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The Cadottes
A Fur Trade Family on Lake Superior
Robert Silbernagel
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2023
The Great Lakes fur trade spanned two centuries and thousands of miles, but the story of one particular family, the Cadottes, illuminates the history of trade and trapping while exploring under-researched stories of French-Ojibwe political, social, and economic relations. Multiple generations of Cadottes were involved in the trade, usually working as interpreters and peacemakers, as the region passed from French to British to American control. Focusing on the years 1760 to 1840—the heyday of the Great Lakes fur trade—Robert Silbernagel delves into the lives of the Cadottes, with particular emphasis on the Ojibwe–French Canadian Michel Cadotte and his Ojibwe wife, Equaysayway, who were traders and regional leaders on Madeline Island for nearly forty years. In The Cadottes: A Fur Trade Family on Lake Superior, Silbernagel deepens our understanding of this era with stories of resilient, remarkable people.
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California Condors in the Pacific Northwest
Jesse D'Elia and Susan M. Haig
Oregon State University Press, 2013
“The re-creation of a viable population of condors in the Northwest would constitute an achievement of substantial importance…This book goes a long way toward justifying such an effort.”   —Noel Snyder, retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist in charge of condor research in the 1980s and lead author of The California Condor: A Saga of Natural History and Conservation

Despite frequent depiction as a bird of California and the desert southwest, North America’s largest avian scavenger once graced the skies of the Pacific Northwest, from northern California to British Columbia. This important volume documents the condor’s history in the region, from prehistoric times to the early twentieth century, and explores the challenges of reintroduction. 

Jesse D’Elia and Susan Haig investigate the paleontological and observational record as well as the cultural relationships between Native American tribes and condors, providing the most complete assessment to date of the condor’s occurrence in the Pacific Northwest. They evaluate the probable causes of regional extinction and the likelihood that condors once bred in the region, and they assess factors that must be considered in determining whether they could once again thrive in Northwest skies. 

Incorporating the newest research and findings and more than eighty detailed historical accounts of human encounters with these birds of prey, California Condors in the Pacific Northwest sets a new standard for examining the historical record of a species prior to undertaking a reintroduction effort. It is a vital reference for academics, agency decision makers, conservation biologists, and readers interested in Northwest natural history. The volume is beautifully illustrated by Ram Papish and includes a number of previously unpublished photographs.
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Canoe Country Wildlife
A Field Guide to the North Woods and Boundary Waters
Mark Stensaas
University of Minnesota Press, 2004

Warblers, wolves, and whirligig beetles—the creatures of the canoe countrywilderness come alive in Canoe Country Wildlife. In this read-aloud treasure, “Sparky” Stensaas, naturalist and storyteller, intrigues you with his tales of encounters with the forest inhabitants—from tiny toads to majestic moose.

Canoe Country Wildlife, a friendly field guide, introduces you to the wildlife you are most likely to see as you travel in the North Woods. It describes these creatures and their habits accurately so you’ll know where and when to look for them. Detailed line drawings illustrate each animal clearly so you’ll recognize what you’re seeing.

The book is filled with fascinating little-known facts: Did you know that wood frogs can freeze solid, only to live again? That loons can fly a hundred miles an hour? That chipmunks can carry seventy sunflower seeds in their cheeks?

Canoe Country Wildlife includes handy checklists to help you keep track of the critters you encounter, a calendar for you to record the natural events you witness, and activities—one for each animal—that will help both adults and children learn by discovery.

Carry Canoe Country Wildlife in your pack. Your trip will be more enjoyable and your memories will last forever. It’s a great gift for anyone who loves the outdoors.

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Capturing the Commons
Devising Institutions to Manage the Maine Lobster Industry
James M. Acheson
University Press of New England, 2004
One of the most pressing concerns of environmentalists and policy makers is the overexploitation of natural resources. Efforts to regulate such resources are too often undermined by the people whose livelihoods depend on their use. One of the great challenges for wildlife managers in the twenty-first century is learning to create the conditions under which people will erect effective and workable rules to conserve those resources. James M. Acheson, author of the best-selling Lobster Gangs of Maine (the seminal work on the culture and economics of lobster fishing), here turns his attention to the management of the lobster industry. In this illuminating new book, he shows that resource degradation is not inevitable. Indeed, the Maine lobster fishery is one of the most successful fisheries in the world. Catches have been stable since World War II, and record highs have been achieved since the late 1980s. According to Acheson, these high catches are due, in part, to the institutions generated by the lobster-fishing industry to control fishing practices. These rules are effective. Rational choice theory frames Acheson’s down-to-earth study. Rational choice theorists believe that the overexploitation of marine resources stems from their common-pool nature, which results in collective action problems. In fisheries, what is rational for the individual fishermen can lead to disaster for the society. The progressive Maine lobster industry, lobster fishermen, and local groups have solved a series of such problems by creating three different sets of regulations: informal territorial rules; rules to control the number of traps; and formal conservation legislation. In recent years, the industry has successfully influenced new regulations at the federal level and has developed a strong co-management system with the Maine government. The process of developing these rules has been quite acrimonious; factions of fishermen have disagreed over lobster rules designed to give commercial advantage to one group or another. Although fishermen and scientists have come to share a conservation ethic, they often disagree over how to best conserve the lobster and even the quality of science. The importance of Capturing the Commons is twofold: it provides a case study of the management of one highly successful fishery, which can serve as a management model for policy makers, politicians, and local communities; and it adds to the body of theory concerning the conditions under which people will and will not devise institutions to manage natural resources.
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Caribou Herds of Northwest Alaska, 1850-2000
Ernest S. Burch, Jr.
University of Alaska Press, 2012

In his final, major publication Ernest S. “Tiger” Burch Jr. reconstructs the distribution of caribou herds in northwest Alaska using data and information from research conducted over the past several decades as well as sources that predate western science by more than one hundred years. Additionally, he explores human and natural factors that contributed to the demise and recovery of caribou and reindeer populations during this time. Burch provides an exhaustive list of published and unpublished literature and interviews that will intrigue laymen and experts alike. The unflinching assessment of the roles that humans and wolves played in the dynamics of caribou and reindeer herds will undoubtedly strike a nerve. Supplemental essays before and after the unfinished work add context about the author, the project of the book, and the importance of both.

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The Carnivore Way
Coexisting with and Conserving North America's Predators
Cristina Eisenberg
Island Press, 2014
What would it be like to live in a world with no predators roaming our landscapes? Would their elimination, which humans have sought with ever greater urgency in recent times, bring about a pastoral, peaceful human civilization? Or in fact is their existence critical to our own, and do we need to be doing more to assure their health and the health of the landscapes they need to thrive?
 
In The Carnivore Way, Cristina Eisenberg argues compellingly for the necessity of top predators in large, undisturbed landscapes, and how a continental-long corridor—a “carnivore way”—provides the room they need to roam and connected landscapes that allow them to disperse. Eisenberg follows the footsteps of six large carnivores—wolves, grizzly bears, lynx, jaguars, wolverines, and cougars—on a 7,500-mile wildlife corridor from Alaska to Mexico along the Rocky Mountains. Backed by robust science, she shows how their well-being is a critical factor in sustaining healthy landscapes and how it is possible for humans and large carnivores to coexist peacefully and even to thrive.
 
University students in natural resource science programs, resource managers, conservation organizations, and anyone curious about carnivore ecology and management in a changing world will find a thoughtful guide to large carnivore conservation that dispels long-held myths about their ecology and contributions to healthy, resilient landscapes.
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Cat
Katharine M. Rogers
Reaktion Books, 2006
According to ancient Egyptian lore, the goddess Bast, who protected her worshippers from disease and hard luck, had the figure of a woman and the head of a cat. Egyptians loved their feline companions, including them in family portraits, mummifying them alongside their owners, and creating exquisite works of sculpture around their graceful forms. 

Four thousand years later, the cat continues to charm us. Katharine M. Rogers traces our relationship with this curious creature in Cat, an entertaining look at one of the most popular pets in the world. From the domestic cat’s emergence in ancient Egypt to its enormous popularity in the contemporary United States, Rogers uncovers the feline’s cultural history in all its numerous forms: rat-catcher, witch’s familiar, and even the inscrutable creature that inspired Lewis Carroll and Edgar Allan Poe. As Rogers demonstrates, our fascination with cats lies in their uncanny ability to embody just about any character—from sweet to ferocious, affectionate to independent, eerie to elegant. 

Cat will be relished by anyone who appreciates these lovable companions and their amazing ability to bring joy to our lives.

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The Cat Men of Gotham
Tales of Feline Friendships in Old New York
Peggy Gavan
Rutgers University Press, 2019
Winner of the 2019 Certificate of Excellence and MUSE Medallion from the Cat Writers Association

The nineteenth century was a rough time to be a stray cat in New York City. The city’s human residents dealt with feline overpopulation by gassing unwanted cats or tossing them in rivers. But a few lucky strays were found by a diverse array of men—including firemen, cops, athletes, and politicians—who rescued them from the streets and welcomed them into their homes and hearts.
 
This book tells the stories of these heroic cat men of Gotham and their beloved feline companions. Not only does it introduce us to some remarkable men, but we get to meet many extraordinary cats as well, from Chinese stowaways prowling the Chelsea Piers to the sole feline survivor of the USS Maine explosion. Among the forty-two profiles, we find many feline Cinderella stories, as humble alley cats achieved renown as sports team mascots, artists’ muses, and even presidential pets.
 
Sure to appeal to cat fanciers and history fans alike, The Cat Men of Gotham will give you a new appreciation for Old New York and the people and animals who made it their home. As it takes you on a journey through the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn, it will amuse and astound you with tales of powerful men and their pussycats.
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Cavalry
Its History and Tactics
Louis Edward Nolan
Westholme Publishing, 2020
First published in 1853, Cavalry: Its History and Tactics had a major impact on military theorists and officers for decades—it was reprinted as a manual during the American Civil War—and its influence on European cavalry performance can be traced into World War I. It is an intelligent work which discusses the history and development of cavalry over the ages, advocates a program of reform for Britain’s horsed troops, and covers many aspects of equipment, training, drill, organization, formation, and battlefield tactics. The author, an experienced and gifted cavalryman, first served in the Austrian army, then joined the British army’s 15th Hussars in 1839, fought in India, and became the regimental riding master. Captain Nolan’s 1852 tour of European armies, wide reading in many languages, and service in Europe and India makes Cavalry an extraordinary statement on mid-nineteenth-century theory and practice.
As historian Jon Coulston explains in his introduction, Nolan was writing at the cusp of technological change, drawing upon the experiences of the Napoleonic Wars, continental suppression of the 1848 Revolutions, and Britain’s wars in India, but with an eye to firepower developments on the eve of the Crimean War. In 1854, at the Battle of Balaklava, Nolan rode with the written order which unleashed the Charge of the Light Brigade, an action in which he lost his life. Presented here as the first modern reprint, complete with a new introduction and further reading, Nolan’s Cavalry remains a hallmark of military history.
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Cavalry of the American Revolution
Jim Piecuch
Westholme Publishing, 2012

Nine Historians and Writers Investigate the Role of Cavalry in the War for Independence

From the bitterly contested no-man’s-land between American and British lines in New York and New Jersey to the scorching pine forests of the South, the cavalry of both armies fought valiantly throughout the American Revolution. This volume explores several aspects of cavalry’s role in the war, which has often been overlooked in general histories. The topics covered include the development of the Continental Army’s cavalry arm, European influences on American cavalry training and tactics, accounts of several important cavalry raids and battles, and histories of mounted units such as the Continental Light Dragoons, American rangers in the South Carolina backcountry, and the British army’s Queen’s Rangers and “Black Dragoons,” the latter force composed entirely of former slaves. The essays also examine the roles of important commanders, including Brigadier General Francis “Swamp Fox” Marion, Lieutenant Colonel William Washington, and Colonel Anthony Walton White of the American army, and British cavalry leaders Banastre “Bloody Ban” Tarleton and John Graves Simcoe, as well as the American prisoners of war who switched sides and served in the “British Legion.” The authors of the essays include acclaimed military historians Gregory J. W. Urwin and Lawrence E. Babits. Readers with a general interest in military history, as well as those with more specific interests in the American Revolution or the history of the cavalry arm, and anyone who wishes to undertake further study of these subjects, will find the essays fresh, engaging, and informative.

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Contents

Gregory J. W. Urwin: The Continental Light Dragoons, 1776-1783

Lee F. McGee: European Influences on Continental Cavalry

John M. Hutchins: Cavalry Action at Poundridge, New York

Donald J. Gara: Cavalry Battles in New York and New Jersey

Scott A. Miskimon: Anthony Walton White: A Revolutionary Dragoon

Michael C. Scoggins: South Carolina’s Backcountry Rangers

Lawrence E. Babits and Joshua B. Howard: Continentals in Tarleton’s

British Legion

Charles F. Price: Cavalry Operations at Eutaw Springs

Jim Piecuch: The “Black Dragoons”

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Centering Animals in Latin American History
Martha Few and Zeb Tortorici, eds.
Duke University Press, 2013
Centering Animals in Latin American History writes animals back into the history of colonial and postcolonial Latin America. This collection reveals how interactions between humans and other animals have significantly shaped narratives of Latin American histories and cultures. The contributors work through the methodological implications of centering animals within historical narratives, seeking to include nonhuman animals as social actors in the histories of Mexico, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Chile, Brazil, Peru, and Argentina. The essays discuss topics ranging from canine baptisms, weddings, and funerals in Bourbon Mexico to imported monkeys used in medical experimentation in Puerto Rico. Some contributors examine the role of animals in colonization efforts. Others explore the relationship between animals, medicine, and health. Finally, essays on the postcolonial period focus on the politics of hunting, the commodification of animals and animal parts, the protection of animals and the environment, and political symbolism.

Contributors. Neel Ahuja, Lauren Derby, Regina Horta Duarte, Martha Few, Erica Fudge, León García Garagarza, Reinaldo Funes Monzote, Heather L. McCrea, John Soluri, Zeb Tortorici, Adam Warren, Neil L. Whitehead

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Chasing Dragonflies
A Natural, Cultural, and Personal History
Cindy Crosby; Illustrations by Peggy Macnamara
Northwestern University Press, 2020

Chasing Dragonflies: A Natural, Cultural, and Personal History is an engaging, beautifully illustrated introduction to these remarkable insects. Drawing on her experiences as a natural history instructor, dragonfly monitor, cancer survivor, grandmother, and steward, Crosby tells the stories of dragonflies: their roles in poetry and art, their fascinating sex life—unique within the animal kingdom—and their evolution from dark-water dwellers to denizens of the air. We follow Crosby and other citizen-scientists into the prairies, wetlands, and woodlands of the Midwest, where they observe the environment and chronicle dragonfly populations and migration to decipher critical clues about our changing waterways and climate.
 
