Edward O. Wilson eloquently describes how the species of the world became diverse and why that diversity is threatened today as never before. A great spasm of extinction — the disappearance of whole species — is occurring now, caused this time entirely by humans. Unlike the deterioration of the physical environment, which can be halted, the loss of biodiversity is a far more complex problem — and it is irreversible. Defining a new environmental ethic, Wilson explains why we must rescue whole ecosystems, not only individual species. He calls for an end to conservation versus development arguments, and he outlines the massive shift in priorities needed to address this challenge. No writer, no scientist, is more qualified than Edward O. Wilson to describe, as he does here, the grandeur of evolution and what is at stake. "Engaging and nontechnical prose. . . . Prodigious erudition. . . . Original and fascinating insights." — John Terborgh, New York Review of Books, front page review "Eloquent. . . . A profound and enduring contribution." — Alan Burdick, Audubon

    Throughout her life she has always tended sheep - first as a young girl in The Cheviots, then on an uninhabited island off New Zealand with a bonfire as her only means of communication with the mainland. After a brutal attack she was forced to leave her island and returned to England, where she married, became a smallholder in Sussex and finally bought a hill farm in Somerset. Underpinning this account is the author's attachment to the land and her total commitment to combine the principles of conservation with successful farming.

    An omnibus of eight books of mountaineering and conservation literature: The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf, My First Summer in the Sierra, The Mountains of California, Our National Parks, The Yosemite, Travels in Alaska and Steep Trials.

    Illustrated with hundreds of his original photographs, Tracking & the Art of Seeing provides complete information on the behavior and habitat of over 50 animal species and shows you how to identify animals by their tracks, tail patterns, droppings, dens, scratches and other signs.

    Olympic dressage squad member Jane Savoie presents a revolutionary approach to riding by which you can train your mind and shape your attitudes to achieve higher levels of skill than ever imagined.

    The charts are to be read with a red-filtered flashlight at night. Includes instructions and hints for use.

    Featuring more than 500 full-color illustrations and photographs, along with detailed annotations, Smithsonian Handbooks make identification easy and accurate.

    A beautifully-written blend of literature and science, it is here brought back into print in a revised and updated edition which includes the acclaimed essay Sea Burial.

    This book also demonstrates that bats are one of the farmers' best friends. Any creature that will eat 3,000 to 7,000 insects per night, including mosquitos, is a good neighbor.

    If he had two hands, he could tear the sky . . .So unfolds a Yoruba poem celebrating the largest, most powerful, and one of the smartest creatures to walk the planet: the elephant. In this richly detailed exploration of the natural history and troubled fate of both the African and Asian species of elephant, noted wildlife biologist and author Douglas Chadwick travels the world to acquaint us with these awesome giants.Through visits to India, Siberia, Botswana, Thailand, Malaysia, Kenya, and even an American zoo, Chadwick illustrates the pivotal role the elephant plays in shaping and balancing not only the ecosystems it calls home, but also the livelihoods of a wide array of people. We travel to East Africa and join elephant families on the savannas of Amboseli Reserve in the shadow of Kilimanjaro. In the thick jungles of the Congo Basin, Chadwick leads us down pygmy footpaths on the trail of the elusive forest elephant. In Asia we experience a day in the life of a working elephant at an Indian timber camp, and take a raft trip to transplant problem elephants to remote areas of the Malaysian rainforest. At the zoo, we watch a four-ton artist take brush in trunk and paint a canvas with delicate strokes. In each place we visit, Chadwick reveals the elephant as a playful, intelligent being, full of surprises and ready to smash the narrow confines from which we traditionally view animals.As he shows us how similar elephants are to humans - they travel in closely knit families, learn from each other, look after their ill and elderly, mourn their dead, and communicate through a vocabulary of audible and subsonic sounds that addup to a surprisingly nuanced and expressive language - he leads us to rethink our definition of and approach to conservation.Chadwick also introduces us to the people whose lives are intimately connected with the elephant's - mahouts, researchers, loggers, royal white elephant metaphysicians, veterinarians, poachers, and some of the world's most talented ivory carvers. He illustrates how the elephant is integral to the history and mythology of the peoples with whom it has lived, and shows us why, despite that bond, elephants and humans have come into inevitable conflict as they vie for the same crucial tracts of land. Discussing the combination of factors that have pushed the elephant to the brink of extinction - the drastic loss of habitat, the ruthless pursuit of ivory, the unstable societies in crowded nations - Chadwick shows us why the fate of the elephant is a potent metaphor for our own fate, and makes a compelling case for acting immediately to save the elephant from oblivion, lest we destroy a creature we are only beginning to understand.

    Topics include not only food, but clothing, cordage, shelter, canoes, tools, housewares, medicines, religious objects, weaponry, personal adornment, and recreation.

    Among them were Pete and Linda Dunne, who set off from there on a year-long odyssey. Dunne has poured the most remarkable stories, birds, and characters into this unforgettable book about their once-in-a-lifetime adventure.

