By the way, turn the clocks forward if you haven't already done it, and if your State isn't smart like Arizona. Really, why go through all this juggling for four and a half months? Stay on daylight savings time ALL the time!
Book Reports submitted in school followed a strict formula, one which I no longer remember. So the "folksiness" of the following is the result of having forgotten old lessons.
Reviews, it seems, are meant to either entice readers to the book, reeling them in so that they might either enjoy reading it, or to repulse them,so they might avoid a painful (or pointless) waste of their time. Since I rarely read a book that makes me feel like throwing it against the wall, the only books I will review are ones that I liked a lot. This saves my time and yours.
Walking With Bears, by Terry B. DeBruyn, Ph.D., is written like an expansion of notes in a journal, or log. He does this in an engaging and very human dialog as he explains what he does, why, and how he does it. Because his book relates the story, chronologically, of three generations of bears, it is very interesting and informs a reader of what a bear's life is truly like in it's territory,and over several years.
The bears Dr. Bruyn followed are all kin - grandmother, daughter, and both male and female cubs. DeBruyn also shares funny stories of being a bear cub himself, or treated as one by the adult bear and her cubs, tales of the accumulation of the piles of scat in his freezer and how his wife becomes slightly alarmed until he hires an intern to compile data from this overflow abundance.
In the case of being a cub, Dr. DeBruyne makes certain that he never interacts with the bears but there are times when they wait for him to catch up, like the runt of the litter:
"Regardless of how it is decided one cub is always destined to be the runt of the litter. In Carmen's and Nettie's litters it always worked out that I was it. Being the runt was inevitable and was the way I wanted it. I never did anything to assert myself when cubs attempted interacting with me. I certainly never competed for food (eating only a handful of berries now and then when the bears weren't looking) and I always gave up any treats I carried. I often wondered what the littermates thought of me, their odd "runt" sibling."
I learned so much that I'd never known about American Black Bears, how they, and anyone following them gets through bogs, and other interesting things such as their verbal ques to cubs and to intruders, how they mark their territories, that they can bite off the tops of some fairly large saplings, or how dangerous porcupines can be, and that female bears play with their cubs. I also learned how disruption of the life of mother bears has serious consequences in a world which is intent on crowding them out. Dr. DeBruyn's science speaks for itself, as eloquently as messages writ large on "dining room" walls.
A voice from the past:
"Man's heart, away from Nature, becomes hard."
Standing Bear
Book Reports submitted in school followed a strict formula, one which I no longer remember. So the "folksiness" of the following is the result of having forgotten old lessons.
Reviews, it seems, are meant to either entice readers to the book, reeling them in so that they might either enjoy reading it, or to repulse them,so they might avoid a painful (or pointless) waste of their time. Since I rarely read a book that makes me feel like throwing it against the wall, the only books I will review are ones that I liked a lot. This saves my time and yours.
Walking With Bears, by Terry B. DeBruyn, Ph.D., is written like an expansion of notes in a journal, or log. He does this in an engaging and very human dialog as he explains what he does, why, and how he does it. Because his book relates the story, chronologically, of three generations of bears, it is very interesting and informs a reader of what a bear's life is truly like in it's territory,and over several years.
The bears Dr. Bruyn followed are all kin - grandmother, daughter, and both male and female cubs. DeBruyn also shares funny stories of being a bear cub himself, or treated as one by the adult bear and her cubs, tales of the accumulation of the piles of scat in his freezer and how his wife becomes slightly alarmed until he hires an intern to compile data from this overflow abundance.
In the case of being a cub, Dr. DeBruyne makes certain that he never interacts with the bears but there are times when they wait for him to catch up, like the runt of the litter:
"Regardless of how it is decided one cub is always destined to be the runt of the litter. In Carmen's and Nettie's litters it always worked out that I was it. Being the runt was inevitable and was the way I wanted it. I never did anything to assert myself when cubs attempted interacting with me. I certainly never competed for food (eating only a handful of berries now and then when the bears weren't looking) and I always gave up any treats I carried. I often wondered what the littermates thought of me, their odd "runt" sibling."
I learned so much that I'd never known about American Black Bears, how they, and anyone following them gets through bogs, and other interesting things such as their verbal ques to cubs and to intruders, how they mark their territories, that they can bite off the tops of some fairly large saplings, or how dangerous porcupines can be, and that female bears play with their cubs. I also learned how disruption of the life of mother bears has serious consequences in a world which is intent on crowding them out. Dr. DeBruyn's science speaks for itself, as eloquently as messages writ large on "dining room" walls.
A voice from the past:
"Man's heart, away from Nature, becomes hard."
Standing Bear
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I’m going through some stuff but I will peek in now and then and will be back when it’s over..