Killer Bears

What causes bear attacks? Can attacks be prevented? If you are attacked, are there defensive measures that can save your life?For answers to these and many other questions, Mike Cramond conducted full investigations of many of the over 250 documented attacks in his files. These include attacks by grizzlies, black bears, and polar bears. On this project, he traveled 40,000 miles to visit attack sites and interview surviving victims, witnesses, biologists, and official investigators.The resulting stories dramatically recreate these attacks and then examine their causes. From the evidence, Cramond often offers fascinating challenges to popular beliefs on bear behavior. Many of the stories also touch on the attack aftermaths: hospital ordeals, physical disabilities, and heartbreaking battles for compensation.Killer Bears is essential reading for anyone who would step into bear country, and serves as a principal reference for all who would study and report on bear-man issues in North America. Meticulously researched and chock-full of expert knowledge, Killer Bears stands as a vital and important part of our literature on nature and survival. (6 x 9, 320 pages, chart)

The tales and travels of the Sugar Creek Gang have passed the test of time, delighting young readers for more than fifty years. Great mysteries for kids with a message, The Sugar Creek Gang series chronicles the faith-building adventures of a group of fun-loving, courageous Christian boys. Your kids will be thrilled, chilled, and inspired to grow as they follow the legendary escapades of Bill Collins, Dragonfly, and the rest of the gang as they struggle with the application of their Christian faith to the adventure of life. "Circus" Brown's father makes a life-changing decision at a revival meeting. Will he be able to stay on the narrow path? Back in the woods, the mean Till boys and the Sugar Creek Gang wrestle over a patch of wild strawberries. This leads to an encounter with an angry black bear. Join the gang as they learn to apply the lesson of forgiving seventy times seven in the face of great danger.

For more than half a century, grizzly bears roamed free in the national parks without causing a human fatality. Then in 1967, on a single August night, two campers were fatally mauled by enraged bears -- thus signaling the beginning of the end for America's greatest remaining land carnivore. Night of the Grizzlies, Olsen's brilliant account of another sad chapter in America's vanishing frontier, traces the causes of that tragic night: the rangers' careless disregard of established safety precautions and persistent warnings by seasoned campers that some of the bears were acting "funny"; the comforting belief that the great bears were not really dangerous -- would attack only when provoked. The popular sport that summer was to lure the bears with spotlights and leftover scraps -- in hopes of providing the tourists with a show, a close look at the great "teddy bears." Everyone came, some of the younger campers even making bold enough to sleep right in the path of the grizzlies' known route of arrival. This modern "bearbaiting" could have but one tragic result…

Created around the world and available only on the Web, internet “television” series are independently produced, mostly low budget shows that often feature talented but unknown performers. Typically financed through crowd-funding, they are filmed with borrowed equipment and volunteer casts and crews, and viewers find them through word of mouth or by chance. The third of five volumes on Internet TV series, this book covers 335 alphabetically arranged gay and lesbian programs, 1996–2014, giving casts, credits, story lines, episode descriptions, websites, dates and commentary. A complete index lists program titles and headings for gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender and drag queen shows.

Collector of bear lore for nearly half a century, author Larry Kaniut has chosen these tales and legends for their focus on the wisdom of bears and the strength of the human spirit in encounters with them. An Alaskan legend himself, Larry brings together 28 amazing stories of encounters with this four-legged wonder of the woods, spanning the time period from 1816 to 1999.

Long ago we invited bears into our stories, our dreams, our nightmares, our lives. We have always sought them out where they live, for their hides, their meat, their beauty, their knowingness. Human country and bear country exist side by side. As Sherry Simpson suggests, the relationship between bears and humans is ancient and ongoing and, in Alaska, profoundly and often uncomfortably close. A huge number of North America’s bears live in Alaska: including at least 31,000 brown bears, 100,000 black bears, and 3,500 polar bears. And nearly every aspect of Alaskan society reflects their presence, from hunting to tourism marketing to wildlife management to urban planning. A long-time Alaskan, Simpson offers a series of compelling essays on Alaskan bears in both wild and urban spaces—because in Alaska, bears are found not only in their natural habitat but also in cities and towns. Combining field research, interviews, and a host of up-to-date scientific sources, her finely polished prose conveys a wealth of information and insight on ursine biology, behavior, feeding, mating, social structure, and much more. Simpson crisscrosses the Alaskan landscape in pursuit of bears as she muses, marvels, and often stands in sheer awe before these charismatic creatures. Firmly grounded in the expertise of wildlife biologists, hunters, and viewing guides, she shows bears as they actually are, not as we imagine them to be. She considers not only the occasionally aggressive behavior bears need to survive, but also the violence exacted upon them by trophy hunters, advocates of predator control, or suburbanites who view bears as land sharks that threaten the safety of their families. Shifting effortlessly between fascinating facts and poetic imagery, Simpson crafts an extended meditation on why we are so drawn to bears and why they continue to engage our imaginations, populate indigenous mythologies, and help define our essential visions of wilderness. As Simpson observes, “The slightest evidence that bears share your world—or that you share theirs—can alter not only your sense of the landscape, but your sense of yourself within that landscape.”

A Zookeeper Excellence Award-winning researcher presents a journey into the psychological lives of bears, outlining her approach to bear study while sharing her experiences of learning about numerous individual bears, from a proud cub who was learning to crack nuts to a hostile bear who refused her friendship.