Out on a Limb: What Black Bears Have Taught Me about Intelligence and Intuition

"In Out on a Limb, Ben Kilham invites us into the world he has come to know best: the world of black bears. For decades, Kilham has studied wild black bears in a vast tract of Northern New Hampshire woodlands. At times, he has also taken in orphaned infants--feeding them, walking them through the forest for months to help them decipher their natural world, and eventually reintroducing them back into the wild. Once free, the orphaned bears still regard him as their mother. And one of these bears, now a 17-year-old female, has given him extraordinary access to her daily life, opening a rare window into how she and the wild bears she lives among carry out their daily lives, raise their young, and communicate. Out on a Limb delivers Kilham's fascinating glimpse at the inner world of bears, and also makes a passionate case for science, and education in general, to open its doors to different ways of learning and researching--doors that could lead to far broader realms of discovery." -- Publisher website.;Walking with cubs -- Squirty's world -- Bear society : seeing the forest through the trees -- The language of bears -- The social code of bears : justice and punishment -- Cognition : what bears know -- What bears teach us about our own past, present, and future -- From black bears to giant pandas -- Bear/human relationships : what you need to know.

In Out on a Limb, Ben Kilham invites us into the world he has come to know best: the world of black bears.

For decades, Kilham has studied wild black bears in a vast tract of Northern New Hampshire woodlands. At times, he has also taken in orphaned infants—feeding them, walking them through the forest for months to help them decipher their natural world, and eventually reintroducing them back into the wild. Once free, the orphaned bears still regard him as their mother. And one of these bears, now a 17-year-old female, has given him extraordinary access to her daily life, opening a rare window into how she and the wild bears she lives among carry out their daily lives, raise their young, and communicate.

Witnessing this world has led to some remarkable discoveries. For years, scientists have considered black bears to be mostly solitary. Kilham's observations, though, reveal the extraordinary interactions wild bears have with each other. They form friendships and alliances