Musician and naturalist Bernie Krause is one of the world's leading experts in natural sound, and he's spent his life discovering and recording nature's rich chorus. Searching far beyond our modern world's honking horns and buzzing machinery, he has sought out the truly wild places that remain, where natural soundscapes exist virtually unchanged from when the earliest humans first inhabited the earth.
Krause shares fascinating insight into how deeply animals rely on their aural habitat to survive and the damaging effects of extraneous noise on the delicate balance between predator and prey. But natural soundscapes aren't vital only to the animal kingdom; Krause explores how the myriad voices and rhythms of the natural world formed a basis from which our own musical expression emerged.
From snapping shrimp, popping viruses, and the songs of humpback whales-whose voices, if unimpeded, could circle the earth in hours-to cracking glaciers, bubbling streams, and the roar of intense storms; from melody-singing birds to the organlike drone of wind blowing over reeds, the sounds Krause has experienced and describes are like no others. And from recording jaguars at night in the Amazon rain forest to encountering mountain gorillas in Africa's Virunga Mountains, Krause offers an intense and intensely personal narrative of the planet's deep and connected natural sounds and rhythm.
"The Great Animal Orchestra" is the story of one man's pursuit of natural music in its purest form, and an impassioned case for the conservation of one of our most overlooked natural resources-the music of the wild.

Of all the animal groups, none looms larger in the imagination than the carnivores. Adapted for hunting and killing other animals, they represent the most powerful predators on Earth.

This compact guide covers both the mighty and ferocious - big cats, wolves, foxes and hyaenas - and a variety of smaller but equally formidable hunters - otters, polecats, weasels, mongooses and civets.

Although the animal may be, as Nietzsche argued, ahistorical, living completely in the present, it nonetheless plays a crucial role in human history. The fascination with animals that leads not only to a desire to observe and even live alongside them, but to capture or kill them, is found in all civilizations. The essays collected in "Beastly Natures" show how animals have been brought into human culture, literally helping to build our societies (as domesticated animals have done) or contributing, often in problematic ways, to our concept of the wild.

The book begins with a group of essays that approach the historical relevance of human-animal relations seen from the perspectives of various disciplines and suggest ways in which animals might be brought into formal studies of history. Differences in species and location can greatly affect the shape of human-animal interaction, and so the essays that follow address a wide spectrum of topics, including the demanding fate of the working horse, the complex image of the American alligator (at turns a dangerous predator and a tourist attraction), the zoo gardens of Victorian England, the iconography of the rhinoceros and the preference it reveals in society for myth over science, relations between humans and wolves in Europe, and what we can learn from society's enthusiasm for "political" animals, such as the pets of the American presidents and the Soviet Union's "space dogs." Taken together, these essays suggest new ways of looking not only at animals but at human history.

Contributors

Mark V. Barrow Jr., Virginia Tech * Peter Edwards, Roehampton University * Kelly Enright, Rutgers University * Oliver Hochadel, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona * Uwe Lubken, Rachel Carson Center, Munich * Garry Marvin, Roehampton University * Clay McShane, Northeastern University * Amy Nelson, Virginia Tech * Susan Pearson, Northwestern University * Helena Pycior, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee * Harriet Ritvo, Massachusetts Institute of Technology * Nigel Rothfels, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee * Joel A. Tarr, Carnegie Mellon University * Mary Weismantel, Northwestern University

Jim wakes up one morning, looks in the mirror and cannot see himself. Being invisible will give him the chance to do some of the things he always dreamed of. Helping god to rid the planet of some of its most despicable inhabitants. Criminals who peddle drugs, to society, but especially to children. Despot leaders who use the country's wealth as their private bank, and live extravagantly, while their people die from starvation, Evil people who profit from the misery of victims kidnapped and sold into slavery or prostitution. This is his chance to take a little of the vast wealth in the world for himself and to improve the lives of his family. My name is Ron Haslam (not the famous motor cyclist) we only bear the same name. I spent two years in Australia, twenty eight in South Africa and forty four in England. I currently live in England. Since retiring, I have written nine children's bedtime story books, my life story 'Jam Tomorrer', and a love story 'The Pure Magic of True Love'. My email address is [email protected]

