Among the Bears: Raising Orphaned Cubs in the Wild FROM OUR EDITORS
The Barnes & Noble Review
Ben Kilhamm, a naturalist living in rural New Hampshire, takes the reader on a wonderful and insightful journey into the lives of wild bear cubs. He begins his adventure at the suggestion of a friend who has two abandoned and malnourished bear cubs. Although Kilhamm has spent his life around animals, helping to care for those that were sick and injured, this would be his first experience with bears. He begins with very little knowledge of raising cubs and decides that the best way for these bears to have a future is to be raised in the wild. And so Ben begins his life as a surrogate mother to the cubs, and with this new role comes lots of adventure and mishap.
As the bears bond with their surrogate parent, we are given a deeper insight into how bears communicate, experience the world around them, and care for each other. With each set of cubs that Ben brings up we are introduced to different and complex personalities. We find out through Ben's experience that the bears' bond with each other and him by suckling. We also learn that they communicate their plans to each other ahead of time, with one of the cubs letting Ben know what they intend. As the bears get older, Ben takes them on longer journeys through the woods of New Hampshire, and it is during these walks that we see the cubs explore their world. Some of the trees that the cubs come upon seem to really excite them, indicating that they are a bulletin board of sorts for the bears in the area. When one of the cubs is left behind, it will let out a cry of distress, and its sibling will respond by going back. The cubs also help each other navigate; if one has trouble climbing down a rocky slope, the other will go back and offer instruction, guiding its sibling the whole way down. Ben also conducts little experiments with the cubs: At one point he leaves a mirror in their pen and observes their highly interesting reactions.
Reading about Ben's cubs, the reader becomes invested in their future, rooting for them to make it safely into adulthood and beyond. We are being given a special insight into the lives and personalities of these subtle creatures. The author's decision to write about his experiences has helped to break down some of the myths about bears and to show us how intricately connected everything in nature is. This book makes for a wonderful and enlightening read. (Stephanie Clark)
FROM THE PUBLISHER
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 black 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 also illustrates how black bears' powerful intelligence has enabled them to survive bounties and overhunting to become North America's dominant omnivore, familiar to every reader. Beyond natural history, he introduces individual bears who become enthralling and memorable characters. Among the Bears explores the breaking down of mutual suspicion and the building up of trust between the species, with its hopeful implications for the shared future of humans and animals in the wild.
FROM THE CRITICS
Marc Hauser
Among the Bears provides the first in-depth discussion of what it is like to be a bear. It is a passionate account told by Ben Kilham,a naturalist who has dedicated a lifetime to understanding what makes bears tick. After reading this book,you will never again think of bears in the same way. Yes,they are greedy and cute,but they are also much, much more.
Sy Montgomery
A riveting story by a maverick researcher. This important book will challenge your notions of how animals think,how young mammals learn,and the ways in which bears and people see the world. Ben Kilham's humble and clear-eyed view of these highly intelligent animals,at once so like humans and yet so different,deserves a place beside Jane Goodall's studies of the chimpanzees of Gombe.
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
An absorbing, often searing account of one of the world's most interesting animals,this wonderfully comprehensive account is a fitting tribute to the black bear, and also to its author,Ben Kilham, for his insight and dedication.
George B. Schaller
Among the Bears is the best book I have read about these subtle and intriguing creatures. It shows how even an amateur naturalist with empathy,dedication, and acute observation can obtain important and illuminating insights into the life of a species that seemed well known.
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 humans. This important book is sure to be a milestone in the study of animal behavior. 8-page color insert not seen by PW. National author tour. (Mar. 6) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
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