    The sparrows only habitat lay in the path of the Kennedy Space Center, not far from Disney World. Mark Walters moving narrative describes how the social and political forces of an era forced irrevocable and profound changes in the environment of Brevard County, Florida, and brought about the extinction of a small bird. Walters begins his story in the late 1950s, before Cape Canaveral was renamed the Kennedy Space Center. Against the backdrop of Merritt Island and the marshlands along the Indian, Banana, and St. Johns riversthe only places on the planet where the sparrow thrivedhe chronicles the struggles of many different personalities, strong-minded individuals whose lives and personal fates become inextricably entwined with those of the dusky. The cast of characters includes the head of Brevard County Mosquito Control, bureaucrats and rangers with U.S. Fish & Wildlife, NASA administrators, real estate developers, ranchers, highway engineers, egg collectors, conservationists, and finally, Disney World itself, home of the last duskies and their hybrid offspring. The sparrow, like the spotted owl of the Pacific Northwest, was the victimthe innocent bystanderof an intense human struggle between those who advocate growth and jobs at any cost and those who insist that each life form that is endangered be protected at any cost, and few, if any, winners in the end.

    He assembled a vast selection of contemporary and historical scripts, which nearly thirty years later were further embellished by Joris Hoefnagel, Europe's last great manuscript illuminator. This book, now in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, is reproduced here in complete facsimile form, accompanied by a commentary that includes a full description; a discussion of its patron, Rudolf II, and his cultural and historical milieu; the biographies of Hoefnagel and Bocskay; and an analysis of the manuscript's role in their careers. The introduction discusses the broader issues raised by the manuscript. Topics include Hoefnagel's nature imagery, which encompasses plants, fruits, and small animals, and its relation to the spread of interest in botany and zoology at the end of the sixteenth century. Another topic is calligraphy and its place in the art and culture of the sixteenth century. The manuscript's remarkable calligraphy will be of particular interest not only to scholars but to collectors, graphic designers, and typographers as well.

    Fact and folklore that explore the details of common plant and animal communities east of the rockies.

    What these collections say about the collectors, and about human beings in general, is the subject of this strangely beautiful and rich compendium. Here are Purcell's wonderfully exotic photographs of teeth and other human artifacts from the collection of Peter the Great; moles, pigs, and dogs from van Heurn's many boxes of perfectly preserved skins; and all manner of preserved life from Rothschild's Birds of Paradise to the fish of Agassiz. Here also is Gould at his best, delighting in the unusual and making connections to our own history and evolution that only the most fertile and whimsical mind could imagine - and that few will be able to resist. This is a book for those with a craving for beauty, knowledge, and a fascination with the unusual.

    In addition to examining all aspects of bat biology, the volume helps dispel many myths about bats.

    Over the millennia the crater became a national park for wildlife. Herbivores followed vegetation to the Ngorongoro and predators followed herbivores. Men followed, too, hunting for the tusks of rhinos and elephants, and the coats of the zebra. Rangers, photographers, and anthropologists came, too, to the place that many call the Garden of Eden. Reinhard Kunkel's beautiful, often astonishing, sometimes startling images, alongside landscapes of a primeval grandeur, make this book a triumph of wildlife photography. Reinhard Kunkel has been photographing there since 1973. He has lived with and shot the land and the animals - the lions, elephants, eagles, buffalo and hippopotamuses -- for the last thirty years. He has shot them mating, raising their young, killing their prey. He has watched herds of buffalo charge and scatter lions, followed the egrets searching for insects in the steps of the rhinos, stayed up nights waiting for the female rhino to accept the advances of the male, observed jackals and vultures staring each other down in confrontation over a kill, and the flamingoes feasting on the abundant blue-green algae. Unrivalled in the richness and diversity of its animal and plant life, Ngorongoro has been called the eighth wonder of the world.The original edition of this book was published in the United States in 1992. Updated with new photographs and extended by a new 16-page signature on the Maasai, it is an unrivalled work of design and production. Limited to 5,000 copies world wide.

    

    There, he studied and reared wildcats, and this text is the story of his cats Cleo and Patra, and his attempts to return their offspring to the wild.

    In America as well as abroad, the counterinsurgency campaign against the poachers and smugglers is being waged by U.S. Fish and Wildlife undercover agents. Game Wars offers a stunningly written, firsthand account of how these agents operate.

    This guide has over 400 color illustrations, including 140 completely new plates, up-to-date color maps, and a fully revised text. With species accounts, distribution maps, and illustrations on facing pages, it is practically designed and easy to use.

    Now in its second edition, A Complete Guide to the Snakes of Southern Africa has been updated, revised and expanded to include at least 11 newly discovered and 30 re-classified species and sub-species. New information based on international scientific research has been included in the species accounts relating to behavior, identification, reproduction and snake venom. This readable and user-friendly guide will be invaluable to herpetologists, snake collectors, hikers, gardeners, campers and householders, or anyone who may encounter or want to know more about these fascinating and widely misunderstood reptiles.

