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Learning to Talk Bear: So Bears Can Listen
There's a vast body of research indicating grizzly bears are trying to get along with their human neighbors. Indeed, as Dr. Charles Jonkel, dean of American bear researchers, "Bears have better senses than we do and they know their environment better than we do. If we only knew how many thousands of times each year they take care of us ... and we don't even know they're around." Yet every year, humans are slain by bears, and bears killed by humans. Why? Dr. Jonkel says there are two "1) We simply don't know bear etiquette and 2) Our rules are too inconsistent for bears to understand." Research utilizing radio telemetry seems to support Jonkels theory--that in some places, bears really are trying to get along in order to go along. And that many of their human neighbors are rallying to the animals' support. In some cases, study bears have been closely monitored for years, with hundreds of location fixes identified via radio transmitters attached to the beasts. Discoveries include mammoth grizazlies amid densely populated areas, without their human neighbors being the wiser. In other cases the bears appear to be indifferent to sows and cubs feeding on lawn clover while subdivision home owners shoot video footage through their living room windows. This book, Learning to Talk Bear, documents all the above and more utilizing biological research, and mixing the experiences of veteran outdoorsman-journalist Roland Cheek. The author uses trademark with and humor to both entertain and teach about a mostly unknown side of the most powerful carnivores on earth, demonstrating an advanced understanding of bear etiquette and a clear willingness to travel and recreate within the great beasts' living room, following rules they, too, can understand.
- GenresAnimals
304 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1997
3 people are currently reading
17 people want to read
About the author
Roland Cheek
27 books11 followersThere are, I suppose, febrile savants who reject any notion that a person can acquire the writing art outside those hallowed halls of academia. Yet storytellers captured audiences for millenniums before Oxford or Harvard were more than forest enclaves where wild turnips sprout.
There's dissent, of course, holding the cloistered academic life to be poor training grounds for the kinds of riveting stories audiences wish to hear or read. My particular PhD came from God's own university of wild places and wilder things. My Culture might best be described as the Campfire kind, backed up against the inky black of star-filled nights, regaling saucer-eyed guests with tales of wilderness adventure, while horses stomped at picket lines and coyotes howled at a rising moon.
My doctoral thesis came during three decades of narratives about those wild places and wilder things; wonders saw, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt; crafted for Outdoor Life, Field & Stream, and Sports Afield. My column was syndicated over two decades to 17 newspapers, and I hosted a coast-to-coast radio show with 210,000 listeners airing on 75 stations across America. Then I turned my attention to books: a baker's dozen novels and wildlife and adventure nonfiction titles, all self-published to great success, all flavored with real-life experiences.
What's my point? That one can have adventure AND learn to write very well indeed (despite academic disdain for anyone outside their comfortable inner circle); well enough indeed to tell the conventional publishing world to go to hell--that I'll publish my own stuff.
More successfully.
And at greater profit
There's dissent, of course, holding the cloistered academic life to be poor training grounds for the kinds of riveting stories audiences wish to hear or read. My particular PhD came from God's own university of wild places and wilder things. My Culture might best be described as the Campfire kind, backed up against the inky black of star-filled nights, regaling saucer-eyed guests with tales of wilderness adventure, while horses stomped at picket lines and coyotes howled at a rising moon.
My doctoral thesis came during three decades of narratives about those wild places and wilder things; wonders saw, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt; crafted for Outdoor Life, Field & Stream, and Sports Afield. My column was syndicated over two decades to 17 newspapers, and I hosted a coast-to-coast radio show with 210,000 listeners airing on 75 stations across America. Then I turned my attention to books: a baker's dozen novels and wildlife and adventure nonfiction titles, all self-published to great success, all flavored with real-life experiences.
What's my point? That one can have adventure AND learn to write very well indeed (despite academic disdain for anyone outside their comfortable inner circle); well enough indeed to tell the conventional publishing world to go to hell--that I'll publish my own stuff.
More successfully.
And at greater profit
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 6, 2013
A saying in the military regarding the accuracy of information is "boots on the ground." That is to say, "Has this information been verified first-hand by competent eye witnesses?"
Roland Cheek and his book Learning to Talk Bear: so bears will listen is the "boots on the ground" book on the state of grizzly bear survival and management in the United States, specifically in the Montana wilderness and Glacier National Park.
Cheek is an outdoorsman, an outfitter and guide turned writer and journalist. He is a life-long son of the wilderness and a writer with a fine sense of objectivity and balance. His book is an illuminating, enjoyable read that also includes photographs of "Old Ephraim."
The style in which Cheek wrote Learning to Talk Bear is a balance of personal experience written as memoir; objective reporting on scientific, political, and social realities regarding grizzlies; and narratives of bear experiences derived from official reports, news articles, and interviews. The balance of these perspectives enrich one another, fact supporting perspective and drama.
Main characters include scientists, residents of rural Montana, but especially grizzly bears--bears with colorful names such as the Dairy Queen Bear, the Mud Lake Bear, the Lindbergh Lake Sow, and the Rottweiler Bear. Cheek importantly notes, though, that bears that are not known, who live without touching civilization, are just as if not more important than bears both famous and infamous.