Woven throughout are personal stories: reflections on the author’s cancer diagnosis and recovery, change, loss, aging, family, joy, and discovering what it means to be at home in the natural world. Crosby draws an intimate portrait of a landscape teeming with variety and mystery, one that deserves our attention and conservation. As warm as it is informative, this book will interest gardeners, readers of literary nonfiction, and anyone intrigued by transformation, whether in nature or our personal lives.

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Chasing Giants
In Search of the World's Largest Freshwater Fish
Zeb Hogan
University of Nevada Press, 2023
Join Zeb Hogan, host of the National Geographic television show Monster Fish, on the science adventure of a lifetime.

On May 1, 2005, a Thai fisherman caught a truly monstrous Mekong giant catfish. At 646 pounds, it captured the world’s attention, and with awe and wonder, it was deemed the largest freshwater fish on record. There was no denying its size, but when biologist and research associate professor Hogan saw a photo of the fish, he wondered if it really was the biggest in the world. To his surprise, no one had systematically sought to answer the question: Which of the giant freshwater species really was the largest?

Seeking to answer that question has brought Hogan face to face with massive arapaima and piranha in the Amazon, alligator gar in Texas, pigeon-eating wels catfish in France, stingrays in Cambodia, and the gnarled-toothed sawfish in Australia. Part of his scientific adventure has been captured on Monster Fish, and Hogan now tells the full story of his 25-year quest to understand the mysteries of some of the oldest, largest, most bizarre creatures on Earth.

The fate of these giant fish motivates Hogan to understand the various species he studies. The megafish’s numbers are dwindling, and the majority of them face extinction. In this book, he teams up with award-winning journalist Stefan Lovgren to tell, for the first time, the remarkable and troubling story of the world’s largest freshwater fish. It is a story that stretches across the globe, chronicling a race against the clock to find and protect these ancient leviathans before they disappear forever.

Chasing Giants: In Search of the World’s Largest Freshwater Fish combines science, adventure, and wonder to provide insights into the key role the massive fish of our lakes and rivers play in our past, present, and future.
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Chasing the Dragon's Tail
The Struggle to Save Thailand's Wild Cats
Alan Rabinowitz
Island Press, 2002

In 1987, zoologist Alan Rabinowitz was invited by the Thai government to study leopards, tigers, and other wildlife in the Huai Kha Khaeng valley, one of Southeast Asia's largest and most prized forests. It was hoped his research would help protect the many species that live in that fragile reserve, which was being slowly depleted by poachers, drug traffickers, and even the native tribes of the area. Chasing the Dragon's Tail is the remarkable story of Rabinowitz's life and adventures in the forest as well as the streets of Bangkok, as he works to protect Thailand's threatened wildlife.

Based on Rabinowitz's field journals, the book offers an intimate and moving look at a modern zoologist's life in the field. As he fights floods, fire-ant infestations, elephant stampedes, and a request to marry the daughter of a tribal chief, the difficulties that come with the demanding job of species conservation are dramatically brought to life. First published in 1991, this edition of Chasing the Dragon's Tail includes a new afterword by the author that brings the story up to date, describing the surprising strides Thailand has made recently in conservation.

Other titles by Alan Rabinowitz include Beyond the Last Village and Jaguar.

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Cheetahs of the Serengeti Plains
Group Living in an Asocial Species
T. M. Caro
University of Chicago Press, 1994
Cheetahs of the Serengeti Plains is the most comprehensive account of carnivore social behavior to date. Synthesizing more than a decade of research in the wild, this book offers a detailed account of the behavior and ecology of cheetahs. Compared with other large cats, and other mammals, cheetahs have an unusual breeding system; whereas lions live in prides and tigers are solitary, some cheetahs live in groups while others live by themselves. Tim Caro explores group and solitary living among cheetahs and discovers that the causes of social behavior vary dramatically, even within a single species.

Why do cheetah cubs stay with their mother for a full year after weaning? Why do adolescents remain in groups? Why do adult males live in permanent associations with each other? Why do adult females live alone? Through observations on the costs and benefits of group living, Caro offers new insight into the complex behavior of this extraordinary species. For example, contrary to common belief about cooperative hunting in large carnivores, he shows that neither adolescents nor adult males benefit from hunting in groups.

With many surprising findings, and through comparisons with other cat species, Caro enriches our understanding of the evolution of social behavior and offers new perspectives on conservation efforts to save this charismatic and endangered carnivore.
[more]

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Chichi and the Great Flood
Brooke McWherter
Michigan Publishing Services, 2019

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Chimpanzee and Red Colobus
The Ecology of Predator and Prey
Craig B. Stanford
Harvard University Press, 1998

Our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees, are familiar enough--bright and ornery and promiscuous. But they also kill and eat their kin, in this case the red colobus monkey, which may say something about primate--even hominid--evolution. This book, the first long-term field study of a predator-prey relationship involving two wild primates, documents a six-year investigation into how the risk of predation molds primate society. Taking us to Gombe National Park in Tanzania, a place made famous by Jane Goodall's studies, the book offers a close look at how predation by wild chimpanzees--observable in the park as nowhere else--has influenced the behavior, ecology, and demography of a population of red colobus monkeys.

As he explores the effects of chimpanzees' hunting, Craig Stanford also asks why these creatures prey on the red colobus. Because chimpanzees are often used as models of how early humans may have lived, Stanford's findings offer insight into the possible role of early hominids as predators, a little understood aspect of human evolution.

The first book-length study in a newly emerging genre of primate field study, Chimpanzee and Red Colobus expands our understanding of not just these two primate societies, but also the evolutionary ecology of predators and prey in general.

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Chimpanzees and Human Evolution
Martin N. Muller
Harvard University Press, 2017

Knowledge of chimpanzees in the wild has expanded dramatically in recent years. This comprehensive volume, edited by Martin Muller, Richard Wrangham, and David Pilbeam, brings together scientists who are leading a revolution to discover and explain what is unique about humans, by studying their closest living relatives. Their observations and conclusions have the potential to transform our understanding of human evolution.

Chimpanzees offer scientists an unmatched view of what distinguishes humanity from its apelike ancestors. Based on evidence from the hominin fossil record and extensive morphological, developmental, and genetic data, Chimpanzees and Human Evolution makes the case that the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans was chimpanzee-like. It most likely lived in African rainforests around eight million years ago, eating fruit and walking on its knuckles. Readers will learn why chimpanzees are a better model for the last common ancestor than bonobos, gorillas, or orangutans. A thorough chapter-by-chapter analysis reveals which key traits we share with chimpanzees and which appear to be distinctive to Homo sapiens, and shows how understanding chimpanzees helps us account for the evolution of human uniqueness. Traits surveyed include social behaviors and structures, mating systems, diet, hunting practices, tool use, culture, cognition, and communication.

Edited by three of primatology’s most renowned experts, with contributions from 32 scholars drawing on decades of field research, Chimpanzees and Human Evolution provides readers with detailed up-to-date information on what we can infer about our chimpanzee-like ancestors and points the way forward for the next generation of discoveries.

