This illustrated collection offers fascinating insight on restoring the wolf population to the Southern Rockies. Detailed reports by wildlife biologists, geographers, legal and policy experts, and conservationists provide a comprehensive look at not only the ecological imperatives, but also the history, legal framework, and public attitudes affecting the future of wolves.
Originally published in 1978, this classic exploration of humanity’s complex relationship with and understanding of wolves returns with a new afterword by the author. Humankind's relationship with the wolf is the sum of a spectrum of responses ranging from fear to admiration and affection. Lopez’s classic, careful study has won praise from a wide range of reviewers and improved the way books on wild animals are written. Of Wolves and Men explores the uneasy interaction between wolves and civilization over the centuries, and the wolf's prominence in our thoughts about wild creatures. Drawing upon an impressive array of literature, history, science, and mythology as well as extensive personal experience with captive and free-ranging wolves, Lopez argues for the wolf's preservation and immerses the reader in its sensory world, creating a compelling portrait of the wolf both as a real animal and as imagined by different kinds of men. A scientist might perceive the wolf as defined by research data, while an Eskimo hunter sees a family provider much like himself. For many Native Americans the wolf is also a spiritual symbol, a respected animal that can strengthen the individual and the community. With irresistible charm and elegance, Of Wolves and Men celebrates careful scientific fieldwork, dispels folklore that has enabled the Western mind to demonize wolves, explains myths, and honors indigenous traditions, allowing us to understand how this remarkable animal has become so prominent for so long in the human heart.
DID YOU KNOW THAT • we have more hair follicles than a chimpanzee • a male boxer in top condition can punch with the force of a thirteen-pound mallet swung at twenty miles an hour • the best human endurance runners can outlast a horse • one odor above all is sexually stimulating to the human male: cinnamon buns • our home-building skills compare nicely with those of the bagworm With dry wit and penetrating insight, science journalist Hannah Holmes casts the eye of a trained researcher and reporter on . . . herself. And on our whole species. She compares the biology and behavior of humans with that of other creatures, exploring how the human animal fits into the natural world. Holmes also reveals the ways in which Homo sapiens stands apart from other mammals (and all other animals) in ways that are alternately admirable and devastating. Deftly mixing personal stories with the latest scientific research, Hannah Holmes has fashioned an engaging field guide to that oddest and most fascinating of primates: ourselves.
For seven years, Tobin reported on the Endangered Species Act. He crisscrossed the Southwest in search of wildlife driven to the brink. This region, with its unique and complex issues provides a snapshot of issues facing endangered species.
Established in south-central New Mexico at the end of World War II, White Sands Missile Range is the largest overland military reserve in the western hemisphere. It was the site of the first nuclear explosion, the birthplace of the American space program, and the primary site for testing U.S. missile capabilities. In this environmental history of White Sands Missile Range, Ryan H. Edgington traces the uneasy relationships between the military, the federal government, local ranchers, environmentalists, state game and fish personnel, biologists and ecologists, state and federal political figures, hunters, and tourists after World War II—as they all struggled to define and productively use the militarized western landscape. Environmentalists, ranchers, tourists, and other groups joined together to transform the meaning and uses of this region, challenging the authority of the national security state to dictate the environmental and cultural value of a rural American landscape. As a result, White Sands became a locus of competing geographies informed not only by the far-reaching intellectual, economic, and environmental changes wrought by the cold war but also by regional history, culture, and traditions.
The new Canid Action Plan synthesizes the current knowledge on the biology, ecology and status of all wild canid species, and outlines the conservation actions and projects needed to secure their long-term survival. Aiming at conservation biologists, ecologists, local conservation officials, administrators, educators, and all others dealing with canids in their jobs, the authors aspire to stimulate the conservation of all canids by highlighting problems, debating priorities and suggesting action.
Co-published with the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Thoroughly revised and updated, Mammals of Colorado, Second Edition is a comprehensive reference on the nine orders and 128 species of Colorado's recent native fauna, detailing each species' description, habitat, distribution, population ecology, diet and foraging, predators and parasites, behavior, reproduction and development, and population status. An introductory chapter on Colorado's environments, a discussion of the development of the fauna over geologic time, and a brief history of human knowledge of Coloradan mammals provide ecological and evolutionary context. The most recent records of the state's diverse species, rich illustrations (including detailed maps, skull drawings, and photographs), and an extensive bibliography make this book a must-have reference. Amateur and professional naturalists, students, vertebrate biologists, and ecologists as well as those involved in conservation and wildlife management in Colorado will find value in this comprehensive volume.
