For more than 50 years, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition has championed honest and ethical wildlife photography, while pushing the boundaries of artistic freedom, technical skill, and narrative excellence. This powerful collection of pictures features all the winning photographs from the 2018 competition. The collection represents the work of many international photographers, both professionals and amateurs. The photographs are chosen by an international jury for their artistic merit and originality, from categories that represent a diversity of natural subjects. The range of styles is diverse, as is the genre of photography, including action, macro, underwater, landscape, or environmental reportage. Each photograph is accompanied by an extended caption and there is an introduction by one of the world's most respected nature photographers.

When all seems lost and we're certain that love is dead, the animal kingdom teaches us to hope again. It's easy to let our differences divide us, but that hasn't stopped the animal pals in this book whose love for each other is pure: a golden retriever and a cheetah. A badger and a fox. A pair of guinea pigs sharing snacks. These friendships, between species and family across the animal kingdom, are captured in this collection of over 80 photos featuring pure and adorable moments of animals playing, cuddling and exploring the world together. Whenever we're in doubt, this photo collection is here to warm our hearts and remind us that love is real (and that pandas are cute).

The Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah, created by President Obama in 2016 and eviscerated by the Trump administration in 2017, contains more archaeological sites than any other region in the United States. It’s also a spectacularly beautiful landscape, a mosaic of sandstone canyons and bold mesas and buttes. This wilderness, now threatened by oil and gas drilling, unrestricted grazing, and invasion by Jeep and ATV, is at the center of the greatest environmental battle in America since the damming of the Colorado River to create Lake Powell in the 1950s. In The Bears Ears, acclaimed adventure writer David Roberts takes readers on a tour of his favorite place on earth as he unfolds the rich and contradictory human history of the 1.35 million acres of the Bears Ears domain. Weaving personal memoir with archival research, Roberts sings the praises of the outback he’s explored for the last twenty-five years.

Peterson First Guides are the first books the beginning naturalist needs. Condensed versions of the famous Peterson Field Guides, the First Guides focus on the animals, plants, and other natural things you are most likely to see. They make it fun to get into the field and easy to progress to the full-fledged Peterson Guides.

A beautifully illustrated and detailed guide to the world's horses Horses of the World is a comprehensive, large-format overview of 570 breeds of domestic and extant wild horses, including hybrids between the two and between domestic breeds and other equids, such as zebras. This beautifully illustrated and detailed guide covers the origins of modern horses, anatomy and physiology, variation in breeds, and modern equestrian practices. The treatment of breeds is organized by country within broader geographical regions--from Eurasia through Australasia and to the Americas. Each account provides measurements (weight and height), distribution, origins and history, character and attributes, uses, and current status. Every breed is accompanied by superb color drawings--600 in total--and color photographs can be found throughout the book. Describing and depicting every horse breed in existence, Horses of the World will be treasured by all who are interested in these gorgeous animals. * A unique large-format, field-guide approach that provides complete coverage of the world's 570 horse breeds*600 superb color illustrations showcasing every breed* Additional color photos and maps * Accessible text offers detailed information on each breed, including measurements, distribution, origins and history, character and attributes, uses, and current status

Carl H. and Evelyn M. Ernst have completely revised their landmark reference "Venomous Reptiles of North America" to present the most comprehensive review of these animals in years. The first volume contains species accounts of the venomous lizards and elapid and viperid snakes found north of Mexico's twenty-fifth parallel. Volume 2 of this definitive work covers the twenty-one species of the genus Crotalus found in the United States, Canada, and, for the first time, those found in northern Mexico. Mixing their own research with careful data description and intriguing stories, Ernst and Ernst present the most accurate and interesting view of North America's rattlesnakes available. They provide general background information on Crotalus, including venom delivery systems, how rattles function, what rattlesnakes eat, and what eats rattlesnakes. Additionally, they offer specific and fascinating details, such as observations of rattlesnakes swimming to offshore islands, accounts of male combat bouts, possible "anting" behavior in Crotalus viridis, and the features of the Santa Catalina Island rattleless rattlesnake. Each species account includes vivid photographs, range maps, and explanations of the limits to their respective distribution. Presenting the latest research on venomous reptiles in the United States, Canada, and northern Mexico and featuring an extensive bibliography of literature on the subject, this volume contains a wealth of information for anyone with an interest in venom, snakes, or herpetology in general.

