Showing titles in Animals

Between 1941 and 1944, sixteen thousand plucky homing pigeons were dropped in an arc from Bordeaux to Copenhagen as part of 'Columba' – a secret British operation to bring back intelligence from those living under Nazi occupation.

Since 1968, the BBC's iconic Living World has been introducing listeners to the best natural history Britain has to offer. Its veteran presenters have criss-crossed the country in all weathers and through all terrains, in search of remarkable species and extraordinary stories. Introduced and updated by Brett Westwood, these classic archive programmes are hosted by Lionel Kelleway, Trai Anfield, Chris Sperring, Paul Evans, Peter France, Joanna Pinnock, Miranda Krestovnikoff, Sarah Pitt and Brett himself.

Each year, more than 1,000 rhinoceroses are killed - in South Africa alone. There are fewer than 18,000 white rhinos and only 5,000 black rhinos left alive in the wild. The situation with regard to this corrupt, illegal war on wildlife is clearly critical. And what are rhinos killed for? Their horns - sold in shavings as a snake-oil 'cure' for colds or impotence. The going price is $16,000 a kilogram, but a rhino's horn is simply keratin, the same material as our fingernails, with no magical, medicinal properties.

Lynn Schooler had recently lost a dear friend and was feeling his marriage slipping away from him when he set out on a daring journey - first by boat, then on foot - into the Alaskan wilderness to clear his head. His solo expedition, recounted in Walking Home, is filled with the awe and danger of being on one's own in the wild, being battered by the elements and even, for two harrowing days, becoming the terrified quarry of a grizzly bear. But the formidable, lonely landscape is also rich with human stories....

Meredith May recalls the first time a honeybee crawled on her arm. She was five years old, her parents had recently split, and suddenly, she found herself in the care of her grandfather, an eccentric beekeeper who made honey in a rusty old military bus in the yard. That first close encounter was at once terrifying and exhilarating for May, and in that moment, she discovered that everything she needed to know about life and family was right before her eyes, in the secret world of bees.

Dieses Buch beleuchtet Irrglauben und Mythen über Pferde, ihr Verhalten und den Umgang mit ihnen neu und soll den Menschen zum genaueren Hinsehen, zum Reflektieren und zum Hinterfragen anregen.

This book comes at a critical time. Thirty years ago, Africa was home to a million elephants; today the figure stands at less than half that. Meanwhile in the span of a lifetime, the human population has more than doubled. In Levison Wood's The Last Giants, he explores the rapid decline of one of the world's favourite animals. Filled with stories from his own time spent travelling with elephants in Africa, the book is a passionate wake-up call for this endangered species we take for granted.

Sir Peter Scott had a truly incredible life. He was the only son of legendary explorer Captain Scott. His godfather was J. M. Barrie, and he was married to Elizabeth Jane Howard. He also represented Great Britain and Northern Ireland at sailing in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, winning a bronze medal. He founded the Wildfoul and Wetlands Trust and also helped to found the Worldwide Fund for Nature. This is a beautiful and timely re-discovered book, perfect for those who are interested in preserving our planet.

Coyote America is both an environmental and a deep natural history of the coyote. It traces both the five-million-year-long biological story of an animal that has become the "wolf" in our backyards and its cultural evolution from a preeminent spot in Native American religions to the hapless foil of the Road Runner. A deeply American tale, the story of the coyote in the American West and beyond is a sort of Manifest Destiny in reverse.

First, a dream of escaping the city...and then a century-old cottage to match the dream. Moving to a small village in the heart of the Irish countryside was the start of a new life for Philip Judge - the beginning of life in sight of Yellow Mountain. Philip describes the season-by-season charms and frustrations that he, his beloved and, eventually, his two growing boys experience as they adapt to life in the countryside.

Skylarks are the heralds of our countryside. Their music is the quintessential sound of spring. The spirit of English pastoralism, they inspire poets, composers and farmers alike. History has seen us poeticise and musicise the bird, but also capture and eat them. We watch as they climb the sky, delight in their joyful singing, and yet, we harm them, too. The Soaring Life of the Lark explores the music and poetry; the breathtaking heights and struggle to survive of one of Britain's most iconic songbirds.

A tour of some of the world's most iconic and endangered species - and what we can do to save them. Climate change and habitat destruction are not the only culprits behind so many animals facing extinction. The impact of consumer demand for cheap meat is equally devastating, and it is vital that we confront this problem if we are to stand a chance of reducing its effect on the world around us. Our planet's resources are reaching a breaking point.

This gripping true story follows a biologist's human-powered journey from the Pacific Northwest to the Arctic to rediscover her love of birds, nature, and adventure—perfect for fans of Cheryl Strayed.​

Beautiful and hilarious, tearful and rambunctious, very real, ironic, and magic-filled, Martín Prechtel’s book The Mare and the Mouse is a series of lyrical sagas in tribute to each of the native New Mexican horses that carried him through his youth on the Reservation and then again during the difficult times following his return home after over a decade in the Mayan Highlands of Guatemala.

In Dumb Luck and the Kindness of Strangers, Gierach looks back to the long-ago day when he bought his first resident fishing license in Colorado, where the fishing season never ends, and just knew he was in the right place. And he succinctly sums up part of the appeal of his sport when he writes that it is "[A]n acquired taste that reintroduces the chaos of uncertainty back into our well-regulated lives".

In Meetings with Moths ecologist Katty Baird roams Scotland seeking out, documenting and observing moths. Green Longhorns, Pimpinel Pugs and Peacock Moths are just some of the species that catch her attention as she climbs into holes, ventures behind waterfalls and wanders forests with her boundless curiosity. But you needn’t travel far and wide to see beautiful moths. Katty shows that you can easily enjoy discovering moths and caterpillars without specialist knowledge by creating your own light trap or simply looking more closely at your immediate landscape.

On the Alaska Peninsula, where exceptional landscapes are commonplace, a small river attracts attention far beyond its scale. Each year, from summer to early fall, brown bears and salmon gather at Brooks River to create one of North America's greatest wildlife spectacles. As the salmon leap from the cascade, dozens of bears are there to catch them, and thousands of people come to watch in person or on the National Park Service's popular Brooks Falls Bearcam. The Bears of Brooks Falls tells the story of this region and the bears that made it famous.

In her enchanting memoir, Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, Uganda’s first wildlife veterinarian, tells the remarkable story from her animal-loving childhood to her career protecting endangered mountain gorillas and other wild animals. In the face of discrimination and a male dominated world, one woman’s passion and determination to build a brighter future for the local wildlife and human community offers inspiration and insights into what is truly possible for our planet when we come together.

Some 40 million miles of roadways encircle the earth, yet we tend to regard them only as infrastructure for human convenience. While roads are so ubiquitous they're practically invisible to us, wild animals experience them as entirely alien forces of death and disruption. In Crossings, environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb travels throughout the United States and around the world to investigate how roads have transformed our planet. A million animals are killed by cars each day in the US alone, but as the new science of road ecology shows, the harms of highways extend far beyond roadkill.

A young man is murdered for his prized pet fish. An Asian tycoon buys a single specimen for $150,000. Meanwhile, a pet detective chases smugglers through the streets of New York. Delving into an outlandish realm of obsession, paranoia, and criminality, The Dragon Behind the Glass tells the story of a fish like none other: a powerful predator dating to the age of the dinosaurs.