From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2009:

American Coyote: Still Wild at Heart
30-minute documentary by Melissa Peabody
Distributed by Project Coyote, a program of Earth Island Institute,
c/o P.O. Box 5007, Larkspur, CA 94977; 415-945-3232; www.projectcoyote.org

American Coyote: Still Wild at Heart is a 30-minute edition
of a documentary that debuted in 2007 as the 55-minute DVD release
San Francisco: Still Wild At Heart, and was later screened at the
2008 United Nations Association Film Festival. A three-minute
trailer, Bernal Hill: Still Wild at Heart, aired in 2008 at the
Bernal Hill Outdoor Cinema.
Videographer Melissa Peabody came to coyotes as her focal
subject after editing wildlife programs for Animal Planet, producing
educational videos for Stanford University, and a three-year stint
with KRON-TV, the San Francisco NBC affiliate.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2009:

Top 100 Birding Sites of the World
by Dominic Couzens
Univ. of Calif. Press (2120 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA 94704-1012), 2008.
320 pages, illustrated. $45.00.

Just a year after publication of the first edition of Dominic
Couzens’ Top 100 Birding Sites of the World, now reprinted in an
expanded edition, climatic change has transformed three of the ten I
have been fortunate enough to visit.
Keoladeo Ghana National Park at Bharatpur, India, is badly
depleted by drought, though the Indian government hopes to restore
it by piping in water.
The Florida Everglades, also drying out, are now home to
increasingly abundant feral pythons. The pythons prey upon the
resident alligators, who are the major predators of Everglades
wading birds. Since big snakes have consumed crocodilians in most
crocodilians habitat for the past hundred million years, the only
surprise is that big snakes of some sort didn’t reach the Everglades
sooner.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2009:

The Atlas of Endangered Species
Revised and Updated
by Richard Mackay
University of California Press
(2120 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA 94704-1012), 2009. 128 pages,
paperback, illustrated. $19.95.

If the entire content of The Atlas of
Endangered Species were to be redrawn into a
single huge map, the central portion would be a
succinct summary of current knowledge about
endangered species issues.
In the foreground, however, and in
several other prominent regions, unwary readers
might be warned “Here be flying bulls,” never
seen but known from bull feathers.
The back cover, for instance, warns
that “20% of the Earth’s species” are “facing
extinction by 2030,” a scant 21 years from now.
Atlas of Endangered Species author Richard Mackay
is far from the first to make that claim, but
Mackay provides an unwitting demonstration of how
it might happen, strictly through exercises in
modeling.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2009:

Arctic Fox: Life At The Top Of The World
by Garry Hamilton, with photographs by Norbert Rosing
Firefly Books (P.O. Box 1338, Ellicot Station, Buffalo, NY
14205), 2006. 239 pages, hardcover, illustrated. $39.95.

To be familiar with foxes and then meet an Arctic fox is to
be profoundly surprised. Most foxes, even raised in captivity for
generations, are shy and nervous, reluctant to be seen except when
a red fox is attempting to decoy a perceived threat away from a vixen
and kits. Then, brazen though the red fox will act for a moment,
he will vanish just as soon as his family is safe.
An Arctic fox will walk right up with two questions in her
eyes. First, do you have something to eat? If not, can you play?
Arctic foxes love to play peek-a-boo, hide-and-seek, chase games,
and even tug-of-war–but they will be off in a flash if they capture
anything they think might be edible.
Most closely related to the swift foxes of the U.S. west,
Arctic foxes are among the fastest of mammals, and among the
widest-ranging, sometimes meandering thousands of miles from
wherever scientists managed to tag them.
Able to withstand the coldest temperatures of any mammal,
Arctic foxes have been seen just 37 miles from the North Pole, where
even polar bears are not known to venture. Arctic foxes do not
amicably share food with siblings, even as kits, but otherwise seem
cheerful and sociable, if only to find a chance to steal edibles.
In November 2006 I noted in reviewing The World of the Polar
Bear by photographer Norbert Rosing that, “As well as capturing
almost every aspect of wild polar bear life, Norbert Rosing provides
many memorable shots of the creatures who share their habitat,
especially Arctic foxes, who along with ravens are polar bears’
frequent sidekicks. Rosing even caught one Arctic fox in the act of
nipping at a polar bear’s heels– perhaps, Rosing speculated, to
urge the bear to go hunt a seal for both of them. The bear shows no
sign of inclination to harm the fox.”

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