Do Not Feed The Bears

It was a familiar sight at Yellowstone National Park: traffic backed up for miles as visitors fed bears from their cars. It may have been against the rules, but park officials were willing to turn a blind eye if it kept the public happy. But bear feeding eventually became too widespread and dangerous to everyone-including the bears-for the National Park Service (NPS) to allow it any longer. As one of the park's most beloved and enduring symbols, the Yellowstone bears have long been a flashpoint for controversy. Alice Wondrak Biel traces the evolution of their complex relationship with humans-from the creation of the first staged wildlife viewing areas to the present-and situates that relationship within the broader context of American cultural history. Early on, park bears were largely thought of as performers or surrogate pets and were routinely fed handouts from cars, as well as hotel garbage dumped at park-sanctioned "lunch counters for bears." But as these activities led to ever-greater numbers of tourist injuries, and of bears killed as a result, and as ideas about conservation and the NPS mission changed, the agency refashioned the bear's image from cute circus performer to dangerous wild animal and, eventually, to keystone inhabitant of a fragile ecosystem. Drawing on the history of recorded interactions with bears and providing telling photographs depicting the evolving bear-human relationship, Biel traces the reaction of park visitors to the NPS's efforts—from warnings by Yogi Bear (which few tourists took seriously) to the increasing promotion of key ecological issues and concerns. Ultimately, as the rules were enforced and tourist behavior dramatically shifted, the bears returned to a more natural state of existence. Biel's entertaining and informative account tracks this gradual "renaturalization" while also providing a cautionary tale about the need for careful negotiation at the complex nexus of tourists, bears, and all things wild.

'Beguiling and astute' Sarah Winman 'Astoundingly good' Deborah Moggach 'Wonderfully redemptive' Sarah Haywood 'I was delighted and surprised by this textured, fascinating and most moving book' Chris Ware A life-affirming novel about broken but loving families, people making mistakes but doing their best, grief and getting stuck - for readers of ELEANOR OLIPHANT and THE TROUBLE WITH GOATS AND SHEEP On her forty-seventh birthday, Sydney Smith stands on a rooftop and prepares to jump... Sydney is a cartoonist and freerunner. Feet constantly twitching, always teetering on the edge of life, she's never come to terms with the event that ripped her family apart when she was ten years old. And so, on a birthday that she doesn't want to celebrate, she returns alone to St Ives to face up to her guilt and grief. It's a trip that turns out to be life-changing - and not only for herself. DO NOT FEED THE BEAR is a book about lives not yet lived, about the kindness of others and about how, when our worlds stop, we find a way to keep on moving. Readers love Do Not Feed the Bear: 'I loved each and every moment of this book and feel bereft it has come to an end' 'Obsessed with how beautiful this book is! Keep flicking back to reread some passages as love them so much! What a treat of a book' 'Wow, what a joyous and hope-inducing read' 'I can't put it down - it's funny and tender and clever and I love it' 'It might break your heart a little bit first, but eventually it will put it back together and wrap it in a comforting snuggly blanket' 'Rich in poignant emotion and a truly mesmerising and addictive read' 'Swept me up into its pages; a book that I wanted to hug and cherish all the time I was reading' 'It's not just a book I read and reviewed. It's a book that read and reviewed me' 'If you're looking for a story that will make you smile by turns, be heart-lifting and heart-wrenching in a variety of ways but remain entirely beautiful for its honest look at life, then this is the book for you' 'Surprising, authentic and powerful, this book defies categorisation' 'Rachel Elliott has achieved something remarkable in this story of loss, regret and disappointment: she has created a tender, hopeful and uplifting novel, which I feel certain many readers will fall in love with'

Bear loves when campers leave him grub. The park ranger does not. Smackity smack, Ranger pounds a sign into the ground: DON'T FEED THE BEAR! Upset, Bear crosses out the "don't." Now, it's war! But when both Bear and Ranger lose out, will they finally make peace? With its cartoonlike pictures and clever wordplay, this book will keep kids laughing for hours.

Learn to cook a range of brutally tasty yet simple plant-based dishes, accompanied by heavy metal and punk lyrics, art, and ethos. This vegan cookbook is jam packed with recipes for stews, soups, sauces, noodle & bean dishes, baked entrees, and desserts, interspersed with illustrations of adorable armed animals, meditations on suicide, a crossword puzzle, and instructions for DIY tattoo guns. Expand your cooking repertoire with recipes from around the world, including Grizzly Bear Gnocchi, Taco Thrash-erole, Misery Wot, Gotterdamerung Dopple-Chocolate Cookies, and Hair of an Angel Knotted by the Persistance of a Mortal. Each recipe is paired with a metal song to listen to while you cook. Based on a series of long-obscure 1990s zines, this underground classic is now in its third edition, bringing you practical, animal-free cooking skills that will soothe your justified despair at the bloodthirstiness and futility of human nature.

A tiny American town's plans for radical self-government overlooked one hairy detail: no one told the bears. Once upon a time, a group of libertarians got together and hatched the Free Town Project, a plan to take over an American town and completely eliminate its government. In 2004, they set their sights on Grafton, NH, a barely populated settlement with one paved road. When they descended on Grafton, public funding for pretty much everything shrank: the fire department, the library, the schoolhouse. State and federal laws became meek suggestions, scarcely heard in the town's thick wilderness. The anything-goes atmosphere soon caught the attention of Grafton's neighbors: the bears. Freedom-loving citizens ignored hunting laws and regulations on food disposal. They built a tent city in an effort to get off the grid. The bears smelled food and opportunity. A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear is the sometimes funny, sometimes terrifying tale of what happens when a government disappears into the woods. Complete with gunplay, adventure, and backstabbing politicians, this is the ultimate story of a quintessential American experiment -- to live free or die, perhaps from a bear.

A collection of breathtaking images and thought-provoking words sure to bring joy to your heart and enrich your spirit. Take an inspiring journey into the world of the great bear and discover the true and often unseen nature of black bears, grizzlies and polar bears. Celebrate all that is wild! (Proceeds from the sale of this book support Get Bear Smart Society's work helping people to understand and live with our neigh-bears.)

A natural history and celebration of the famous bears and salmon of Brooks River. On the Alaska Peninsula, where exceptional landscapes are commonplace, a small river attracts attention far beyond its scale. Each year, from summer to early fall, brown bears and salmon gather at Brooks River to create one of North America’s greatest wildlife spectacles. As the salmon leap from the cascade, dozens of bears are there to catch them (with as many as forty-three bears sighted in a single day), and thousands of people come to watch in person or on the National Park Service’s popular Brooks Falls Bearcam. The Bears of Brooks Falls tells the story of this region and the bears that made it famous in three parts. The first forms an ecological history of the region, from its dormancy 30,000 years ago to the volcanic events that transformed it into the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. The central and longest section is a deep dive into the lives of the wildlife along the Brooks River, especially the bears and salmon. Readers will learn about the bears’ winter hibernation, mating season, hunting rituals, migration patterns, and their relationship with Alaska’s changing environment. Finally, the book explores the human impact, both positive and negative, on this special region and its wild population.