The intersection of race and species has a long and problematic history. Western thinking specifically has demonstrated a societal need to try to conceive of race as a purely biological fact rather than a social construct. This book is an academic-activist challenge to that instinct, prioritizing anti-racism in its observation of the animal-race intersection. Too often, as BEnEdicte Boisseron has indicated, this intersection typically appears in the form of animal activists instrumentalizing racial discrimination as a vehicle to approach animal rights. But why does this intersection exist, and, perhaps more importantly, how can we challenge it moving forward? This volume examines those two critical questions, taking an interdisciplinary approach in moving across subjects including art history, film studies, American history, and digital media analysis. Our interpretation of animals has, for centuries, been fundamental in the development of Western race thinking. This collection of essays looks at how this perspective contributes to the construction of racial discrimination, prioritizing ways to read the animal in our culture as a means for working to dismantle this conception.

“These cats are like emissaries from the raw landscapes out West, probing the rest of the nation, showing us where patches of wildness remain, and bring a fuller dimension of wildness to them. It’s as if they’re testing to find out just what folks have in mind when they say they want to preserve natural settings. How natural? How toothy?” -- From the Foreword During a time when most wild animals are experiencing decline in the face of development and climate change, the intrepid mountain lion -- also known as a puma, a cougar, and by many other names – has experienced reinvigoration as well as expansion of territory. What makes this cat, the fourth carnivore in the food chain -- just ahead of humans – so resilient and resourceful? And what can conservationists and wild life managers learn from them about the web of biodiversity that is in desperate need of protection? Their story is fascinating for the lessons it can afford the protection of all species in times of dire challenge and decline. With hands-on experience in both the Rocky Mountains and the wilds of Patagonia in South America, wildlife manager Jim Williams tracks the path of the puma, and in doing so, challenges readers to consider humans’ role in this journey as well as what commitment to nature and conservation means in this day and age.

ETHNOBOTANY / ANIMALS "Samorini's observations support his controversial hypothesis that human drugtaking derives from a universal, biologically-based drive to alter consciousness. This perspective on drug-taking behavior can only enlarge our own views about the phenomenon which, in many humans, has become so contentious." --Rick Strassman, M.D., author of DMT: The Spirit Molecule and Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, University of New Mexico School of Medicine "Samorini offers evidence for not only the theory of a biological basis of the pursuit of altered states, but also the possibility that this activity may expand the behavioral repertoire, thus altering evolution. Provocative reading." --Julie Holland, M.D., Editor of Ecstasy: The Complete Guide and Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Bellevue Psychiatric Emergency Department From caffeine-dependant goats to nectar addicted ants, wildlife offers amazing examples of animals and insects seeking out and consuming the psychoactive substances in their environments. Ethnobotonist Giorgio Samorini explores this little-known phenomenon and suggests that, far from being confined to humans, the desire to experience altered states of consciousness is a natural drive shared by all living beings and that animals engage in these behaviors deliberately. Rejecting the Western cultural assumption that drug use is unnatural, Samorini opens our eyes to the possibility that beings who consume psychedelics--whether humans or animals--contribute to the evolution of their species by creating entirely new patterns of behavior that eventually will be adopted by other members of that species. The author's fascinating accounts ofmushroom-loving reindeer, intoxicated birds, and drunken elephants ensure that readers will never view the animal world in quite the same way again. Ethnobotonist and ethnomycologist Giorgio Samorini has studied the use of psychoactive substances for more than twenty years, conducting research in Africa, Latin America, India, and Europe. He is editor-in-chief of the scientific journal Eleusis, Plants and Psychoactive Compounds. He lives in Italy.

Celebrate our amazing world with this fascinating and entertaining book featuring wow-worthy animal facts and beautiful photos that will remind you of what we risk losing if we don't make changes to our environment. Ever hear of the Pink-headed Duck? What about Romeo the Frog, a type of rare water frog who found his mate with the help of an online dating photo? Our world is full of quirky, interesting wild animals that roam the treetops and plains and who make our planet a vibrant, diverse place to live. Wild Life! celebrates them by providing you with inspiring facts, conservation success stories, and profiles of people working hard to find and protect the rarest of these species. Along with remarkable, full-color photos, this book will both entertain and inform you about the rare and endangered animals that may soon disappear if we don't make the necessary steps towards conserving our environment.