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A Chorus of Cranes
The Cranes of North America and the World
Paul A. Johnsgard, Photographs by Thomas D. Mangelsen
University Press of Colorado, 2015

Since long before medieval times cranes have been considered messengers of the gods, calling annually from on high to remind humans below of the passing years and of their own mortality. Now it is up to humans to take responsibility for controlling our own fate—and also to cry out to protect not only cranes but all the other wonderful creatures that share our increasingly fragile and threatened planetary ecosystem with us."
—Paul A. Johnsgard, from the acknowledgments

Accompanied by the stunning photography of Thomas D. Mangelsen, A Chorus of Cranes details the natural history, biology, and conservation issues surrounding the abundant sandhill crane and the endangered whooping crane in North America. Author Paul A. Johnsgard, one of the leading authorities on cranes and crane biology, describes the fascinating social behaviors, beautiful natural habitats, and grueling seasonal migrations that have stirred the hearts of people as far back as medieval times and garnered the crane a place in folklore and mythology across continents.

Johnsgard has substantially updated and significantly expanded his 1991 work Crane Music, incorporating new information on the biology and status of these two North American cranes and providing abbreviated summaries on the other thirteen crane species of the world. The stories of these birds and their contrasting fates provide an instructive and moving history of bird conservation in North America. A Chorus of Cranes is a gorgeous and invaluable resource for crane enthusiasts, birders, natural historians, and conservationists alike.


The University Press of Colorado gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Iain Nicholson Audubon Center at Rowe Sanctuary, Audubon Nebraska, Ron and Judy Parks, Wagon Tongue Creek Farm, and the Trull Foundation toward the publication of this book.
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Circus World
Roustabouts, Animals, and the Work of Putting on the Big Show
Andrea Ringer
University of Illinois Press, 2024
From the 1870s to the 1960s, circuses crisscrossed the nation providing entertainment. A unique workforce of human and animal laborers from around the world put on the show. They also formed the backbone of a tented entertainment industry that raised new questions about what constituted work and who counted as a worker.

Andrea Ringer examines the industry-wide circus world--the collection of shows that traveled by rail, wagon, steamboat, and car--and the traditional and nontraditional laborers who created it. Performers and their onstage labor played an integral part in the popularity of the circus. But behind the scenes, other laborers performed the endless menial tasks that kept the show on the road. Circus operators regulated employee behavior both inside and outside the tent even as the employees themselves blurred the line between leisure and labor until, in all parts of the show, the workers could not escape their work.

Illuminating and vivid, Circus World delves into the gender, class, and even species concerns within an extinct way of life.

[more]

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Climate Ghosts
Migratory Species in the Anthropocene
Nancy Langston
Brandeis University Press, 2021
Climate Ghosts deals with the important issue of climate change and human impact on three species: woodland caribou, common loons, and lake sturgeon.
 
Environmental historian Nancy Langston explores three “ghost species” in the Great Lakes watershed—woodland caribou, common loons, and lake sturgeon. Ghost species are those that have not gone completely extinct, although they may be extirpated from a particular area. Their traces are still present, whether in DNA, in small fragmented populations, in lone individuals roaming a desolate landscape in search of a mate. We can still restore them if we make the hard choices necessary for them to survive. In this meticulously researched book, Langston delves into how climate change and human impact affected these now ghost species. Climate Ghosts covers one of the key issues of our time.
 
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Coastal Alert
Energy Ecosystems And Offshore Oil Drilling
Dwight Holing; Natural Resources Defense Council
Island Press, 1990

Coastal Alert explains how citizens can protect coastal resources from the damaging effects of offshore oil drilling.

[more]

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Cockroach
Marion Copeland
Reaktion Books, 2004
The cockroach could not have scuttled along, almost unchanged, for two hundred and fifty million years – some two hundred and forty-nine before man evolved – unless it was doing something right. It would be fascinating as well as instructive to have access to the cockroach’s own record of its life on earth, to know its point of view on evolution and species domination over the millennia. Such chronicles would perhaps radically alter our perceptions of the dinosaur’s span and importance – and that of our own development and significance. We might learn that throughout all these aeons, the dominant life form has been, if not the cockroach itself, then certainly the insect.

Attempts to chronicle the cockroach’s intellectual and emotional life have been made only within the last century when a scientist titled his essay on the cockroach "The Intellectual and Emotional World of the Cockroach", and artists as radically different as Franz Kafka and Don Marquis created equally memorable cockroach protagonists.

At least since Classical Greece, authors have brought cockroach characters into the foreground to speak for the weak and downtrodden, the outsiders, those forced to survive on the underside of dominant human cultures. Cockroaches have become the subjects of songs (La Cucaracha), have competed in "roachraces" and have even ended up in recipes. In this accessible, sympathetic and often humorous book, Marion Copeland examines the natural history, symbolism and cultural significance of this poorly understood and much-maligned insect.
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The Cockroach Papers
A Compendium of History and Lore
Richard Schweid
University of Chicago Press, 2015
Skittering figures of urban legend—and a ubiquitous reality—cockroaches are nearly as abhorred as they are ancient. Even as our efforts to exterminate them have developed into ever more complex forms of chemical warfare, roaches’ basic design of six legs, two hypersensitive antennae, and one set of voracious mandibles has persisted unchanged for millions of years. But as Richard Schweid shows in The Cockroach Papers, while some species of these evolutionary superstars do indeed plague our kitchens and restaurants, exacerbate our asthma, and carry disease, our belief in their total villainy is ultimately misplaced.

Traveling from New York City to Louisiana, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Morocco, Schweid blends stories of his own squirm-inducing roach encounters with meticulous research to spin a tale both humorous and harrowing. As he investigates roaches’ more nefarious interactions with our species—particularly with those of us living at the margins of society—Schweid also explores their astonishing diversity, how they mate, what they’ll eat, and what we’ve written about them (from Kafka and Nelson Algren to archy and mehitabel). Knowledge soon turns into respect, and Schweid looks beyond his own fears to arrive at an uncomfortable truth: We humans are no more peaceful, tidy, or responsible about taking care of the Earth or each other than these tiny creatures that swarm in the dark corners of our minds, homes, and cereal boxes.
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Coevolution of Animals and Plants
Symposium V, First International Congress of Systematic and Evolutionary Biology, 1973
Edited by Lawrence E. Gilbert and Peter H. Raven
University of Texas Press, 1975

It has long been recognized that plants and animals profoundly affect one another’s characteristics during the course of evolution. However, the importance of coevolution as a dynamic process involving such diverse factors as chemical communication, population structure and dynamics, energetics, and the evolution, structure, and functioning of ecosystems has been widely recognized for a comparatively short time. Coevolution represents a point of view about the structure of nature that only began to be fully explored in the late twentieth century. The papers presented here herald its emergence as an important and promising field of biological research.

Coevolution of Animals and Plants is the first book to focus on the dynamic aspects of animal-plant coevolution. It covers, as broadly as possible, all the ways in which plants interact with animals. Thus, it includes discussions of leaf-feeding animals and their impact on plant evolution as well as of predator-prey relationships involving the seeds of angiosperms. Several papers deal with the most familiar aspect of mutualistic plant-animal interactions—pollination relationships. The interactions of orchids and bees, ants and plants, and butterflies and plants are discussed. One article provides a fascinating example of more indirect relationships centered around the role of carotenoids, which are produced by plants but play a fundamental part in the visual systems of both plants and animals.

Coevolution of Animals and Plants provides a general conceptual framework for studies on animal-plant interaction. The papers are written from a theoretical, rather than a speculative, standpoint, stressing patterns that can be applied in a broader sense to relationships within ecosystems.

Contributors to the volume include Paul Feeny, Miriam Rothschild, Christopher Smith, Brian Hocking, Lawrence Gilbert, Calaway Dodson, Herbert Baker, Bernd Heinrich, Doyle McKey, and Gordon Frankie.

