Eight Bears

April 15, 2023
A look at the world's eight surviving bear species. As Reuters global climate and environment correspondent Dickie notes, some of the world's embattled bears are charismatic bywords for wild animals as a whole: the polar bear, say, or the grizzly. Others, such as the spectacled and sloth bears, are scarcely known. Yet all are slipping away save for the black bear, the sole species "considered secure throughout its global range," and 6 of the 8 are under immediate threat of extinction--all due to human interventions in their environments. Their fortunes were not always so tenuous. As the author writes, modern bear lineages appeared over the last 5 million years or so, "extremely recently in terms of geological time," and spread to every continent except Australia. Still, their day in the sun has been curtailed: There are perhaps 500 primate species, vastly outnumbering ursines. While many hunting cultures revered bears even as they feared them, urban civilizations have tended to discount them--and to kill in the course of encounters almost always initiated because humans are intruding into bear country. This sometimes happens in unexpected places. In North Gujarat, India, for example, sloth bear attacks on humans numbered 1 per year between 1960 and 1999, on average, while today the number has jumped to nine. The culprit? Lack of water in the hot summer months, when most attacks occur, caused by climate change. Climate change, of course, is devastating polar bears, who are becoming fewer and smaller, the result of a tightening food chain and loss of sea ice habitat, which "could disappear completely as early as 2035." Dickie concludes by noting that the future is likely bleak. By 2100, she observes, the world's human population is projected to reach 11 billion, and "every new human exacerbates the crises faced by the natural world." Gloomy in outlook but a cleareyed view of the world's bears and the many threats they face.

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Starred review from May 1, 2023
Journalist Dickie debuts with a superb study of the eight surviving species of bears. Recounting her travels in search of spectacled bears in Ecuador and Peru, sloth bears in rural India, pandas in China, sun and moon bears in South Vietnam, black and grizzly bears in the western U.S., and polar bears in the Canadian arctic, Dickie details the threats faced by each and profiles the conservationists who protect them. Among the more heartwarming stories are those of a Chinese scientist nicknamed Papa Panda, who teaches captive pandas how to breed, and Chris Servheen, the biologist who spearheaded the effort to bring grizzly bears back from the brink of extinction in the U.S. Other dispatches are more somber, as when Dickie discusses how deforestation in Southeast Asia is threatening sloth bears’ long-term survival and describes the horrific conditions under which caged sun and moon bears have their bile harvested for use in traditional Vietnamese medicine. The searching accounts of threats faced by bears across the globe illuminate the struggles conservationists face, and the crisp prose will transport readers (“I glanced nervously toward the dark bay in the distance. The cobalt sky concealed the secrets of the muskeg,” Dickie writes about the time she was in Churchill, Canada, and suspected she was being stalked by a polar bear). It’s a winning combination of travel and environmental reporting.

June 1, 2023
Winnie the Pooh, Smokey, Paddington, teddy bears, Gummy bears, Charmin bears, Cocaine Bear--images of bears on television, in movies, cartoons, and advertisements are seemingly inescapable. One notable place we are increasingly less likely to find bears, however, is in their actual home, the wilderness. As a result of climate change and habitat loss, some of the eight remaining species of actual bears are endangered. Journalist Dickie travels across the planet in her quest to understand these animals. She speaks with biologists, conservationists, and victims of bear attacks. She describes the current plight of bears and the problem of bear-human conflict. Sun bears, sloth bears, polar bears (""masters of fasting""), spectacled bears, Asiatic black bears (""moon bears""), panda bears, American black bears (the world's most abundant), and brown bears are portrayed. Among the facts Dickie shares: there are no bears in Africa. Bears are quite smart and good problem-solvers. Bears have a prominent presence in human history, culture, and mythology. Eight Bears roars about the majesty and charisma of these remarkable creatures while illuminating their escalating vulnerability in a changing environment.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.