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PICKS OF THE WEEK: Learning more about animals at the BWG Library

From polar bears to hummingbirds, whether your interest is large or small, you can continue to explore nature from the comfort of your own home with these beautiful books from the BWG Library
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BWG Library PIcks of the Week

A few weeks ago, we shared a list of books about Canada’s beloved animals.  The BWG Library received such positive feedback about these books, that we are sharing a whole new list of animal books.  From polar bears to hummingbirds, whether your interest is large or small, you can continue to explore nature from the comfort of your own home with these beautiful books from the BWG Library.

If you need help finding the perfect book, let the BWG Library know!  Message them through Facebook or email [email protected].  If you create a delicious dish with your foraged foods, share a picture or video of the creation with the BWG community by sharing it on the BWG Library’s Facebook page or sending it to the Library through Messenger!  

The Hummingbirds' Gift : Wonder, Beauty, and Renewal on Wings, by Sy Montgomery

As one of the most beautiful and intriguing birds found in nature, hummingbirds fascinate people around the world. The lightest birds in the sky, hummingbirds are capable of incredible feats, such as flying backwards, diving at speeds of sixty-one MPH, and beating their wings more than sixty times a second. Miraculous creatures, they are also incredibly vulnerable when they first emerge from their eggs. That's where Brenda Sherburn comes in. With tenderness and patience, she rescues abandoned hummingbirds and nurses them back to health until they can fly away and live in the wild. In The Hummingbird's Gift, the extraordinary care that Brenda provides her peanut-sized patients is revealed and, in the process, shows us just how truly amazing hummingbirds are.

The Kootenay Wolves : Five Years Following A Wild Wolf Pack, by John Marriott

A spectacularly illustrated photography book full of behavioural observations and wolf tales that will engage those interested in the state of wild wolves in North America.

The Kootenay Wolves chronicles Marriott’s tenacious efforts hiking, snowshoeing, and hiding silently in camouflage for hundreds of days to document these wary wolves and their tenuous hold in a home range rife with danger, including tourist traffic, transport trucks, trophy hunters, and trappers. Marriott not only watched this family thrive against all odds but also saw and photographed some truly astonishing behaviours rarely documented in the wild before.

Secrets of the whales, by Brian Skerry

This provocative book of photography offers bold new insight into the lives of the world’s largest mammals, along with their complex societies. In these pages, we learn that whales share an amazing ability to learn and adapt to opportunities, from specialized feeding strategies to parenting techniques. There is also evidence of deeper, cultural elements of whale identity, from unique dialects to matrilineal societies to organized social customs like singing contests. Featuring the arresting underwater images of Brian Skerry, who has explored and documented oceans for over four decades, this book will document these alluring creatures in all their glory–and demonstrate how these majestic creatures can teach us about ourselves and our planet.

Wild Souls : Freedom And Flourishing In The Non-Human World, by Emma Marris

Protecting wild animals and preserving the environment are two ideals so seemingly compatible as to be almost inseparable. But in fact, between animal welfare and conservation science there exists a space of underexamined and unresolved tension: wildness itself. When is it right to capture or feed wild animals for the good of their species? How do we balance the rights of introduced species with those already established within an ecosystem? Can hunting be ecological? Are any animals truly wild on a planet that humans have so thoroughly changed? No clear guidelines yet exist to help us resolve such questions.

Transporting readers into the field with scientists tackling these profound challenges, Emma Marris tells the affecting and inspiring stories of animals around the globe--from Peruvian monkeys to Australian bilbies, rare Hawai'ian birds to majestic Oregon wolves.

The loneliest polar bear : a true story of survival and peril on the edge of a warming world, by Kale Williams

The heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful story of an abandoned polar bear cub named Nora and the humans working tirelessly to save her and her species, whose uncertain future in the accelerating climate crisis is closely tied to our own. Six days after giving birth, a polar bear named Aurora got up and walked away from her den at the Columbus Zoo, leaving her tiny squealing cub to fend for herself. Hours later, Aurora still hadn't returned. The cub was furless and blind, and with her temperature dropping dangerously, the zookeepers entrusted with her care felt they had no choice: They would have to raise one of the most dangerous predators in the world by hand. Over the next few weeks, a group of veterinarians and zookeepers worked around the clock to save the cub, whom they called Nora. Humans rarely get as close to a polar bear as Nora's keepers got to their fuzzy charge. But the two species have long been intertwined. 

Sweeping and tender, The Loneliest Polar Bear explores the fraught relationship humans have with the natural world, the exploitative and sinister causes of the environmental mess we find ourselves in, and how the fate of polar bears is not theirs alone