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Coexisting with Large Carnivores
Lessons From Greater Yellowstone
Edited by Tim W. Clark, Murray B. Rutherford, and Denise Casey
Island Press, 2005

As in the rest of the United States, grizzly bears, wolves, and mountain lions in and around Yellowstone National Park were eliminated or reduced decades ago to very low numbers. In recent years, however, populations have begun to recover, leading to encounters between animals and people and, more significantly, to conflicts among people about what to do with these often controversial neighbors.

Coexisting with Large Carnivores presents a close-up look at the socio-political context of large carnivores and their management in western Wyoming south of Yellowstone National Park, including the southern part of what is commonly recognized as the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The book brings together researchers and others who have studied and worked in the region to help untangle some of the highly charged issues associated with large carnivores, their interactions with humans, and the politics that arise from those interactions.

This volume argues that coexistence will be achieved only by a thorough understanding of the human populations involved, their values, attitudes, beliefs, and the institutions through which carnivores and humans are managed. Coexisting with Large Carnivores offers important insights into this complex, dynamic issue and provides a unique overview of issues and strategies for managers, researchers, government officials, ranchers, and everyone else concerned about the management and conservation of large carnivores and the people who live nearby.

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Cold Latitudes
Rosemary McGuire
University of Alaska Press, 2021
Cold Latitudes is a memoir in essay form based on years of working in the Alaska Arctic and Antarctica. The author was privileged to see first-hand worlds that few will ever know, while participating in cutting-edge research at high latitudes. From solo voyages down the Yukon and part of the Northwest Passage, to working with humpback whales in the Southern Ocean, to chilling encounters with polar bears, Rosemary McGuire’s stories are told in spare, graceful prose. It is her friendships with local people, and with scientific researchers, that form the core of her experiences. Through these local contacts and traditional knowledge, she learns humility and a sense of wonder at the natural world, while at the same time coming to appreciate the gritty determination of the field researchers whose work she shares. Throughout, she examines human relationships with wilderness, and our growing effects on a fragile planet. And so, as she writes, “In the end, this is a love story for a threatened place.”
 
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Collared
Politics and Personalities in Oregon's Wolf Country
Aimee Lyn Eaton
Oregon State University Press, 2013
“Just as the humans involved in the wolf debate deserve to be seen as individuals, not stereotypes, so do the wolves. They are not the boogeyman, or storybook monsters aiming to prey upon the young and old. They aren’t cuddly pets or religious icons. They are Canis lupus. Wolves.” —from the Introduction

Teeming with the tension and passion that accompany one of North America’s most controversial apex predators, Collared tracks the events that unfolded when wolves from the reintroduced population of the northern Rocky Mountains dispersed west across state lines into Oregon.

In a forthright and personal style, Aimee Lyn Eaton takes readers from meeting rooms in the state capitol to ranching communities in the rural northeast corner of the state. Using on-the-ground inquiry, field interviews, and in-depth research, she shares the story of how wolves returned to Oregon and the repercussions of their presence in the state.

Collared: Politics and Personalities in Oregon’s Wolf Country
introduces readers to the biologists, ranchers, conservationists, state employees, and lawyers on the front lines, encouraging a deeper, multifaceted understanding of the controversial and storied presence of wolves in Oregon.
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Common Insects of Texas and Surrounding States
A Field Guide
By John Abbott and Kendra Abbott
University of Texas Press, 2020

Thanks to its size and geographic position, Texas is home to nearly 30,000 species of insects, likely making its insect population the most diverse in the nation. Ranging from eastern and western to temperate and tropical species, this vast array of insects can be difficult to identify. In Common Insects of Texas and Surrounding States, John and Kendra Abbott have created the state's most comprehensive field guide to help readers recognize and understand these fascinating creatures.

Containing 1,300 species and more than 2,700 photographs, this guide offers a wealth of information about the characteristics and behaviors of Texas's insects. Each chapter introduces an order with a discussion of general natural history and a description of other qualities helpful in distinguishing its various species, while every species' entry provides a state map showing where it is most likely to be found, a key displaying its seasonal distribution, information about its habitat, and corresponding photos. Featuring colored tabs for quick reference, a glossary, and information about other arthropods, this guide is the perfect companion for anyone wanting to identify and learn more about the many insects of Texas.

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Concealing Coloration in Animals
Judy Diamond and Alan B. Bond
Harvard University Press, 2013

The biological functions of coloration in animals are sometimes surprising. Color can attract mates, intimidate enemies, and distract predators. But color patterns can also conceal animals from detection. Concealing coloration is unusual because it is an adaptation not only to the visual features of the environment but also to the perceptual and cognitive capabilities of other organisms. Judy Diamond and Alan Bond bring to light the many factors at work in the evolution of concealing coloration.

Animals that resemble twigs, tree bark, stones, and seaweed may appear to be perfect imitations, but no concealment strategy is without flaws. Amid the clutter of the natural world, predators search for minute, telltale clues that will reveal the identity of their prey. Predators have remarkable abilities to learn to discriminate the fake from the real. But prey have their own range of defensive tactics, evolving multiple appearances or the ability to change color at will. Drawing on modern experimental evidence of the functional significance of animal color strategies, Diamond and Bond offer striking illustrations of how the evolution of features in one organism can be driven by the psychology of others.

Concealing Coloration in Animals takes readers on a scientific adventure that explores creatures inside mats of floating seaweed, mice and lizards on desert rocks and sand, and rare parrots in the rainforest of New Zealand. Color photographs extensively document the mind-boggling array of deceptive strategies animals use to blend in, mislead, or vanish from view.

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Conservation by Proxy
Indicator, Umbrella, Keystone, Flagship, and Other Surrogate Species
Tim Caro
Island Press, 2010
The vast scope of conservation problems has forced biologists and managers to rely on "surrogate" species to serve as shortcuts to guide their decision making. These species-known by a host of different terms, including indicator, umbrella, and flagship species-act as proxies to represent larger conservation issues, such as the location of biodiversity hotspots or general ecosystem health.
 
Synthesizing an immense body of literature, conservation biologist and field researcher Tim Caro offers systematic definitions of surrogate species concepts, explores biological theories that underlie them, considers how surrogate species are chosen, critically examines evidence for and against their utility, and makes recommendations for their continued use. The book
clarifies terminology and contrasts how different terms are used in the real world
considers the ecological, taxonomic, and political underpinnings of these shortcuts
identifies criteria that make for good surrogate species
outlines the circumstances where the application of the surrogate species concept shows promise
Conservation by Proxy is a benchmark reference that provides clear definitions and common understanding of the evidence and theory behind surrogate species. It is the first book to review and bring together literature on more than fifteen types of surrogate species, enabling us to assess their role in conservation and offering guidelines on how they can be used most effectively.

