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Among the Bears: Raising Orphaned Cubs in the Wild
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About Among The Bears: Raising Orphaned Cubs In The Wild
Product Description A first-person account of wild bear behavior that is both a thrilling animal story and a groundbreaking work of science. In the spring of 1993, Ben Kilham, a naturalist who lives in the woodlands of New Hampshire, began raising a pair of orphaned wild black bears. 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. Kilham, who turned a disability, dyslexia, to his advantage as a naturalist, offers fascinating insights into the emotional life of bears. His work-which has been featured in several National Geographic television specials-also illustrates the powerful black bear intelligence that has survived bounties and overhunting to make them North America's dominant omnivore, familiar to every reader. Beyond the natural history, he introduces individual bears who become enthralling and memorable characters. As in the bestselling books by Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, Among the Bears explores the breaking down of mutual suspicion and building up of trust between species, with its hopeful implications for the shared future of humans and animals in the wild. Amazon.com Review When naturalist Kilham was asked to take in two orphaned black bear cubs, the conventional wisdom was that he would end up with 200-pound brutes too dependent to leave home. So Kilham decided to try his own unconventional method--he raised them in their natural habitat, surrounded by the wild bear-filled woods of New Hampshire. As their bear mother, he was given an unprecedented look into the lives of bears and what he observed turns bear stereotypes on their head. Black bears exhibit behaviors thought to be found only in humans and great apes, such as an intricate system of communication and cooperation, insight, planning, deception, and even ethics, like fair play, empathy, and altruism (qualities not found in apes). Kilham, who has now raised 26 cubs, is an intrepid bear mom, and a humble and delightful storyteller. This is an irresistible story of some of the most endearing rogues ever encountered. --Lesley Reed From Publishers Weekly Like any expectant parent, naturalist Kilham anticipated challenges in raising the newborns who joined his family in 1993. But as the "mother" to orphaned black bear twin cubs, he had no Dr. Spock to turn to for advice. A licensed wildlife rehabilitator, Kilham wanted to raise the cubs to live successfully in the wild, but had to rely largely on his own common sense to achieve this goal. So he let the cubs teach him, by closely observing and noting their behavior as they rambled together in New Hampshire's northern woods. This engrossing account, which Kilham wrote with the help of naturalist writer Gray, is both an affecting story of interspecies friendship and a surprising refutation of ursine stereotypes. To date, Kilham has raised 26 black bears; the experience has convinced him that, contrary to popular belief, these large carnivores are highly social and are as intelligent as the great apes; they can teach, learn and even deceive. Black bears, Kilham insists, can be "remorseful, empathetic, fearful, selfish, altruistic, joyful and deceitful" and have developed "mechanisms for solving disputes and demonstrating need." With the human population encroaching ever deeper into bear territory, however, human ignorance can create "problem" bears who raid backyard bird feeders or garbage cans. Having lost several of his young bears to bullets from such property owners, Kilham urges people to attempt a better understanding of an animal he finds "closely related" to hu