Multispecies Modernity: Disorderly Life in Postcolonial Literature considers relationships between animals and humans in the iconic spaces of postcolonial India: the wild, the body, the home, and the city. Using a diverse range of texts, including fiction, journalism, life writing, film, and visual art, this book argues that a uniquely Indian way of being modern is born in these spaces of disorderly multispecies living.Bringing together the fields of animal studies and postcolonial studies, Multispecies Modernity explores how these fields can complicate and enrich one another. Each chapter considers a zone of proximity between human and nonhuman beings. These spaces link animal-human relations to a politics of postcolonial identity by transgressing the logics of modernity imposed on the postcolonial nation. Disorderly multispecies living is a resistance to the hygiene of modernity and a powerful alliance between human and nonhuman subalterns. In bringing an animal studies perspective to postcolonial writing and art, this book not only offers a way to interpret these texts that does justice to their significance, but also proposes both an ethics of representation and an ethics of reading that have wider implications for the study of relationships between human and nonhuman animals in literature and in life.

Includes Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Ocotillo Wells State Vehicular Recreation Area, and Bureau of Land Management desert lands Written for both the casual and serious explorer, whether he or she is traveling by vehicle, mountain bike, horse, or foot Detailed information has been vetted by California State Parks and the Bureau of Land Management. The book includes a backpocket map for the area. Includes cultural and historical information as well as the natural history of the area

To wolf expert, Shaun Ellis, wolves aren't just his work, they're also his family. An extraordinary man, Shaun has been fascinated by wolves all his life, even living as part of a wild pack for two years with no human contact. What he gained was a unique and fascinating insight into their world, and that of our very own domestic dogs. Shaun Ellis grew up in the Norfolk countryside with a passion for and understanding with animals from an early age. His early fascination with wolves, and determination to understand them, led to him spending years in the US with the Naz Paz Indian tribe, watching wolves, learning to understand their roles and behaviour in the pack and how to communicate with them. He even lived as part of a wild pack for two years, without any human contact. Bringing his knowledge back to the UK, he astonished wildlife experts with his knowledge and insight. He now lives, eats and sleeps with his two wolf packs at Combe Martin Wildlife Park. This is the story of Shaun's determination to understand these extraordinary animals and how what he has learned can help others to understand their own domestic dogs.

Australia is home to more than 240 species of frogs, many of which cannot be found anywhere else in the world. The Photographic Field Guide to Australian Frogs provides readers with the tools to confidently identify 242 species and five recognised subspecies. It includes detailed information on the distribution, habitat preferences and call of each frog species, as well as fully illustrated keys to genera to assist with identification. Multiple photographs of each species show variation in colour and pattern as well as features used for identification such as thigh colouration, skin texture, belly colour and patterning, eye colour and extent of webbing between the toes. With a strong focus on illustrating variation and key diagnostic features, this guide will enable frog enthusiasts, environmental professionals and research scientists to identify Australian frog species with a high level of confidence. Features Features detailed descriptions with comparative analysis to improve accurate identification. Is generously illustrated with feature-specific images (e.g. photos of webbing, finger discs, posterior thigh colour, bellies), which are vital for accurate identification. Includes keys for identification and individualised distribution maps. Includes detailed call descriptions with comparison to similar species.

Candace Savage's acclaimed and beautifully written guide to the ecology of the prairies, now revised and updated. Praise for the previous edition of Prairie: "Impelled with its sense of the miraculous in nature."-Globe and Mail This revised edition of Prairie features a new preface along with updated research on the effects of climate change on an increasingly vulnerable landscape. It also offers new information on: * conservation of threatened species, including the black-tailed prairie dog and farmland birds; * grassland loss and conservation; * the health of rivers and the water table; * the effects of neonicotinoid insecticides on prairie wetlands; * the benefits of regenerative agriculture. Illustrated with elegant black-and-white line drawings and maps, this award-winning tome continues to be a highly readable guide to understanding the ecology, geological history, biodiversity, and resilience of the prairies.