Never Look A Polar Bear In The Eye

"I like to go out for walks, but it's a little awkward to push the baby stroller and carry a shotgun at the same time." -- housewife from Churchill, Manitoba Yes, welcome to Churchill, Manitoba. Year-round human population: 943. Yet despite the isolation and the searing cold here at the arctic's edge, visitors from around the globe flock to the town every fall, driven by a single purpose: to see polar bears in the wild. Churchill is "The Polar Bear Capital of the World," and for one unforgettable "bear season," Zac Unger, his wife, and his three children moved from Oakland, California, to make it their temporary home. But they soon discovered that it's really the polar bears who are at home in Churchill, roaming past the coffee shop on the main drag, peering into garbage cans, languorously scratching their backs against fence posts and front doorways. Where kids in other towns receive admonitions about talking to strangers, Churchill schoolchildren get "Let's All Be Bear Aware" booklets to bring home. (Lesson number 8: Never explore bad-smelling areas.) Zac Unger takes readers on a spirited and often wildly funny journey to a place as unique as it is remote, a place where natives, tourists, scientists, conservationists, and the most ferocious predators on the planet converge. In the process he becomes embroiled in the controversy surrounding "polar bear science" -- and finds out that some of what we've been led to believe about the bears' imminent extinction may not be quite the case. But mostly what he learns is about human behavior in extreme situations . . . and also why you should never even think of looking a polar bear in the eye.

A proven resource for librarians and students, this updated classic opens the door to understanding current library cataloging processes, shows you how to use them to create standard catalog records, and provides guidance in managing the cataloging workflow. Library cataloging and classification tools are constantly improving, making this concise guide a necessity for any librarian or library student seeking improved understanding of the practical process of cataloging today. With the release of RDA, a new code for description, and a new edition of Dewey Classification, it's time for every library to add this fifth edition of a classic reference to your resources. Two Margaret Mann Citation winners update you on the five basic steps in standardized library cataloging: describing and adding access points for resources; assigning subject headings using Sears List or Library of Congress subject headings; classifying them using the Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress classification systems; and digitizing the resulting records. The book opens with a brief look at the environment in which cataloging now functions, especially in response to advances in digital access. It clarifies terminology, explores new and changed applications, and enhances understanding of basic principles for those responsible for creating cataloging data. To get you ready for tomorrow, the edition closes with a brief look at trends likely to affect cataloging in the foreseeable future.

Paul Fleischman offers teens an environmental wake-up call and a tool kit for decoding the barrage of conflicting information confronting them. We're living in an Ah-Ha moment. Take 250 years of human ingenuity. Add abundant fossil fuels. The result: a population and lifestyle never before seen. The downsides weren't visible for centuries, but now they are. Suddenly everything needs rethinking – suburbs, cars, fast food, cheap prices. It's a changed world. This book explains it. Not with isolated facts, but the principles driving attitudes and events, from vested interests to denial to big-country syndrome. Because money is as important as molecules in the environment, science is joined with politics, history, and psychology to provide the briefing needed to comprehend the 21st century. Extensive back matter, including a glossary, bibliography, and index, as well as numerous references to websites, provides further resources.

Strap on your life jacket, and pack your rain gear. You’re going Fishing with Joe. Joe probably never won a fishing tournament, or held a world record. That’s not why Joe fishes. This is a very extraordinary book about fishing because it’s about very ordinary Joe, his adventures, misjudgments, mistakes, errors, and occasional triumphs. This is not a how-to book, but even veteran anglers will learn something from Joe. Non-anglers will be intrigued by Joe, and by this infectious madness called fishing. There may even be some life-lessons. But learning is not the primary intent. Both will laugh at Joe, and with Joe. It’s a fun read! You’ll meet some characters, not just colorful – vivid. The narrative spans over seventy years and much of the continent, including three different North American countries, and even one foray into the jungles of Malaysia. And, unlike most fishing tales, it is meticulously factual: exactly as it happened, white-knuckle moments, and moments of supreme tranquility alike. Who is Joe? He is certainly someone you know........maybe you!

Of all the traps of youth, the most deadly are: The loss of 14 precious years of life from premature death from lifetime nicotine poisoning from smoking, and by highway crashes during their dangerous teen years when they are living life with gusto and are easily distracted while living very much in the now. More awareness of these traps may increase one’s survival.

"... being able to teach well is vital to patient care ..." -- Back cover.

“A moving story of abandonment, love, and survival against the odds.”—Dr. Jane Goodall The heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful story of an abandoned polar bear cub named Nora and the humans working tirelessly to save her and her species, whose uncertain future in the accelerating climate crisis is closely tied to our own Six days after giving birth, a polar bear named Aurora got up and walked away from her den at the Columbus Zoo, leaving her tiny squealing cub to fend for herself. Hours later, Aurora still hadn’t returned. The cub was furless and blind, and with her temperature dropping dangerously, the zookeepers entrusted with her care felt they had no choice: They would have to raise one of the most dangerous predators in the world by hand. Over the next few weeks, a group of veterinarians and zookeepers worked around the clock to save the cub, whom they called Nora. Humans rarely get as close to a polar bear as Nora’s keepers got to their fuzzy charge. But the two species have long been intertwined. Three decades before Nora’s birth, her father, Nanuq, was orphaned when an Inupiat hunter killed his mother, leaving Nanuq to be sent to a zoo. That hunter, Gene Agnaboogok, now faces some of the same threats as the wild bears near his Alaskan village of Wales, on the westernmost tip of the North American continent. As sea ice diminishes and temperatures creep up year after year, Agnaboogok and the polar bears—and everyone and everything else living in the far north—are being forced to adapt. Not all of them will succeed. Sweeping and tender, The Loneliest Polar Bear explores the fraught relationship humans have with the natural world, the exploitative and sinister causes of the environmental mess we find ourselves in, and how the fate of polar bears is not theirs alone.

Prime Arctic predator and nomad of the sea ice and tundra, the polar bear endures as a source of wonder, terror, and fascination. Humans have seen it as spirit guide and fanged enemy, as trade good and moral metaphor, as food source and symbol of ecological crisis. Eight thousand years of artifacts attest to its charisma, and to the fraught relationships between our two species. In the White Bear, we acknowledge the magic of wildness: it is both genuinely itself and a screen for our imagination. Ice Bear traces and illuminates this intertwined history. From Inuit shamans to Jean Harlow lounging on a bearskin rug, from the cubs trained to pull sleds toward the North Pole to cuddly superstar Knut, it all comes to life in these pages. With meticulous research and more than 160 illustrations, the author brings into focus this powerful and elusive animal. Doing so, he delves into the stories we tell about Nature—and about ourselves—hoping for a future in which such tales still matter.