From menacing moonshiners and armed bandits to charging elephants and man-eating tigers, Merlin Tuttle has stopped at nothing to find and protect bats on every continent they inhabit. Enamored of bats ever since discovering a colony in a cave as a boy, Tuttle saw how effective photography could be in persuading people not to fear bats, and he has spent his career traveling the world to document them.Few people realize how sophisticated and intelligent bats are. Tuttle shares research showing that frog-eating bats can identify frogs by their calls, that vampire bats have a social order similar to that of primates, and that bats have remarkable memories. Bats also provide enormous benefits by eating crop pests, pollinating plants, and carrying seeds needed for reforestation. They save farmers billions of dollars annually and are essential to a healthy planet.Sharing highlights from a lifetime of adventure and discovery, Tuttle takes us to the frontiers of bat research and conservation and forever changes the way we see these poorly understood yet fascinating creatures.

    Dogs are more than just a pet; they are trusted companions. They help us hunt, guard our homes, look after our livestock and even our children and, over time, do so many useful and wonderful things that it boggles the mind. This compilation of heart-warming dog stories illustrates the pure love of these amazing creatures, including extraordinary instances and first-hand accounts of bravery, friendship, loyalty, devotion and companionship down to their very last breath. There’s a reason we call them man’s best friend. No matter the situation, your dog is happy to see you. You are greeted with the same enthusiasm each and every time you walk in that door. A dog has the ability to live in the present moment. They don’t regret the past or worry about the future. While we often ask so much of them, they require almost nothing in return. You can ask your dog to chase a Frisbee, take a nap on the couch, herd some sheep, or run around a show ring and he’ll do it, happily, for hours on end. He only wants to be fed, and told he’s good, and most of all loved. If a dog has love, he really needs nothing else. In the presence of a dog, somehow, nothing else matters. A dog is handing out pure love, sparing no expense, and asking absolutely nothing in return. Perhaps American Humorist Josh Billings said it best: “A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.”

    The experience changed his life. While spending thousands of hours with the cubs, Kilham discovered unknown facets of bear behavior that have radically revised our understanding of animal behavior. Now widely recognized for his contributions to wildlife science, Kilham reveals that bears are altruistic and cooperate with unrelated, even unknown individuals, while our closer relatives, the supposedly more highly evolved chimps, cooperate only within troops of recognizable members. Beyond the natural history, he introduces individual bears who become enthralling and memorable characters.

    They are true stories - written by the cat owners - with lots of laughter, tears and love. As "slice-of-life" adventures of much-loved rescued kitties, the stories are delightful representations of various cultures throughout the United States and Canada. If you love cats, this book was written for you!

    This shocking and groundbreaking report on the trafficking and inhumane treatment of rare and exotic animals exposes a whole network of people and institutions more interested in profit than in animal welfarefrom zoos and wildlife parks to exotic meat dealers and Amish farmers..

    . . Tired of mortgage and car payments, thirty-something Andrew and Gwynn, and their Siamese cat Woodie, did the proverbial vanishing act, ending up on a desert island in one of the most idyllic spots on Earth: the Okavango Delta in Botswana, southern Africa. Woefully inexperienced, these two hapless escapees took control of a luxury lodge, where the rich and pampered went to spot big game while sipping G&Ts. Trouble soon followed. Amongst others, their guests included a famous Hollywood director, a group of French aristocrats, a Mafia lawyer, and a world-class cricketer. Their stays were punctuated by visits from bad-tempered elephants, malicious baboons, and a hyena with a plastic fetish. Only names have been changed to protect Andrew and Gwynn from inevitable lawsuits.

    In these memoirs, he tells the story of the passion for horse-riding which revolutionised his life and made him the champion he is today. Carl grew up on the remote Channel Island of Sark, moving to the UK mainland at the age of 16 to work with horses, mainly as a way to leave home. He could never have predicted what a great affinity he would have for dressage. Carl's career enjoyed a stratospheric rise as he progressed from working as a groom/rider to riding international dressage horses full time for renowned owners Dr and Mrs Bechtolsheimer, to training his own horses, and other top riders, to international success. Carl's early career revealed someone capable of monumental achievements. He provides a rare insight into both the people and the horses that drove him to victory.

    But centuries of exploitation and ivory hunting have taken their toll: now, as wars and poachers continue to ravage its habitat, as disease and political strife deflect attention from its plight, the African elephant faces imminent extinction. What will become of these magnificent beasts? As the elephant's future looms ever darker, Martin Meredith's concise and richly illustrated biography traces the elephant's history from the first ivory expeditions of the Egyptian pharaohs 2500 years ago to today, exploring along the way the indelible imprint the African elephant has made in art, literature, culture, and society. He shares recent extraordinary discoveries about the elephant's sophisticated family and community structure and reveals the remarkable ways in which elephants show compassion and loyalty to each other. Elegant, illuminating, and urgent, Elephant Destiny offers a beautiful and important tribute to one of earth's most magisterial creatures at the very moment it threatens to vanish from being.

