Among the Bears : Raising Orphan... | Buy

In the spring of 1993, Benjamin 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. Beyond the natural history, he introduces individual bears who become enthralling and memorable characters.

Benjamin Kilham is a woodsman and naturalist who over the past twenty-five years has discovered and then field-tested a new, exciting wildlife biology. Ed Gray is a naturalist writer and founder of Gray's Sporting Journal. They both live in Lyme, New Hampshire.

Preface

The First Cubs

(9)

The First Walks

(5)

The Beginnings of an Education

(12)

Delicacies, van Gogh, and a Dark Cloud

(7)

Impossible Lessons and the Fabric of Learning

(5)

Summertime, and the Living Is Easy

(9)

Nature's Bounty and a Long Walk Home

(10)

Mysteries, Gunfire, and the Escape Artist

(9)

Bear Hunters and Late-Night Dining

(7)

Slowing Down

(7)

To Den, Finally

(6)

Time to Think

(4)

A New Year in March

(13)

A Very Difficult Month

104

(15)

Moving On

119

(14)

Between the Bears

133

(5)

The Triplets Arrive

138

(28)

Public Notice

166

(3)

The Triplets Grow Up

169

(20)

Squirty Stays Close

189

(8)

Squirty Has Cubs

197

(10)

The Moose Mountain Cubs

207

(4)

Squirty's Dynasty Begins

211

(3)

Confrontation and Resolution

214

(12)

Bears in the Backyard

226

(20)

What Is It About a Bear?

246

(29)

Epilogue

275

(2)

Acknowledgments

277

(2)

Index

279

Supplemental Materials

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Excerpts

Excerpt from Among the Bears:

Because we had two females this time we needed names to distinguish them. We named one Curls for the curly hair on her forehead; the other, who was smaller, became Squirty. The boy we left at that—The Boy. Almost immediately they began to show not only their physically distinguishing marks, but their personalities as well. Within a month, while the cubs were still upstairs, The Boy began escaping from the pen and letting loose with a series of distress calls as soon as he found himself separated from his sisters, who would then try to join him. Already he was showing himself to be the explorer of the group.

One of the immediate differences I could see between raising these new cubs and the first two was that I could now recognize their behaviors as they developed. Whenever they were scared, either by a sound or a smell, they would "tree" to the highest pillow on the bed or on me if I were with them, all the way up to my head and shoulders. They suckled my ears and fingers and wrestled to bond with each other and with me. In my case they wrestled with my hand, but I knew what it meant. Even today—in her sixth year and at times well over two hundred pounds—when I meet her in the woods every spring, Squirty and I wrestle to get reaquainted.

Excerpted from Among the Bears: Raising Orphan Cubs in the Wild by Benjamin Kilham, Ed Gray
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.