Montana Peaks, Streams and Prairie:: A Natural History

by E. Donnall Thomas Jr., Doug Peacock (Foreword), Andrea Peacock (Foreword)

From the peaks of the Continental Divide to the expanse of its eastern prairie, Montana contains some of America's richest wildlife habitat. Wilderness guide and author Don Thomas offers a series of personal ecological reflections on subjects as grand as the grizzly, as controversial as the wolf and as obscure as the upland plover. From native lore and the observations of Lewis and Clark to the present day, Thomas traces the history of human attitudes toward the region's wildlife. The result is both a guide and a testament to the value of western wildlife and ecosystems.

304 pages, Paperback

First published August 31, 2015

Reviews

[Sarah Ensor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an unusual ecology book that strikes a good balance between science, environmental politics and the author’s experience of hunting, fishing and tracking and being a professional biologist. It describes many of Montana’s most important species and how they are integral to their ecosystems and naturally, many of them are “charismatic”. Montana has bison, bears, moose, eagles, pronghorn, mountain goats, wolves, paddlefish, cutthroat trout, beavers, mountain lions and coyotes. Thomas also describes salmon fly, grouse and cottonwoods that shape their environment profoundly despite filling a relatively small ecological niche.

Thomas has an engaging style and shows how outdoors experience is gained by watching, listening, reading and some humility and he is happy to have his ideas changed by experience. He refers to the controversies in Montana’s wildlife management and some of them have been wild - the plan to reintroduce wolves for instance set off simultaneous lawsuits from both anti-wolf campaigners and environmentalists on the basis that the wolves would have too much protection and not enough. Some hunters celebrated the shooting of the last passenger pigeon and Montana wolf in the 1930’s and these attitudes persist in the current high profile campaign to “de-list” grizzlies, meaning they could be legally hunted again for trophies. Thomas tries to stick to “facts” and not take sides in these debates but his love of the landscape and all its inhabitants shines out and he doesn’t want animals killed unnecessarily.

One of the best aspects of this book is that Thomas wants people to spend more time outdoors and take the dangers of Montana’s wildlife seriously, but not be scared off by them. Very recently the official “Be bear aware" advice has changed from his recommendation to identify bears to avoid potential dangers in an encounter. Latest advice is to respond to the bear’s behaviour and worry less about identifying the species. I’ve never had a dangerous bear encounter and worry slightly about whether I could keep to the “don’t run” rule, but after a few walks in bear country with bear spray on the hip, I know you can feel undressed without it. Thomas had an encounter where he used spray and didn't know whether it saved his life, but it definitely saved the bear's life. I like his attitude especially when there’s plenty of dubious behaviour in Montana’s news recently when individuals have tracked bears that were doing them no harm and the bear ended up dead.