    Each book and CD provides an introduction to the sound repertoire of species living in eastern and central North America--a variety of calls from each species are included, along with an in-depth description and explanation of their significance. In addition to color photographs of the most common species, the text offers a fascinating look at the science of avian and amphibian calls, making these guides indispensable aids for the outdoor enthusiast.Species covered in this book: Bullfrog - Pig Frog - Green Frog - Wood Frog - Mink Frog - Carpenter Frog - Florida Bog Frog - Plains Leopard Frog - Southern Leopard Frog - Northern Leopard Frog - Pickerel Frog - Gopher Frog - Crawfish Frog - River Frog - Green Treefrog - Pine Barrens Treefrog - Barking Treefrog - Squirrel Treefrog - Pine Woods Treefrog - Gray Treefrog - Cope's Gray Treefrog - Bird-voiced Treefrog - Spring Peeper - Ornate Chorus Frog - Strecker's Chorus Frog - Little Grass Frog - Western Chorus Frog - Southern Chorus Frog - Brimley's Chorus Frog - Mountain Chorus Frog - Northern Cricket Frog - Southern Cricket Frog - American Toad - Southern Toad - Gulf Coast Toad - Fowler's Toad - Great Plains Toad - Oak Toad - Eastern Spadefoot - Plains Spadefoot - Eastern Narrowmouth Toad - Great Plains Narrowmouth Toad

    McKibben ( The End of Nature ) explains how Burroughs helps us appreciate the "middle kingdom" that is neither urban nor wild by "figuring out a language for making others treasure the small spectacles of nature." The essays are best read individually, as enthusiastic guides through Burroughs's intimate world. According to him, some scenery may be too grand for daily viewing, and Burroughs suggests that one build a house in "a more humble and secluded nook." An observer of nature, he says, needs more than just the habit of attention: "You must have the bird in your heart before you can find it in the bush." Eagerly offering transliterations of nature's sounds (" Pthrung, pthrung, " croaks a frog), Burroughs takes us on trips through the woods, a search for wild honey and an excursion for trout. His favorite companion is "a dog or a boy, or a person who has the virtues of dogs and boys--transparency, good nature, curiosity, open sense." For the reader, Burroughs is such a companion. First serial to the New York Review of Books. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

    

    TV tie-in. 35,000 first printing.

    There are more than 200 species of carnivore in existence which are more diverse than any other living group of vertebrates. The one feature which distinguishes carnivores from all other mammals is the carnassial tooth, designed for shearing meat, although, ironically, their survival has often depended on their ability to survive on diets other than meat. Nearly 40 million years ago the ancestors of two great dynasties of modern predators became divided. In a world dominated by forests the ancestors of the cat remained in the trees, and animals like the sabre-toothed tiger evolved into refined killers. The ancestors of the dog descended to the ground to feed in the clearings and later, with the opening up of the grassy plains and the prey available on these, the dog established its hunting terrain. The book helps to explain the extraordinary myths surrounding the hyena and its peculiar sexuality. It explores how bears, racoons and pandas as a group of carnivores have a truly omnivorous existence, addressing the question - can the vegetarian panda still be classified as a carnivore? The author also looks at the smaller carnivores of the mustella family with their incredible variation in size and lifestyle. They have developed to become both predators and prey and some, such as the skunk, have evolved elaborate defence mechanisms to deter predators. The various species of carnivore depend on each other for their survival, and it is an ironical fact that many skilled and powerful carnivores are more vulnerable than the prey they hunt - resulting in the establishment of intricate carnivore societies, like that of the meerkat.

    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

    

    A how-to guide for the weekend naturalist that is a practical owner's manual for your local woods.

    Beatrix Potter became a member of the Armitt Library in Ambleside, Cumbria, shortly after her marriage in 1913. At this time she was already famous as the creator of Peter Rabbit, but the paintings she donated to the Armitt Library date from the period before she had begun to produce children's books and are on a very different subject. These studies of fossils, archaeological finds, mosses and lichens, microscope drawings and, most importantly, the exceptionally fine fungus paintings comprise a remarkable body of scientific illustration. This book is introduced by Eileen Jay, Honorary President of the Armitt Trust, who describes how the Armitt Library was formed through the influence of a group of gifted and intellectual people and specifically through the achievements of the three talented Armitt sisters. Beatrix Potter strongly approved of the Armitt sisters' aims and ideals, particularly their views on the study of natural history and countryside conservation. The pictures she donated to the Library reflect their shared interests. Few details had been known about Beatrix Potter's scientific work until the discovery by Dr. Mary Noble of a series of letters between Beatrix and Charles McIntosh, the celebrated Scottish naturalist. In this book Mary Noble has used the correspondence between the two to explain and annotate the paintings. The letters also reveal how Beatrix battled to have her work recognized by the authorities of the day. The humour and spirit with which the young Beatrix Potter 'took on' the male-dominated scientific establishment makes this a delightful story, told here in its entirety for the first time. The book ends with an appraisal of the paintings themselves by Anne Hobbs, curator of the Beatrix Potter collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum. She demonstrates how, as in all Beatrix Potter's work, imagination inspired he