My Life in the Bush


Mark Penney - 2017
    Usually sooner. The short answer is “Yes, it could”, whether it is a charging lion or a rampaging elephant. It is inevitable that when working so close to these animals, something will happen. Mark Penney spent more than 20 years working as a field guide and a tourist guide in various South African game parks and reserves, including the Kruger National Park and Pilanesberg. Over the years he has had some interesting experiences and shares some of the stories of encounters with the unpredictable wildlife of Southern Africa.

Ocean Warrior: My Battle to End the Illegal Slaughter on the High Seas


Paul Watson - 1994
    He has stood in the path of oncoming icebreakers to protect seal nurseries, and overturned the law that shielded hunters of baby seals from protest and active intervention to stop slaughter. He is the environmentalist who scathingly referred to Greenpeace, an organization he helped found, as "the Avon ladies of the environmental movement." Now he owns a submarine.Why? Paul Watson's unswerving mission is to publicize -- and stop -- the atrocities committed against the creatures who inhabit the world's oceans.His life story is one of a man with more than the courage of his convictions -- time and time again he has risked his life for his beliefs. He rammed the Sierra, a whaling vessel whose masters illegally slaughtered 25,000 whales; he sailed up to a whale processing plant in the former Soviet Union and calmly snapped photographs when confronted with armed guards; he drove a Cuban fishing boat off the Grand Banks to protect the depleted cod population and he founded the radical and confrontationalist Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, after he became disillusioned with Greenpeace tactics.Ocean Warrior is the story of Paul Watson's conservation career -- an amazing chronicle of bravery, horrifying slaughter and international intrigue. A story of passion and principles, it will not easily be forgotten by anyone who cares about the fate of our oceans -- or our planet.

Smiling Bears: A Zookeeper Explores the Behavior and Emotional Life of Bears


Else Poulsen - 2009
    Few people know bears as intimately as Else Poulsen. She has raised bears, comforted bears, taught bears, learned from bears, had bears communicate their needs to her, and nursed bears back to health. This remarkable book reveals the many insights about bears and their lives that she has gained through her work with them. In the eighties, Poulsen became a zookeeper in Calgary, where she rehabilitated bears in crisis. She has shared in the joy of a polar bear discovering soil under her paws for the first time in twenty years, felt the pride of a cub learning to crack nuts with her molars, and grieved at the horror of captivity for Asian black bears in China.Smiling Bears provides an enlightening and moving portrait of bears in all their richness and complexity and of Poulsen's exhilarating work with them. Also available in paperback.

Lonesome George: The Life and Loves of a Conservation Icon


Henry Nicholls - 2006
    In 1971 he was discovered on the remote Galapagos island of Pinta, from which tortoises had supposedly been exterminated by greedy whalers and seal hunters. He has been at the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz island ever since, on the off-chance that scientific ingenuity will conjure up a way of reproducing him and resurrecting his species. Meanwhile a million tourists and dozens of baffled scientists have looked on as the celebrity reptile shows not a jot of interest in the female company provided. Today, Lonesome George has come to embody the mystery, complexity and fragility of the unique Galapagos archipelago. His story echoes the challenges of conservation worldwide; it is a story of Darwin, sexual dysfunction, adventure on the high seas, cloning, DNA fingerprinting and eco-tourism.

Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel


Carl Safina - 2015
    Beyond Words, readers travel to Amboseli National Park in the threatened landscape of Kenya and witness struggling elephant families work out how to survive poaching and drought, then to Yellowstone National Park to observe wolves sort out the aftermath of one pack's personal tragedy, and finally plunge into the astonishingly peaceful society of killer whales living in the crystalline waters of the Pacific Northwest.

Be a Flamingo & Stand Out From the Crowd


Sarah Ford - 2017
    She is always the first on the dancefloor and the very last to stop boogying. She has never tried to dress like a Parisian, never followed advice on what not to wear, and certainly has never tried to tone down her natural pinkness; she knows he is perfect just the way she is. And even when life throws Flamingo a curveball, she is always ready to embrace the unknown and jump straight in.A gorgeous little gift book of motivational sayings and hilarious axioms, Be a Flamingo is a perfect pink pick-me-up gift for a friend who needs a confidence boost, or great as an impulse self-purchase when you feel you need to start tooting your own horn a little louder. Because we could all do worse than taking a leaf out of Flamingo's book.

