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Nature Bears

Smiling Bears

A Zookeeper Explores the Behaviour and Emotional Life of Bears

by (author) Else Poulsen

foreword by Stephen Herrero

Publisher
Greystone Books Ltd
Initial publish date
May 2009
Category
Bears
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781553653875
    Publish Date
    May 2009
    List Price
    $29.95

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Description

Few people have known bears as intimately as Else Poulsen has. This remarkable book reveals the many insights about bears and their emotional lives that she has gained through her years of work with them. Always approaching each bear with the same two questions in mind — "Who are you?" and "What can I do for you?" — Poulsen has shared in the joy of a polar bear discovering soil under her paws for the first time in 20 years and felt the pride of a cub learning to crack nuts with her molars. She has also felt the hateful stare of one bear that she could not befriend, and she has grieved in the abject horror of captivity for a sun bear in Indonesia. Featuring photographs from Poulsen's personal collection, Smiling Bears provides an enlightening and moving portrait of bears in all their richness and complexity.

About the authors

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Else Poulsen holds a BSC degree in biological sciences. She has worked at the Calgary and Detroit zoos and is known internationally in the zoo and animal welfare community for her work with captive bear husbandry and rehabilitation. She has taught at conferences and workshops around the world and won the Zookeeper Excellence Award for bear research from the American Zoo and Aquarium Association in 2000. She currently lives in Southern Ontario and works with zoos and other animal welfare organizations as an animal behaviour specialist.

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Else Poulsen's profile page

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Stephen Herrero is a Canadian doctor of animal behaviour and ecology, and was a professor at University of Calgary. He is the author of Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance.

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Stephen Herrero's profile page

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