Learning to Talk Bear is well-edited and employs a varied approach to subject matter that is both informative and entertaining. The autobiographical elements are the glue that unifies the material. Early on, Cheek's personal experiences with grizzlies are captivating not only because of the drama but also because of his candid admission of his ignorance, and later as the book delves at greater length into the scientific and human social aspects of grizzly existence, knowing Cheek's history provides credibility to his research and analysis.
At the end of the book, Cheek writes: "It was for a selfish reason that I conceived the idea for this book. I wanted to know more about the grizzly." His quest for knowledge becomes our feast of facts. Thank you, Roland Cheek, for writing a readable, informative book that acknowledges that the fate of the grizzly is a gauge to how "wild" our American wilderness truly remains.
Roland Cheek and his book Learning to Talk Bear: so bears will listen is the "boots on the ground" book on the state of grizzly bear survival and management in the United States, specifically in the Montana wilderness and Glacier National Park.
Cheek is an outdoorsman, an outfitter and guide turned writer and journalist. He is a life-long son of the wilderness and a writer with a fine sense of objectivity and balance. His book is an illuminating, enjoyable read that also includes photographs of "Old Ephraim."
The style in which Cheek wrote Learning to Talk Bear is a balance of personal experience written as memoir; objective reporting on scientific, political, and social realities regarding grizzlies; and narratives of bear experiences derived from official reports, news articles, and interviews. The balance of these perspectives enrich one another, fact supporting perspective and drama.
Main characters include scientists, residents of rural Montana, but especially grizzly bears--bears with colorful names such as the Dairy Queen Bear, the Mud Lake Bear, the Lindbergh Lake Sow, and the Rottweiler Bear. Cheek importantly notes, though, that bears that are not known, who live without touching civilization, are just as if not more important than bears both famous and infamous.
Learning to Talk Bear is well-edited and employs a varied approach to subject matter that is both informative and entertaining. The autobiographical elements are the glue that unifies the material. Early on, Cheek's personal experiences with grizzlies are captivating not only because of the drama but also because of his candid admission of his ignorance, and later as the book delves at greater length into the scientific and human social aspects of grizzly existence, knowing Cheek's history provides credibility to his research and analysis.
At the end of the book, Cheek writes: "It was for a selfish reason that I conceived the idea for this book. I wanted to know more about the grizzly." His quest for knowledge becomes our feast of facts. Thank you, Roland Cheek, for writing a readable, informative book that acknowledges that the fate of the grizzly is a gauge to how "wild" our American wilderness truly remains.
March 1, 2015
Roland Cheek hat sein Hobby zum Beruf gemacht, als er professioneller Anbieter von Jagdausflügen in Montana wurde. Revier seiner Tätigkeit war der Glacier Nationalpark, der sich in den Rocky Mountains vom nördlichen Montana bis nach Alberta/Kanada erstreckt (dort: Waterton-Lakes-Nationalpark). Als Verantwortlicher für seine Gruppenteilnehmer musste Cheek sich zwangsläufig mit der Gefahr durch Grizzlybären und dem Bear-Management der Naturschutzbehörde beschäftigen. Cheek verknüpft Anekdoten aus 20 Jahren Leben in der Natur mit Berichten von markanten, weltweit bekannt gewordenen Todesfällen der 60er und 70er (z. B. im Yellowstone-Park), bei denen Menschen von Grizzlys getötet wurden. Gerade seine persönliche Wertung von Ereignissen, zu denen sich bereits andere geäußert haben, liefert letzte Puzzleteile zu einem Gesamtbild der Lebenssituation des Grizzlys. Cheek hörte Einwohnern zu und befragte Forscher und deren Kritiker. So wie er selbst seinen Wunsch aus jungen Jahren nach einem Bärenfell vor dem Kamin nach einiger Zeit revidierte, gesteht er auch Wild-Biologen und dem professionellen Bear-Management Fehler zu, aus denen man lernen kann. Seine Texte zeigen, dass das Wissen über Bären mit dem Respekt vor deren Lebensraum korreliert. Cheeks spannend zu lesender und mit zahlreichen Quellenangaben versehener Rückblick wird kaum jemanden unberührt lassen; denn er verdeutlicht, dass es die Menschen sind, die in den Lebensraum von Wildtieren eingedrungen sind und nicht die Tiere die Konfrontation suchen.
February 24, 2013
Once again, I'm not the author, rather, his wife, Jane.
I have great respect for wild animals, as everyone should. Roland taught me, through Learning to Talk Bear to be cautious, alert, and observant with an eye always toward an animals body language. This learning has enhanced my fascination for bears, especially grizzly bears. Imagine watching from a safe distance, a bear digging roots from a lake bottom, throwing the root into the air and grabbing for the water droplets as they fall down onto it's face, again grabbing the root, tossing it high in the air, this time catching the root and shaking it like a dog with a bone. Did I learn to talk bear allowing me to observe this action for many enlightened minutes?
"If finding food was a game of chess, grizzly bears would be the Russians of the world." -Charles Jonkel, bear biologist from Missoula MT. An example of this, game wardens responding to a radio collar signal thought they had a bear in a trap. Arriving at the site they found a sight of a different kind. The grizzly, with head on forepaws, lying within inches of the bait but having been caught once before was having nothing to do with this bait, had the bear learned to listen?
This is a book that can teach you more than you ever expected to learn about bears
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews