Paul Schullery is the scholar in residence at Montana State University Library and a former Yellowstone ranger-naturalist. He is the author of more than forty books, including Old Yellowstone Days and Searching for Yellowstone: Ecology and Wonder in the Last Wilderness. He wrote and narrated the PBS film Yellowstone: America’s Sacred Wilderness.
This book is ideal for those who wish a more realistic glimpse of this wonderous creature. --J. Kemper Campbell, Lincoln Journal Star-- (9/12/2021 12:00:00 AM) From John Muir forward, writers in the American West have been trying to make sense of wild creatures and places. Paul Schullery, with his always lyrical, thoughtful, and, at times, witty prose, has been one of the best modern observers, having close association with this nation's most venerable natural destination, Yellowstone. No animals are more synonymous with Yellowstone than bears. Schullery takes us into Yellowstone and farther afield. In The Bear Doesn't Know, Schullery, much to our delight, comes out of his own thankfully-brief hibernation and regales us with inspiring bear stories. He introduces us to the real bruin, even better than myth, and, along the way, tugs on our heartstrings to have us care more about their survival in this briskly paced world. He bestows bruins with the respect they deserve and reminds us that the responsibility of coexistence is on us. The Bear Doesn't Know is a wonderful read that stays with you long after you turn the last page. --Todd Wilkinson, coauthor of Grizzlies of Pilgrim Creek: An Intimate Portrait of 399, The Most Famous Bear of Greater Yellowstone Paul Schullery has spent the last fifty years watching and thinking about bears. In this entertaining and informative collection of essays and stories he lets us in on what he discovered. We're lucky he did. Schullery possesses a wonderfully inquisitive mind, a passion for the natural world, and, thankfully for us all, a talent for explaining things with both precision and a wry sense of humor. --Dayton Duncan, writer and producer of The National Parks: America's Best Idea Paul Schullery is a master of the essayist's and memoirist's craft. His prose is clean and cogent, witty and wise. He pays great attention. He has been out among the bears--often with the biologists who study them--and this has given him a fine understanding of and appreciation for these formidable mammals. The Bear Doesn't Know is educating and entertaining, a thoroughly delightful paean to these very special creatures with whom we are privileged to share the earth. --Charles Fergus, author of the Gideon Stoltz Mystery series