Description:
There are plenty of ways to entice bears to come your way: if you rub yourself down with peanut butter, wander through remote cranberry bogs, and slosh across busy salmon streams, you'll be sure to draw one or two curious bruins. If you live in bear country, however, you need not go to such extraordinary efforts to invite ursine company. All you have to do is leave your pet's food (or your pet) outside at night, make a habit of barbecuing on windy days, and keep the gate to your pasture or your front yard unlocked, and the bears will come a-calling. Gary Brown, former chief ranger at Yellowstone National Park, knows bears and their behavior better than just about any writer alive. His compendium of ways to "outwit" bears offers handy recipes for how to behave if, in fact, you don't want to open your home to bearish visitors--and, for that matter, how to behave if you encounter a bear in the wild. (Don't run, Brown urges: you'll only make yourself a more attractive target to any sporting bear, which in any event can cover twice as much ground as you can in the same time.) Brown provides strategies for securing food and garbage to help make your dwelling bear-proof and effective ways to convince bears to go elsewhere if such bear-proofing efforts come up short--such as installing motion-sensor lights around the house and equipping your loved ones with portable air horns and "bear spray." If you live in or near bear habitat, you'll find this book highly useful--and perhaps even a lifesaver. --Gregory McNamee
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