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Conservation of the Black-Tailed Prairie Dog
Saving North America's Western Grasslands
Edited by John L. Hoogland
Island Press, 2006
The prairie dog is a colonial, keystone species of the grassland ecosystem of western North America. Myriad animals regularly visit colony-sites to feed on the grass there, to use the burrows for shelter or nesting, or to prey on the prairie dogs. Unfortunately, prairie dogs are disappearing, and the current number is only about 2% of the number encountered by Lewis and Clark in the early 1800s.
Part I of Conservation of the Black-Tailed Prairie Dog summarizes ecology and social behavior for pivotal issues such as when prairie dogs breed, how far they disperse, how they affect other organisms, and how much they compete with livestock. Part II documents how loss of habitat, poisoning, plague, and recreational shooting have caused the precipitous decline of prairie dog populations over the last 200 years. Part III proposes practical solutions that can ensure the long-term survival of the prairie dog and its grassland ecosystem, and also are fair to private landowners. We cannot expect farmers and ranchers to bear all the costs of conservation while the rest of us enjoy all the benefits.
With 700 references, 37 tables, 75 figures and photographs, and a glossary, Conservation of the Black-Tailed Prairie Dog is a unique and vital contribution for wildlife managers, politicians, environmentalists, and curious naturalists.
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The Cougar Conundrum
Sharing the World with a Successful Predator
Mark Elbroch
Island Press, 2020
The relationship between humans and mountain lions has always been uneasy. A century ago, mountain lions were vilified as a threat to livestock and hunted to the verge of extinction. In recent years, this keystone predator has made a remarkable comeback, but today humans and mountain lions appear destined for a collision course. Its recovery has led to an unexpected conundrum: Do more mountain lions mean they’re a threat to humans and domestic animals? Or, are mountain lions still in need of our help and protection as their habitat dwindles and they’re forced into the edges and crevices of communities to survive?
 
Mountain lion biologist and expert Mark Elbroch welcomes these tough questions. He dismisses long-held myths about mountain lions and uses groundbreaking science to uncover important new information about their social habits. Elbroch argues that humans and mountain lions can peacefully coexist in close proximity if we ignore uninformed hype and instead arm ourselves with knowledge and common sense. He walks us through the realities of human safety in the presence of mountain lions, livestock safety, competition with hunters for deer and elk, and threats to rare species, dispelling the paranoia with facts and logic. In the last few chapters, he touches on human impacts on mountain lions and the need for a sensible management strategy. The result, he argues, is a win-win for humans, mountain lions, and the ecosystems that depend on keystone predators to keep them in healthy balance.
 
The Cougar Conundrum delivers a clear-eyed assessment of a modern wildlife challenge, offering practical advice for wildlife managers, conservationists, hunters, and those in the wildland-urban interface who share their habitat with large predators.  
 
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Cougar
Ecology and Conservation
Edited by Maurice Hornocker and Sharon Negri
University of Chicago Press, 2009

The cougar is one of the most beautiful, enigmatic, and majestic animals in the Americas. Eliciting reverence for its grace and independent nature, it also triggers fear when it comes into contact with people, pets, and livestock or competes for hunters’ game. Mystery, myth, and misunderstanding surround this remarkable creature.

The cougar’s range once extended from northern Canada to the tip of South America, and from the Pacific to the Atlantic, making it the most widespread animal in the western hemisphere. But overhunting and loss of habitat vastly reduced cougar numbers by the early twentieth century across much of its historical range, and today the cougar faces numerous threats as burgeoning human development encroaches on its remaining habitat.

When Maurice Hornocker began the first long-term study of cougars in the Idaho wilderness in 1964, little was known about this large cat. Its secretive nature and rarity in the landscape made it difficult to study. But his groundbreaking research yielded major insights and was the prelude to further research on this controversial species.

The capstone to Hornocker’s long career studying big cats, Cougar is a powerful and practical resource for scientists, conservationists, and anyone with an interest in large carnivores.  He and conservationist Sharon Negri bring together the diverse perspectives of twenty-two distinguished scientists to provide the fullest account of the cougar’s ecology, behavior, and genetics, its role as a top predator, and its conservation needs. This compilation of recent findings, stunning photographs, and firsthand accounts of field research unravels the mysteries of this magnificent animal and emphasizes its importance in healthy ecosystem processes and in our lives.

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A Country So Full of Game
The Story of Wildlife in Iowa
James J. Dinsmore
University of Iowa Press, 1994
Indian agent Joseph Street said it well in 1833 when he described his trip across Iowa: “I had never rode through a country so full of game.” In the early 1800s Iowa's deep soil, free-flowing rivers and streams, and favorable climate had combined to produce the welcoming habitats that supported a surprising variety of animals. In his engaging, intelligent book, James Dinsmore has created the first comprehensive history of this abounding wildlife from the arrival of Euro-American explorers to the present day.

Based on a thorough search of hundreds of primary sources ranging from chronicles of military expeditions to field reports by early naturalists, first-person accounts by fur traders and hunters to up-to-date county checklists, A Country So Full of Game examines the dramatic encounters of humans with elk, black bears, passenger pigeons, bobcats, prairie-chickens, otters, and many more. Each chapter discusses the animal's status and distribution when explorers first arrived in Iowa, how it was hunted or trapped, how this exploitation affected its population, and what its current status is both in Iowa and nationally. Enhanced by Mark Müller's distinctive drawings, commissioned for this book, the anecdotes evoke a sense of loss and wonder at the magic abundance of Iowa's wildlife.

Iowa has been changed more than, perhaps, any other state. We can mourn the disappearance of the bison and mountain lion while we marvel at the recent success of the wild turkey and white-tailed deer. Listening to James Dinsmore tell the story of wildlife in Iowa can open a window onto the future as other areas of our planet are increasingly altered by humans. A Country So Full of Game will allow all naturalists, both amateur and professional, hunter and biologist, to appreciate and learn from Iowa's diverse wild heritage.
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The Courtiers' Anatomists
Animals and Humans in Louis XIV's Paris
Anita Guerrini
University of Chicago Press, 2015
The Courtiers' Anatomists is about dead bodies and live animals in Louis XIV's Paris--and the surprising links between them. Examining the practice of seventeenth-century anatomy, Anita Guerrini reveals how anatomy and natural history were connected through animal dissection and vivisection. Driven by an insatiable curiosity, Parisian scientists, with the support of the king, dissected hundreds of animals from the royal menageries and the streets of Paris. Guerrini is the first to tell the story of Joseph-Guichard Duverney, who performed violent, riot-inducing dissections of both animal and human bodies before the king at Versailles and in front of hundreds of spectators at the King's Garden in Paris. At the Paris Academy of Sciences, meanwhile, Claude Perrault, with the help of Duverney’s dissections, edited two folios in the 1670s filled with lavish illustrations by court artists of exotic royal animals.

Through the stories of Duverney and Perrault, as well as those of Marin Cureau de la Chambre, Jean Pecquet, and Louis Gayant, The Courtiers' Anatomists explores the relationships between empiricism and theory, human and animal, as well as the origins of the natural history museum and the relationship between science and other cultural activities, including art, music, and literature.
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Cow
Hannah Velten
Reaktion Books, 2007

From the milk we drink in the morning, to the leather shoes we slip on for the day, to the steak we savor at dinner, our daily lives are thoroughly bound up with cows. Yet there is a far more complex story behind this seemingly benign creature, which Hannah Velten explores here, plumbing the rich trove of myth, fact, and legend surrounding these familar animals.

        From the plowing field to the rodeo to the temple, Velten tracks the constantly changing social relationship between man and cattle, beginning with the domestication of aurochs around 9000 BCE.  From there, Cow launches into a fascinating story of religious fanaticism, scientific exploits, and the economic transformations engendered by the trade of the numerous products derived from the animal. She explores in engaging detail how despite cattle’s prominence at two ends of a wide spectrum: Hinduism venerates the cow as one of the most sacred members of the animal kingdom, while beef is a prized staple of the American diet.  Thought provoking and informative, Cow restores this oft-overlooked animal to the nobility it richly deserves.

