New & Noteworthy

In the current issue of Wildlife Conservation

Madagascar!
Welcome to the Bronx Zoo’s newest wildlife habitat. Madagascar!, which opened on June 19, features leaping lemurs, huge Nile crocodiles, tiny frogs, and the fascinating fossa.

Seal Sitting
Seattle volunteers help protect vulnerable harbor seal pups that haul out on beaches to rest while their moms feed at sea.

Holding the Line at Lopé
In Gabon, conservationists work with the local people to ensure the success of programs to protect wildlife.

Also featuring

• Wild Places—Kaziranga National Park, home of the one-horned rhino
• Finding Peace in Kenya
• Letter from the Field—Meeting muskox in Alaska

The Better to Eat You With

In The Better to Eat You With, Dr. Joel Berger explores cultures of fear in the animal world. He weaves natural history, personal experience, and conservation into a stimulating narrative that crosses continents and climates from Yellowstone National Park, where elk and wolves coexist; to African savannas, where rhinos live alongside African lions; to Asian forests where moose share their home with tigers and bears.
 
Whether battling bureaucracy in the statehouse or fighting subzero wind chills in the field, Berger puts himself in the middle of the action. The thrilling tales he tells reveal a great deal not only about survival in the animal kingdom, but also the process of doing science in foreboding conditions and hostile environments. A senior scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society, Berger is also the author of Horn of Darkness,
Wild Horses of the Great Basin, and Bison.

 Caribou and the North: A Shared Future

The harsh climates of the Canadian and Alaskan wilderness demands tough survival skills. Now, climate change coupled with widespread oil, gas, and mineral development adds new pressure for the region’s iconic wildlife. These topics are addressed in Caribou and the North: A Shared Future, by Monte Hummel, President Emeritus of WWF-Canada, and Dr Justina C. Ray, Executive Director of Wildlife Conservation Society Canada (WCS Canada).
 
The book explores the reason for the interlinked fate of caribou and the North, as it relates to migratory tundra caribou, boreal forest caribou, and mountain caribou in Canada and the U.S. It features 125 photographs, 40 maps, forewords by Robert Redford and Stephen Kakfwi (former Premier of the Northwest Territories), as well as original sketches by Robert Bateman to introduce each of the book’s four major sections.

Caribou and the North will interest anyone invested in the fate of our continent’s iconic wildlife and the conservation challenges of our time.

Hidden Giants

Edited by the Wildlife Conservation Society and written by WCS forest elephant coordinator Stephen Blake, Hidden Giants: Forest Elephants is a comprehensive and lively guide to these mysterious and endangered creatures. The book’s scope includes the origin of the species, the workings of its matriarchal society, and the elephant’s vital role in the ecology of the forest. It also focuses on the serious threats that darken the species’ future. A “superb tour d’elephant,” according to science writer Eugene Linden, this companion satisfies even the weightiest curiosities about these huge herbivores.

Copies of Hidden Giants are available for $20 each by e-mailing wcsafrica@wcs.org, attention: Nadya Cartagena. Please send checks payable to Wildlife Conservation Society to Nadya at 2300 Southern Blvd., Bronx, NY 10460.

A Naturalist and Other Beasts

Since the 1950s, eminent biologist George Schaller, vice president and science director of WCS, has roamed through many lands, observing wild animals and conducting landmark studies that have deepened our understanding of these creatures. A Naturalist and Other Beasts: Tales from a Life in the Field (Sierra Club Books, 2007) features 19 short pieces, brought together in book form for the first time, that offer a unique overview of his remarkable career.

Schaller describes stalking tigers in India and jaguars in Brazil’s Pantanal swamps, studying mountain gorillas in Rwanda, searching for snow leopards in the Hindu Kush, and his groundbreaking work with giant pandas in Sichuan. Later accounts broaden the focus from individual species to whole ecosystems. “The careless rapture of my early studies has been replaced more and more by efforts to protect animals and their habitats,” he writes.