orphaned cubs who teaches them how to survive in the wild. Along the way, he offers his personal observations together with fascinating facts about black bears and their world. (Did you know that in the autumn, black bears consume as much as twenty thousand calories a day? That's equivalent to forty-two hamburgers!) With stunning full-color and archival photographs, this lively book shows how North America's bear behaves and survives.
Bears are North America's most complex and controversial predator, both loved and hated for their majesty and power. Will Troyer's introduction to the natural history of Alaska's brown bears is both enchanting and informative, told with the objectivity of a biologist, the resonant voice of an outdoorsman who has spent decades in bear society, and breathtaking photography. Troyer was a pioneer in the study of brown bears. Convinced that scientific research was the only antidote to widespread fear and misinformation about one of Alaska's largest predators, he gathered data with primitive equipment and endured hair-raising adventures. His career spanned dramatic changes in approaches to bear management that ranged from extermination to conservation, a history of human-bear interactions that he recounts with unusual insight and first-hand knowledge. Troyer offers a holistic description of bear biology and behavior, an account of bear-human interactions, and practical advice for viewing and photographing bears. Into Brown Bear Country offers an intimate, realistic view of the lives of Alaska's coastal bears. Entertaining and readable, it will be enjoyed by all readers of nature literature and is an essential starting point for anyone visiting bear country.
On January 1 of 2016, Stefanie Payne, a creative professional working at NASA Headquarters, and Jonathan Irish, a photographer with National Geographic, left their lives in Washington, D.C. and hit the open road on an expedition to explore and document all 59 of America's national parks during the centennial celebration of the U.S. National Park Service - 59 parks in 52 weeks - the Greatest American Road Trip. Captured in more than 300,000 digital photographs, written stories, and videos shared by the national and international media, their project resulted in an incredible view of America's National Park System seen in its 100th year. 'A Year in the National Parks, The Greatest American Road Trip' is a gorgeous visual journey through our cherished public lands, detailing a rich tapestry of what makes each park special, as seen along an epic journey to visit them all within one special celebratory year.
What causes bear attacks? When should you play dead and when should you fight an attacking bear? What do we know about black and grizzly bears and how can this knowledge be used to avoid bear attacks? And, more generally, what is the bear’s future? Bear Attacks is a thorough and unflinching landmark study of the attacks made on men and women by the great grizzly and the occasionally deadly black bear. This is a book for everyone who hikes, camps, or visits bear country–and for anyone who wants to know more about these sometimes fearsome but always fascinating wild creatures.
In The Bear Doesn't Know, Paul Schullery--honored naturalist, storyteller, and former Yellowstone ranger--has given us a bear-lover's book of wonders. It is rich in the joy, beauty, inspiration, and pure fun to be had during a life well lived in bear country. While exploring the cultural complications of an animal we have long both feared and adored, he chronicles the bumpy course of our coming to terms with the mysteries of bear ecology and behavior. Schullery brings to the matter of bears a long view--of our centuries-long and always-evolving perception of wild bears, of the scientific exploration of bear ecology and behavior, and of the sometimes bitter struggles to protect bear populations for the future. Featuring Schullery's trademark gifts for historical inquiry and scientific translation, as well as for mixing humor with telling insight, Schullery enlivens The Bear Doesn't Know with many of his own quirky tales of life in the wildlands of North America and in the obscure realms of bear folklore and literature. North America's bears have become universally recognized symbols of wild landscapes and the struggles to preserve them. In this collection, Schullery illuminates and celebrates the bears and their world, making plain why they always have and always will matter so much to us.
What should you do when you encounter a bear? Should you run? Climb the nearest tree? Isn't it best to know the right answer before your life depends on it? Now there is one source to turn to for the correct answer to these questions and hundreds of others: SAFE TRAVEL IN BEAR COUNTRY.
They terrify and fascinate us. They are moving closer to us as climate change, deforestation, and rural development diminish their habitat. Once considered rare, romantic creatures, bears are now as common in some places as raccoons. Some say we should leave them alone; others argue that responsible hunting will serve both bears and humans best. Weighing both sides of the argument, award-winning writer Jake MacDonald examines the history and behavior of the three species of bears in North America: grizzlies, black bears, and polar bears. Perceptive and profound,In Bear Countrydraws on the personal experience of MacDonald and others, and tells an absorbing story about the place bears occupy in our world and the place we occupy in theirs. Part memoir and part natural history, this is a compelling meditation on our continent’s largest predators and on the people who live alongside them. As the author skillfully interweaves the stories, he delivers a powerful message for all to consider as bear country quickly shrinks and our worlds collide.
"A practical resource for understanding bear biology and behavior, why human-bear conflicts are on the rise, and what we can do at home, at play, and in our communities to coexist with black bears and reduce problems that come from sharing space"--
A tiny American town's plans for radical self-government overlooked one hairy detail: no one told the bears. Once upon a time, a group of libertarians got together and hatched the Free Town Project, a plan to take over an American town and completely eliminate its government. In 2004, they set their sights on Grafton, NH, a barely populated settlement with one paved road. When they descended on Grafton, public funding for pretty much everything shrank: the fire department, the library, the schoolhouse. State and federal laws became meek suggestions, scarcely heard in the town's thick wilderness. The anything-goes atmosphere soon caught the attention of Grafton's neighbors: the bears. Freedom-loving citizens ignored hunting laws and regulations on food disposal. They built a tent city in an effort to get off the grid. The bears smelled food and opportunity. A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear is the sometimes funny, sometimes terrifying tale of what happens when a government disappears into the woods. Complete with gunplay, adventure, and backstabbing politicians, this is the ultimate story of a quintessential American experiment -- to live free or die, perhaps from a bear.