Jacquelin Smith is an internationally known animal communicator and psychic who lives in Columbus, Ohio. She is a pioneer in the field of telepathic communication with animals. Jacquelin has been communicating with animals and has worked as a psychic with people professionally for more than thirty years.Since 1972 she s been actively involved in studying animal life and behavior, and teaching workshops. After receiving a B.A., Jacquelin worked as an animal technician and dog trainer, while studying psychology. She is also a board-certified hypnotherapist which has deepened her communication skills with people and animals. She has studied shamanic work for over fifteen years.Jacquelin has communicated with animals in zoological parks and in the wild during her travels in Africa and South America. She has communicated with cats, dogs, horses, dolphins, bats, birds, bears, chimps, rabbits and many other species.She combines telepathic communication with traditional and holistic methods and offers practical ways to resolve a wide variety of issues with animals. Jacquelin has been tracking lost animals for over twenty years with great results.Jacquelin has been communicating with animals, star beings, and interdimensional beings since early childhood. She has taught workshops on animal communication in various cities throughout the United States. Also, Jacquelin has taught workshops on communicating with star beings.She offers apprenticeship programs to people who want to learn how to communicate with animals and with star beings. Her book, Animal Communication Our Sacred Connection, is one of the most comprehensive books on animal communication and animals.Jacquelin s work continues to receive media coverage through radio interviews and television talk shows.For information about private consultations, workshops, apprenticeship programs, DVDs, books, and more visit Jacquelin s website www.jacquelinsmith.com. You can email her at [email protected].

A Walk on the Wild Side charts the authors journey from Hampshire to the Scottish Highlands and eventually to one of the largest districts in Scotland and the least densely populated area of the British Isles. The book tells the stories surrounding the wildlife encountered in and around his home and throughout the beautiful and remote area of Sutherland in the northern Highlands of Scotland. Discover its unique landscape containing every conceivable habitat and the associated wildlife that abounds within. From the estuaries and mixed woodland along the narrow eastern seaboard to the wild and rugged interior of mountain and moor. From the secret coves and stunning sea cliffs of the north to Handa Island off the west coast with its sea stacks full of nesting birds and marauding skuas patrolling the skies above the hill lochans. Each chapter captures these diverse habitats and the birds, mammals and wild flowers that live within their confines. The magnificent golden eagle, the spectacular osprey, the haunting red and black throated divers, the secretive pine marten and otter - all of these are brought to life through the exploits of one man and his intimate knowledge of the area.

Carol Ruckdeschel is the wildest woman in America. She wrestles alligators, eats roadkill, rides horses bareback, and lives in a ramshackle cabin that she built by hand in an island wilderness. A combination of Henry David Thoreau and Jane Goodall, Carol is a self-taught scientist who has become a tireless defender of sea turtles on Cumberland Island, a national park off the coast of Georgia. Cumberland, the country's largest and most biologically diverse barrier island, is celebrated for its windswept dunes and feral horses. Steel magnate Thomas Carnegie once owned much of the island, and in recent years, Carnegie heirs and the National Park Service have clashed with Carol over the island's future. What happens when a dirt-poor naturalist with only a high school diploma becomes an outspoken advocate on a celebrated but divisive island? Untamed is the story of an American original standing her ground and fighting for what she believes in, no matter the cost.

This is a book of true stories about birds and animals that my family and I have fostered or adopted over the years. We enjoyed these tempporary, and sometimes permanent, members of our family. All of the birds and animals had distinct personallities. Some were bossy and some were very easy to have as companions. A lot like people. We learned that there is a "something" that runs all through living beings, be they human, animal or fowl.We have been the foster parets, or adoptive parents, to blue jays, cardinals, piegeons, African gray geese, ducks, a Guinea pig, swamp rabbits, a mockingbird, gray foxes and assorted other birds and animals that have hopped, flown and walked through our life, including a cat that hunted with predator tapes.