The tiger isn’t just killing people, it’s annihilating them, and a team of men and their dogs must hunt it on foot through the forest in the brutal cold. As the trackers sift through the gruesome remains of the victims, they discover that these attacks aren’t random: the tiger is apparently engaged in a vendetta. Injured, starving, and extremely dangerous, the tiger must be found before it strikes again.As he re-creates these extraordinary events, John Vaillant gives us an unforgettable portrait of this spectacularly beautiful and mysterious region. We meet the native tribes who for centuries have worshipped and lived alongside tigers, even sharing their kills with them. We witness the arrival of Russian settlers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, soldiers and hunters who greatly diminished the tiger populations. And we come to know their descendants, who, crushed by poverty, have turned to poaching and further upset the natural balance of the region.This ancient, tenuous relationship between man and predator is at the very heart of this remarkable book. Throughout we encounter surprising theories of how humans and tigers may have evolved to coexist, how we may have developed as scavengers rather than hunters, and how early Homo sapiens may have fit seamlessly into the tiger’s ecosystem. Above all, we come to understand the endangered Siberian tiger, a highly intelligent super-predator that can grow to ten feet long, weigh more than six hundred pounds, and range daily over vast territories of forest and mountain.Beautifully written and deeply informative, The Tiger circles around three main characters: Vladimir Markov, a poacher killed by the tiger; Yuri Trush, the lead tracker; and the tiger himself. It is an absolutely gripping tale of man and nature that leads inexorably to a final showdown in a clearing deep in the taiga.

    In 1992, in a remote mountain range, a team of scientists discovered the remains of an unusual animal with exquisite long horns. It turned out to be a living species new to Western science -- a saola, the first large land mammal discovered in fifty years. Rare then and rarer now, a live saola had never been glimpsed by a Westerner in the wild when Pulitzer Prize finalist and nature writer William deBuys and conservation biologist William Robichaud set off to search for it in central Laos. Their team endured a punishing trek up and down white-water rivers and through mountainous terrain ribboned with the snare lines of armed poachers who roamed the forest, stripping it of wildlife. In the tradition of Bruce Chatwin, Colin Thubron, and Peter Matthiessen, The Last Unicorn chronicles deBuys's journey deep into one of the world's most remote places. It's a story rich with the joys and sorrows of an expedition into undiscovered country, pursuing a species as rare and elusive as the fabled unicorn. As is true with the quest for the unicorn, in the end the expedition becomes a search for something more: the essence of wildness in nature, evidence that the soul of a place can endure, and the transformative power of natural beauty.

    These "blood diamonds" are smuggled out of West Africa and sold to legitimate diamond merchants in London, Antwerp, and New York, often with the complicity of the international diamond industry. Eventually, these very diamonds find their way into the rings and necklaces of brides and spouses the world over. Blood Diamonds is the gripping tale of how the diamond smuggling works, how the rebel war has effectively destroyed Sierra Leone and its people, and how the policies of the diamond industry - institutionalized in the 1880s by the De Beers cartel - have allowed it to happen. Award-winning journalist Greg Campbell traces the deadly trail of these diamonds, many of which are brought to the world market by fanatical enemies. These repercussions of diamond smuggling are felt far beyond the borders of the poor and war-ridden country of Sierra Leone, and the consequences of overlooking this African tragedy are both shockingly deadly and unquestionably global. Updated with a new epilogue.

    This is his masterful chronicle of one penguin colony’s astonishing journey of life, death, and rebirth—and of the extraordinary human experience of living amongst them in the planet’s harshest environment.My Penguin Year recounts McCrae's remarkable adventure to the end of the Earth. He observed every aspect of a breeding emperor's life, facing the inevitable sacrifices that came with living his childhood dream, and grappling with the personal obstacles that, being over 15,000km away from the comforts of home, almost proved too much. Out of that experience, he has written an unprecedented portrait of Antarctica’s most extraordinary residents.

    Her stories struck a chord with thousands of readers, including Temple Grandin, who described the book as "amazing." Now Holland explores animal attachments that, in human terms, can only be called love. Packed with beautiful, breathtaking full-color photographs, Unlikely Loves is a celebration of love between species. Here are stories of parental love, like the Dalmatian who mothers a newborn lamb—a lamb that just happens to be white with black spots! Stories of playful love, including the fox and the hound who become inseparable. And stories of orphaned animals who have found family-like ties in unexpected combinations, like the elephant who’s bonded with sea lions, goats, and other animals in her walks around the Oregon Zoo. Ms. Holland has interviewed scientists, zoologists, and animal caretakers from around the world, tracking down firsthand sources and eyewitnesses. The stories are written with journalistic integrity and detail—and always filled with the author’s deep affection for her subjects.