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The Cow with Ear Tag #1389
Kathryn Gillespie
University of Chicago Press, 2018
To translate the journey from a living cow to a glass of milk into tangible terms, Kathryn Gillespie set out to follow the moments in the life cycles of individual animals—animals like the cow with ear tag #1389. She explores how the seemingly benign practice of raising animals for milk is just one link in a chain that affects livestock across the agricultural spectrum. Gillespie takes readers to farms, auction yards, slaughterhouses, and even rendering plants to show how living cows become food. The result is an empathetic look at cows and our relationship with them, one that makes both their lives and their suffering real.
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Coyote at the Kitchen Door
Living with Wildlife in Suburbia
Stephen DeStefano
Harvard University Press, 2010

A moose frustrates commuters by wandering onto the highway; a cougar stalks his prey through suburban backyards; an alligator suns himself in a strip mall parking lot. Such stories, which regularly make headline news, highlight the blurred divide that now exists between civilization and wilderness.

In Coyote at the Kitchen Door, Stephen DeStefano draws on decades of experience as a biologist and conservationist to examine the interplay between urban sprawl and wayward wildlife. As he explores what our insatiable appetite for real estate means for the health and well-being of animals and ourselves, he highlights growing concerns, such as the loss of darkness at night because of light pollution. DeStefano writes movingly about the contrasts between constructed and natural environments and about the sometimes cherished, sometimes feared place that nature holds in our modern lives, as we cluster into cities yet show an increasing interest in the natural world.

Woven throughout the book is the story of one of the most successful species in North America: the coyote. Once restricted to the prairies of the West, this adaptable animal now inhabits most of North America—urban and wild alike. DeStefano traces a female coyote’s movements along a winding path between landscapes in which her species learned to survive and flourish. Coyote at the Kitchen Door asks us to rethink the meaning of progress and create a new suburban wildlife ethic.

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Coyote Steals Fire
A Shoshone Tale
Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation
Utah State University Press, 2005

"Coyote was tired of being cold," begins this traditional Shoshone tale about the arrival of fire in the northern Wasatch region. Members of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation developed the concept for this retelling, in collaboration with book arts teacher, Tamara Zollinger. Together, they wrote and illustrated the book.

Bright watercolor-and-salt techniques provide a winning background to the hand-cut silhouettes of the characters. The lively, humorous story about Coyote and his friends is complemented perfectly by later pages written by Northwestern Shoshone elders on the historical background and cultural heritage of the Shoshone nation. An audio CD with the voice of Helen Timbimboo telling the story in Shoshone and singing two traditional songs makes this book not only good entertainment but an important historical document, too.

Sure to delight readers of all ages, Coyote Steals Fire will be a valuable addition to the family bookshelf, the elementary classroom, the school or public library.

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Crab
Cynthia Chris
Reaktion Books, 2021
What is a crab? What significance do crabs play in the world? In Crab, Cynthia Chris reveals that these charming creatures are social by nature, creative problem-solvers, and invaluable members of the environments in which they live. Their formidable physical forms, their hard-to-harvest and quick-to-spoil flesh, and their sassy demeanor have inspired artists and writers from Vincent van Gogh to Jean-Paul Sartre. Chris sketches vivid portraits of these animals, tracing the history of the crab through its ancient fossil record to its essential role in protecting its own habitats from the threat of climate change.
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Crab Wars
A Tale of Horseshoe Crabs, Bioterrorism, and Human Health
William Sargent
University Press of New England, 2006
Surviving almost unmolested for 300 million years, the horseshoe crab is now the object of an intense legal and ethical struggle involving marine biologists, environmentalists, US government officials, biotechnologists, and international corporations. The source of this friction is the discovery 25 years ago that the blood of these ancient creatures serves as the basis for the most reliable test for the deadly and ubiquitous gram-negative bacteria. These bacteria are responsible for life-threatening diseases like menengitis, typhoid, E. coli, Legionnaire’s Disease and toxic shock syndrome. Because every drug certified by the FDA must be tested using the horseshoe crab derivative known as Limulus lysate, a multimillion dollar industry has emerged involving the license to “bleed” horseshoe crabs and the rights to their breeding grounds. Since his youthful fascination with these ancient creatures, William Sargent has spent much of his life observing, studying, and collecting horseshoe crabs. As a result, he presents a thoroughly accessible insider’s guide to the discovery of the lysate test, the exploitation of the crabs at the hands of multinational pharmaceutical conglomerates, local fishing interests, and the legal and governmental wrangling over the creatures’ ultimate fate. In the end, the story of the horseshoe crab is a sobering reflection on the unintended consequences of scientific progress and the danger of self-regulated industries controlling a limited natural resource.
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Crab Wars
A Tale of Horseshoe Crabs, Ecology, and Human Health
William Sargent
Brandeis University Press, 2021
A timely look at the exploitation of a species that has helped with the development of countless drugs and is fast becoming endangered.
 
Because every drug certified by the FDA must be tested using the horseshoe crab derivative known as Limulus lysate, a multimillion-dollar industry has emerged involving the license to bleed horseshoe crabs and the rights to their breeding grounds. William Sargent presents a thoroughly accessible insider’s guide to the discovery of the lysate test, the exploitation of the horseshoe crab at the hands of multinational pharmaceutical conglomerates, local fishing interests, and the legal and governmental wrangling over the creatures’ ultimate fate. In the end, the story of the horseshoe crab is a sobering reflection on the unintended consequences of scientific progress and the danger of self-regulated industries controlling a limited natural resource. This new edition brings the story up to date as companies race to manufacture alternatives to the horseshoe crab blood, which is now essential for testing vaccines such as those developed to counter COVID-19. However, horseshoe crab populations are still dwindling, with profound implications not only for the future of the crabs themselves but also for the ecosystems that depend on them.
 
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Crayfishes of Alabama
Guenter A. Schuster, Christopher A. Taylor, and Stuart W. McGregor
University of Alabama Press, 2022
A comprehensive assessment of the 99 known species of crayfishes inhabiting the state of Alabama

Crayfishes are common organisms in many freshwater habitats. They are usually the largest invertebrates and often represent the greatest amount of invertebrate biomass in their environments. Identified as a keystone species in many ecological communities, aquatic biologists are fond of saying “they eat everything, and everything eats them.”
 
Crayfishes—sometimes called crawfishes, crawdads, mudbugs, ditchbugs, yabbies, and flusskrebs—are taxonomically and ecologically a diverse group of aquatic crustaceans. There are more than 600 known species worldwide and North America alone is home to more than 400. As home to 99 documented species, Alabama is a global hotspot for crayfish diversity.
 
Crayfishes of Alabama is the first comprehensive reference work on the subject and provides the most up-to-date information on the vast range of crayfishes known to reside in Alabama. The authors have collected specimens and data from the state’s major and minor waterways and lakes, as well as specialized habitats such as burrows, caves, roadside ditches, marshes, swamps, and temporary autumnal ponds. This volume represents the most in-depth treatment of crayfishes found in the southeastern United States and offers detailed species accounts including descriptions of morphological characters, color, maximum size, comparative species, distribution and habitat, biology, crayfish associates, and conservation status. The species accounts are accentuated with color photographs, photographic morphological plates, and dot maps showing state and national distributions. A photographic key is provided to guide the identification of all 99 species.
 
