Good Books For Understanding Bear Behavior

What do we know about the behavior of black bears?/NPS

There have been quite a few comments this past week or so in light of an incident at Great Smoky Mountains National Park about bear behavior and what to do with a bear that either mauls a human or feeds on a dead body. There are some good books out there about bear behavior, and what you can do to protect yourself from bears, both blacks and grizzlies. 

With the topic so fresh, here's a list of books that might be of interest:

Bear Attacks, Their Causes and Avoidances

This might be the most authoritative text on bear behavior. Dr. Stephen Herrero, a biologist from British Columbia, provides some riveting details about bear attacks. He also provides good insights into bear (both grizzlies and black bears) behavior and how to protect yourself in bear country. A third edition came out in April 2018.

Speaking of Bears, The Bear Crisis and a Tale of Rewilding from Yosemite, Sequoia, and Other National Parks

Compiled from a voluminous search of published research, dozens of interviews with bear managers in the parks, and her own experiences, Dr. Rachel Mazur has come forward with a book not written for a scientific journal, but one for the general public to help the rest of us understand the history of bears in national parks.

Mark of the Grizzly

Scott McMillion, a Livingston, Montana-based writer, long has been chronicling bear attacks. His book, Mark of the Grizzly, first arrived in bookstores in 1998. It was updated in June 2010 to include fatal maulings just outside Yellowstone National Park. Much like Stephen Herrero's seminal work, this book both sates those with ghoulish curiosity about bear attacks and cause some to question the sanity of hiking in bear country. Both also offer lessons to be teased out in terms of making wise decisions in bear country.

Backcountry Bear Basics

One of the most direct books on avoiding bears in the backcountry, this was written by Dave Smith, a naturalist who has worked in Yellowstone, Glacier, Denali and Glacier Bay national parks and so knows a little something about bears, their behavior, and how to avoid them. Indeed, through the book's 142 pages of text Smith reads like a backcountry veteran separating fact from fiction and dispensing sage advice.

Engineering Eden: The True Story Of A Violent Death, A Trial, And The Fight Over Controlling Nature

In Engineering Eden, Jordan Fisher Smith diligently and exhaustively traces decades of bear management in the Western half of the National Park System and portrays how the bear dumps park managers viewed as tourist attractions were powder kegs that went off when the decision was made to close them.