    Among them was eight-year-old Asad Abdullahi. His mother murdered by a militia, his father somewhere in hiding, he was swept alone into the great wartime migration that scattered the Somali people throughout sub-Saharan Africa and the world.This extraordinary book tells Asad’s story. Serially betrayed by the people who promised to care for him, Asad lived his childhood at a skeptical remove from the adult world, his relation to others wary and tactical. He lived in a bewildering number of places, from the cosmopolitan streets of inner-city Nairobi to the desert towns deep in the Ethiopian hinterland.By the time he reached the cusp of adulthood, Asad had honed an array of wily talents. At the age of seventeen, in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, he made good as a street hustler, brokering relationships between hard-nosed businessmen and bewildered Somali refugees. He also courted the famously beautiful Foosiya, and, to the astonishment of his peers, seduced and married her.Buoyed by success in work and in love, Asad put twelve hundred dollars in his pocket and made his way down the length of the African continent to Johannesburg, South Africa, whose streets he believed to be lined with gold. And so began a shocking adventure in a country richer and more violent than he could possibly have imagined.A Man of Good Hope is the story of a person shorn of the things we have come to believe make us human—personal possessions, parents, siblings. And yet Asad’s is an intensely human life, one suffused with dreams and desires and a need to leave something permanent on this earth.

    By some estimates, we may already have lost almost half of the songbirds that filled the skies only forty years ago. Renowned biologist Bridget Stutchbury convincingly argues that songbirds truly are the "canaries in the coal mine"--except the coal mine looks a lot like Earth and we are the hapless excavators.Following the birds on their six-thousand-mile migratory journey, Stutchbury leads us on an ecological field trip to explore firsthand the major threats to songbirds: pesticides, still a major concern decades after Rachel Carson first raised the alarm; the destruction of vital habitat, from the boreal forests of Canada to the diminishing continuous forests of the United States to the grasslands of Argentina; coffee plantations, which push birds out of their forest refuges so we can have our morning fix; the bright lights and structures in our cities, which prove a minefield for migrating birds; and global warming. We could well wake up in the near future and hear no songbirds singing. But we won't just be missing their cheery calls, we'll be missing a vital part of our ecosystem. Without songbirds, our forests would face uncontrolled insect infestations, and our trees, flowers, and gardens would lose a crucial element in their reproductive cycle. As Stutchbury shows, saving songbirds means protecting our ecosystem and ultimately ourselves.Some of the threats to songbirds: - The U.S. annually uses 4-5 million pounds of active ingredient acephate, an insecticide that, even in small quantities, throws off the navigation systems of White-throated sparrows and other songbirds, making them unable to tell north from south. - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conservatively estimated that 4-5 million birds are killed by crashing into communication towers each year.- A Michigan study found that 600 domestic cats killed more than 6,000 birds during a typical 10-week breeding season. Wood thrush, Kentucky warbler, the Eastern kingbird--migratory songbirds are disappearing at a frightening rate. By some estimates, we may already have lost almost half of the songbirds that filled the skies only forty years ago. Renowned biologist Bridget Stutchbury convincingly argues that songbirds truly are the "canaries in the coal mine"--except the coal mine looks a lot like Earth and we are the hapless excavators.Following the birds on their six-thousand-mile migratory journey, Stutchbury leads us on an ecological field trip to explore firsthand the major threats to songbirds: pesticides, still a major concern decades after Rachel Carson first raised the alarm; the destruction of vital habitat, from the boreal forests of Canada to the diminishing continuous forests of the United States to the grasslands of Argentina; coffee plantations, which push birds out of their forest refuges so we can have our morning fix; the bright lights and structures in our cities, which prove a minefield for migrating birds; and global warming. We could well wake up in the near future and hear no songbirds singing. But we won't just be missing their cheery calls, we'll be missing a vital part of our ecosystem. Without songbirds, our forests would face uncontrolled insect infestations, and our trees, flowers, and gardens would lose a crucial element in their reproductive cycle. As Stutchbury shows, saving songbirds means protecting our ecosystem and ultimately ourselves.Some of the threats to songbirds: - The U.S. annually uses 4-5 million pounds of active ingredient acephate, an insecticide that, even in small quantities, throws off the navigation systems of White-throated sparrows and other songbirds, making them unable to tell north from south. - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conservatively estimated that 4-5 million birds are killed by crashing into communication towers each year.- A Michigan study found that 600 domestic cats killed more than 6,000 birds during a typical 10-week breeding season.

    In this real-life "lost world," hundreds of animal and plant species, most famously the lemurs, have evolved here and only here, while other creatures extinct elsewhere for tens of millions of years now vie with modern man for survival. It's a land of striking geography, from soaring mountains to vast canyon lands, from tropical rain forests to spiny desert. And its people are a conundrum unto themselves, their origins obscure, their language complex and distinct, and their beliefs fascinating. In The Eighth Continent, Peter Tyson will guide you into this, the planet's most exotic frontier, so you can see for yourself why it's been called "the naturalist's promised land."Part scientific exploration, part adventure saga, part cultural and historical narrative, The Eighth Continent follows Tyson's journeys with four scientific experts as they explore the fourth-largest island in the world:A herpetologist with a pied piper call to reptiles who has discovered and collected more Malagasy species than any other biologist-and continues to discover more every yearA paleoecologist searching an enormous cavern complex for clues as to why the island's megafauna-Galipagos-sized tortoises, lemurs as big as apes, ten-foot-tall birds, and pygmy hippos, among others-all died out less than two millennia agoAn archeologist trying to answer the most basic and puzzling question about the Malagasy people: Where did they come from?A primatologist who studies elusive jungle lemurs even as she strives to prevent the island's total ecological destructionFor if Madagascar is one of the most fascinating environments on the planet, it is also one of the most endangered. As the Malagasy hack a subsistence from the island's dwindling forests, they also threaten its diverse habitats and its rich biological diversity. It is not an easy situation to resolve, nor is it easy to answer the burning question at its heart: Can Madagascar be saved? In The Eighth Continent, Peter Tyson navigates this tortuous path as he delves into the island's storied interior as well as its misty past.

    Making use of remarkable scientific discoveries that transform our understanding of how natural systems work, George Monbiot explores a new, positive environmentalism that shows how damaged ecosystems on land and at sea can be restored, and how this restoration can revitalize and enrich our lives. Challenging what he calls his “ecological boredom,” Monbiot weaves together a beautiful and riveting tale of wild places, wildlife, and wild people. Roaming the hills of Britain and the forests of Europe, kayaking off the coast of Wales with dolphins and seabirds, he seeks out the places that still possess something of the untamed spirit he would like to resurrect.He meets people trying to restore lost forests and bring back missing species—such as wolves, lynx, wolverines, wild boar, and gray whales—and explores astonishing evidence that certain species, not just humans, have the power to shape the physical landscape. This process of rewilding, Monbiot argues, offers an alternative to a silent spring: the chance of a raucous summer in which ecological processes resume and humans draw closer to the natural world.

    She had been a secretarial school graduate whom Leakey had sent out to study chimps only when he couldn’t find anyone better qualified to take the job. And he couldn’t tell her what to do once she was in the field— nobody could—because no one before had made such an intensive and long-term study of wild apes.Dale Peterson shows clearly and convincingly how truly remarkable Goodall’s accomplishments were and how unlikely it is that anyone else could have duplicated them. Peterson details not only how Jane Goodall revolutionized the study of primates, our closest relatives, but how she helped set radically new standards and a new intellectual style in the study of animal behavior. And he reveals the very private quest that led to another sharp turn in her life, from scientist to activist.

    Beautifully written and informative.

    She was a bride of six weeks, married to a blue-eyed boy from the Netherlands. Amidst international crises and famine, she gave birth to two children, bridged a cultural divide with her Dutch husband, and was devastated by a car accident that took the life of a twelve-year-old Zambian child. She stayed six years. After returning home, Kandel struggled to find her voice and herself. This is the story of how she found her way home. For more information, or to buy a signed copy directly from the author visit her website: jillkandel (dot) com.

    There were three of them, followed by screeching tyres and a screaming engine. In a matter of seconds I recalled the conversation I'd had with Mary. She'd been right after all. 'You'll be fine for a few days,' she'd said, 'but after that they'll turn on you. Our cultures are too different. You won't live through it, not just because of the cultural differences, but because of the common crime. Find a home here in the suburbs where you belong.' The three gunshots had been my first, but perhaps for those who'd lived in these streets for years they were only three gunshots among countless others. Who knows? Perhaps three a week, maybe even three a night? Either way, I'd have to get used to them - or leave. Ignoring advice from his white friends, and to the bemusement of his black friends, Steven Otter throws caution to the wind and moves into Khayelitsha, a black township outside Cape Town. The story of his experiences in the uneven spread of shacks and informal housing that are home to more than a million people provides an unusual perspective on and insight into a predominantly Xhosa community and their reaction to an umlungu in their midst. Steven comes to understand his identity as a South African, the true meaning of community and brotherhood, and that some tsotsis are not what they seem. He finds that his preconceived notions of culture and race are called into question and that ubuntu, community and a sense of humour may still thrive alongside poverty and crime.

    In this extraordinary feat of nature writing, we meet ants who harvest crops, raise insects as livestock, build roadways and bridges, embark on nuptial flights, and make war.

    Colorful and easy to use, this guide for the identification of shells includes general information on mollusks and advice on shell collecting and study.