The End of the Game: The Last Word from Paradise - A Pictoral Documentation of the origins, History and Prospects of the Big Game Africa


Peter H. Beard - 1963
    Beautifully illustrated with over 300 contemporary and historical photographs as well as dozens of paintings, The End of the Game is a legendary workvividly telling the story of explorers, missionaries, and big-game hunters whose quests have changed the face of Africa forever.

The Year of the Gorilla


George B. Schaller - 1964
    . . . This is an exciting book. Although Schaller feels that this is 'not an adventure book,' few readers will be able to agree."—Irven DeVore, Science

The Fall of a Sparrow


Sálim Ali - 1986
    Eighty-seven at the time of writing and an internationally renowned figure, he vividly describes expeditions to almost every part of the subcontinent, including the old Princely States, Burma, Sikkim, Tibet, Bhutan and Afghanistan. As he tells of his life as motorcyclist, timber merchant, scientist, author and decorated celebrity, a picture also emerges of pre-independent India, of Maharajas and colonial administration.

Charlie the Kitten Who Saved A Life


Sheila Norton - 2016
    Perfect for fans of A Streetcat Named Bob and Alfie the Doorstep Cat.But what could I do? I was just a little cat and nobody ever listened to me. I made a promise to myself that I’d do everything I possibly could to save her, whatever the danger to me, and no matter how many lives I lost in the process...Charlie the kitten would do anything for his human. Having just recovered from a debilitating illness, eleven-year-old Caroline isn’t feeling her best, and the arrival of a new baby only makes her feel even more left out.So when Caroline decides to run away, Charlie follows, vowing to protect her at all costs. But for such a little kitten, it’s a big and scary world outside the comfort of the cottage – how far will he go to save his greatest friend?

The Winter Of The Fisher


Cameron Langford - 1971
    A fisher survives his first year in the wilderness through the help of a kind Ojibway.

The Red Collar


Colette Makray - 2013
    

Elephantoms: Tracking the Elephant


Lyall Watson - 2002
    This "entertaining and enchanting" work (Washington Post Book World) chronicles how Watson's fascination grew into a lifelong quest to understand the nature and behavior of this impressive creature.From that moment on, Watson's fascination grew into a lifelong obsession with understanding the nature and behavior of this impressive creature. Around the world, the elephant—at once a symbol of spiritual power and physical endurance—has been worshipped as a god and hunted for sport."Watson's insights and speculations are dazzling, but what lends them power is his extraordinary knowledge of evolutionary biology and animal behavior, ethnography and South African history" (Wade Davis, National Geographic Society). "Like a shaman, Watson conjures up the spirit of the massive beast" (Publishers Weekly), documents the animal's wide-ranging capabilities to remember and to mourn, and reminds us of its rich mythic origins, its evolution, and its devastation in recent history. Part meditation on an elusive animal, part evocation of the power of place, Elephantoms presents an alluring mix of the mysteries of nature and the wonders of childhood.

A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons


Robert M. Sapolsky - 2001
    An exhilarating account of Sapolsky’s twenty-one-year study of a troop of rambunctious baboons in Kenya, A Primate’s Memoir interweaves serious scientific observations with wry commentary about the challenges and pleasures of living in the wilds of the Serengeti — for man and beast alike. Over two decades, Sapolsky survives culinary atrocities, gunpoint encounters, and a surreal kidnapping, while witnessing the encroachment of the tourist mentality on the farthest vestiges of unspoiled Africa. As he conducts unprecedented physiological research on wild primates, he becomes evermore enamored of his subjects — unique and compelling characters in their own right — and he returns to them summer after summer, until tragedy finally prevents him.By turns hilarious and poignant, A Primate’s Memoir is a magnum opus from one of our foremost science writers.

Thylacine: The Tragic Tale of the Tasmanian Tiger


David Owen - 2003
    But was it a savage sheep killer or a shy, fussy, nocturnal feeder? And did it really drink its victims' blood? Once reviled, feared and slaughtered by government decree, the myth of the Tasmanian Tiger continues to grow. So treasured is it now, the Tasmanian Tiger has become the official logo of the island that wiped it out and a symbol of the conservation movement world-wide.A number of Australian species have miraculously reappeared after being labelled as extinct. Perhaps the Tiger is still with us. And if it's not, can it be brought back by cloning?