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Creatures Of Habitat
The Changing Nature of Wildlife and Wild Places in Utah and the Intermountain West
Mark Gerard Hengesbaugh
Utah State University Press, 2001

From flying squirrels on high wooded plateaus to hanging gardens in redrock canyons, the Intermountain West is home to some of the world's rarest and most fascinating animals and plants. Creatures of Habitat details many unique but little-known talents of this region's strange and wonderful wild inhabitants and descibes their connections with native environments. For example, readers will learn about the pronghorn antelope's supercharged cardiovascular system, a brine shrimp-powered shorebird that each year flies nonstop from the Great Salt Lake to Central Argentina, and a rare mustard plant recently discovered on Mount Ogden. Emphasizing how increasing loss and degradation of habitat hinders native species' survival, Mark Gerard Hengesbaugh discusses what is happening to wildlife and wild places and what is being done about it.

Well illustrated, this book has habitat maps, pen-and-ink illustrations, and fifty photos of wildlife and wild places selected by photo editor Dan Miller. Also included are guides to wildlife viewing and lists of Utah species, including those considered sensitive, threatened, or endangered.

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Cricket Radio
Tuning In the Night-Singing Insects
John Himmelman
Harvard University Press, 2011

At a time when night-singing insects have slipped beyond our notice—indeed, are more likely to be heard as NatureSounds than in a backyard—John Himmelman seeks to reconnect us to creatures whose songs form a part of our own natural history.

On warm summer evenings, night-singing insects produce a whirring, chirping soundscape—a calming aural tapestry celebrated by poets and naturalists for millennia. But “cricket radio” is not broadcast for the easy-listening pleasure of humans. The nocturnal songs of insects are lures and warnings, full of risks and rewards for these tiny competitive performers. What moves crickets and katydids to sing, how they produce their distinctive sounds, how they hear the songs of others, and how they vary cadence, volume, and pitch to attract potential mates, warn off competitors, and evade predators is part of the engaging story Cricket Radio tells.

Himmelman’s narrative weaves together his personal experiences as an amateur naturalist in search of crickets and katydids with the stories of scientists who study these insects professionally. He also offers instructions for bringing a few of the little singers into our homes and gardens. We can, Himmelman suggests, be reawakened to these night songs that have meant so much to the human psyche. The online insect calls that accompany this colorfully illustrated narrative provide a bridge of sound to our past and to our vital connection with other species.

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Critical Terms for Animal Studies
Edited by Lori Gruen
University of Chicago Press, 2018
Animal Studies is a rapidly growing interdisciplinary field devoted to examining, understanding, and critically evaluating the complex relationships between humans and
other animals. Scholarship in Animal Studies draws on a variety of methodologies to explore these multi-faceted relationships in order to help us understand the ways in which other animals figure in our lives and we in theirs. 

Bringing together the work of a group of internationally distinguished scholars, the contribution in Critical Terms for Animal Studies offers distinct voices and diverse perspectives, exploring significant concepts and asking important questions. How do we take non-human animals seriously, not simply as metaphors for human endeavors, but as subjects themselves? What do we mean by anthropocentrism, captivity, empathy, sanctuary, and vulnerability, and what work do these and other critical terms do in Animal Studies?

Sure to become an indispensable reference for the field, Critical Terms for Animal Studies not only provides a framework for thinking about animals as subjects of their own experiences, but also serves as a touchstone to help us think differently about our conceptions of what it means to be human, and the impact human activities have on the more than human world.
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Crocodile
Dan Wylie
Reaktion Books, 2013
“Tick, tock, tick, tock.” Thanks to Peter Pan, this sound, if heard near water, means run: a hungry crocodile is on its way. J. M. Barrie isn’t fully to blame for spreading the word that crocodiles are our enemies, or at least the enemies of one-handed pirates—innumerable songs, stories, and legends have characterized these reptiles as a symbol of pitiless predation and insatiable appetite. Tracking twenty-three crocodilian species from India and Egypt to Africa, Australia, and beyond, Crocodile advocates that we do a complete one-eighty in our views of these magnificent creatures.
 
Dan Wylie traces the crocodile in myth, art, and literature, demonstrating that though we commonly associate the reptiles with ferocity and deceit, they have also often been respected and revered in human history. Discussing how crocodiles were all but wiped out in the middle of the twentieth century by hunters and skin traders and are now making a comeback, he reveals that, as apex predators, they are today an increasingly important indicator of the health of an ecosystem and may outlive humans like they did dinosaurs. Presenting a concise, cogent case for why we should respect these fearsome animals, this beautifully illustrated volume is a tribute to one of the world’s ultimate survivors.
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Crooked Cats
Beastly Encounters in the Anthropocene
Nayanika Mathur
University of Chicago Press, 2021
Big cats—tigers, leopards, and lions—that make prey of humans are commonly known as “man-eaters.” Anthropologist Nayanika Mathur reconceptualizes them as cats that have gone off the straight path to become “crooked.” Building upon fifteen years of research in India, this groundbreaking work moves beyond both colonial and conservationist accounts to place crooked cats at the center of the question of how we are to comprehend a planet in crisis.

There are many theories on why and how a big cat comes to prey on humans, with the ecological collapse emerging as a central explanatory factor. Yet, uncertainty over the precise cause of crookedness persists. Crooked Cats explores in vivid detail the many lived complexities that arise from this absence of certain knowledge to offer startling new insights into both the governance of nonhuman animals and their intimate entanglements with humans. Through creative ethnographic storytelling, Crooked Cats illuminates the Anthropocene in three critical ways: as method, as a way of reframing human-nonhuman relations on the planet, and as a political tool indicating the urgency of academic engagement. Weaving together “beastly tales” spun from encounters with big cats, Mathur deepens our understanding of the causes, consequences, and conceptualization of the climate crisis.
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Cuckoo
Cynthia Chris
Reaktion Books, 2024
An entertaining and wide-ranging romp through the cultural history of a peculiar bird.
 
The cuckoo is peculiar for inspiring such divergent ideas: a symbol of foolishness to both Aristophanes and Cocoa Puffs, a reliable harbinger of spring and the hours of a cuckoo clock, and the source of innumerable innuendos inspired by a habit of laying eggs in others’ nests. In this short, entertaining book, Cynthia Chris explores both the natural and cultural history of the cuckoo as well as the many stories told throughout the centuries about this fascinating bird.
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The Curious Life of Krill
A Conservation Story from the Bottom of the World
Stephen Nicol
Island Press, 2018
"Makes you feel as if you're part of an engaging dinnertime conversation." —Science News

Krill—it’s a familiar word that conjures oceans, whales, and swimming crustaceans. Scientists say they are one of most abundant animals on the planet. But when pressed, few people can accurately describe krill or explain their ecological importance. Antarctic krill have used their extraordinary adaptive skills to survive and thrive for millions of years in a dark, icy world far from human interference. But with climate change melting ice caps at the top and bottom of the world, and increased human activity and pollution, their evolutionary flexibility to withstand these new pressures may not be enough.

Eminent krill scientist Stephen Nicol wants us to know more about this enigmatic creature of the sea. He argues that it’s critical to understand krill’s complex biology in order to protect them as the krill fishing industry expands. This account of Antarctic krill-one of the largest of eighty-five krill species-takes us to the Southern Ocean to learn firsthand the difficulties and rewards of studying krill in its habitat. Nicol lays to rest the notion that krill are simply microscopic, shrimplike whale food but are in fact midway up the food chain, consumers of phytoplankton and themselves consumed by whales, seals, and penguins. From his early education about the sex lives of krill in the Bay of Fundy to a krill tattoo gone awry, Nicol uses humor and personal stories to bring the biology and beauty of krill alive. In the final chapters, he examines the possibility of an increasingly ice-free Southern Ocean and what that means for the fate of krill-and us.

Ocean enthusiasts will come away with a newfound appreciation for the complex ecology of a species we have much to learn from, and many reasons to protect.
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