    Rats are found in virtually every nook and cranny of the globe and their numbers are ever increasing. Rats are always adapting and they seem to outwit any attempts by humans to wipe them out. What makes the rat such a worthy adversary and how has it risen to the top of the animal kingdom? • Rats have been discovered living in meat lockers. The rats in there simply grew longer hair, fatter bodies, and nested in the carcasses they fed upon.• A female rat can, under good conditions, have well over 100,000 babies in her lifetime.• A rat can fall fifty feet onto pavement and skitter away unharmed.• A rat’s jaws can exert a force more than twenty times as powerful as a human’s.• The front side of a rat’s incisors are as hard as some grades of steel.In Rat: How the World’s Most Notorious Rodent Clawed Its Way to the Top, Jerry Langton explores the history, myth, physiology, habits, and psyche of the rat and even speculates on the future of the rat and how they might evolve over the next few hundred years.

    Coming from the all-mod-cons society of Britain at the beginning of the 1980’s, the author is literally transplanted to a farm in the foothills of the Drakensberg mountains in what is now Kwazulu Natal.Once there, she finds her feet in the ways of Africawith the help of a charming, elderly Dutch couple, an appealing but wily African farm hand, his practical and motherly daughter and a wise and fascinating neighbour who has a fund of local knowledge.These are tales of a different kind of life, whichinclude living without electricity, hand-milking cows, drought, veld fires and mad-cap adventures into the unknown.They are stories told with deep affection and respect, and above all a liberal dose of tongue-in-cheek humour.

    Tougias' journey begins when he buys a remote mountain-top cabin in the hopes of becoming a real "mountain man," and gets much more than he bargained for. Misadventure follows calamity in his encounters with wildlife, the locals, and nature. In There's a Porcupine in My Outhouse, Tougias reveals his deepening respect for and connection to the natural world and how this transforms his ideas on all aspects of life. As his love of the outdoors grows, so does his feeling of responsibility and stewardship toward the environment. A funny, honest, and personal account, this is the perfect book for anyone who loves the outdoors and loves to laugh.

    The largest cat in the Americas, it has survived an onslaught of environmental and human threats partly because of an evolutionary history unique among wild felines, but also because of a power and indomitable spirit so strong, the jaguar has shaped indigenous cultures and the beliefs of early civilizations on two continents. In An Indomitable Beast: The Remarkable Journey of the Jaguar, big-cat expert Alan Rabinowitz shares his own personal journey to conserve a species that, despite its past resilience, is now on a slide toward extinction if something is not done to preserve the pathways it prowls through an ever-changing, ever-shifting landscape dominated by humans. Rabinowitz reveals how he learned from newly available genetic data that the jaguar was a single species connected genetically throughout its entire range from Mexico to Argentina, making it unique among all other large carnivores in the world. In a mix of personal discovery and scientific inquiry, he sweeps his readers deep into the realm of the jaguar, offering fascinating accounts from the field. Enhanced with maps, tables, and color plates, An Indomitable Beast brings important new research to life for scientists, anthropologists, and animal lovers alike. This book is not only about jaguars, but also about tenacity and survival. From the jaguar we can learn better strategies for saving other species and also how to save ourselves when faced with immediate and long-term catastrophic changes to our environment.

    But when she fell in love with renowned conservationist Lawrence Anthony her life took an unexpected turn. Lawrence died in 2012 and Francoise was left to run Thula Thula without him, even though she knew very little about conservation. She was short on money, poachers were capitalizing on the chaos of Lawrence’s death, and one of their elephants was charging Land Rovers on game drives and terrifying guests. How Francoise survived and Thula Thula thrived is beautifully described in this charming, funny and poignant book. If you loved Lawrence's The Elephant Whisperer, or just want to spend time with some remarkable animals, then you won’t want to miss this sparkling book.

    An extraordinary man, Shaun has been fascinated by wolves all his life, even living as part of a wild pack for two years with no human contact. What he gained was a unique and fascinating insight into their world, and that of our very own domestic dogs.

    The many-pointed star formed from large icicles balances on a rock in a quiet Dumfriesshire valley, a delicate bamboo screen stands on a Japanese beach, a great serpentine ridge of earth extends along a disused railway cutting on Tyneside, four massive snow rings mark the position of the North Pole.