Sy Montgomery

Extraordinary new insights into the minds and lives of our fellow creatures from two of the world's top animal authors, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas and Sy Montgomery. A Mail on Sunday "Critic's Pick" Best Read of the Year"In their writing and in their lives and in their remarkable friendship, Liz and Sy break down false barriers and carry us closer to our fellow creatures."-from the foreword by Vicki Constantine Croke, author of Elephant CompanyTamed and Untamed a collection of essays penned by two of the world's most celebrated animal writers, Sy Montgomery and Elizabeth Marshall Thomas explores the minds, lives, and mysteries of animals as diverse as snails, house cats, hawks, sharks, dogs, lions, and even octopuses. Drawing on stories of animals both wild and domestic, the two authors, also best friends, created this book to put humans back into the animal world. The more we learn about what other animals think and do, they explain, the more we understand ourselves as animals, too. Writes Montgomery, "The list of attributes once thought to be unique to our species from using tools to waging war is not only rapidly shrinking, but starting to sound less and less impressive when we compare them with other animals' powers." With humor, empathy, and introspection, Montgomery and Thomas look into the lives of all kinds of creatures from man's best friend to the great white shark and examine the ways we connect with our fellow species. Both authors have devoted their lives to sharing the animal kingdom's magic with others, and their combined wisdom is an indispensable contribution to the field of animal literature. The book contains a foreword by Vicki Constantine Croke, author of the bestseller Elephant Company.

Considered the "lungs of the world," the Amazon provides a full fifth of the world's oxygen, and every year unsustainable human practices destroy 2.7 million acres. What can be done to help? That's where Project Piaba comes in. Join the award-winning author Sy Montgomery and the photographer Keith Ellenbogen as they traverse the river and rainforest to discover how tiny fish, called piabas, can help preserve the Amazon, its animals, and the rich legacy of its people. Amazon Adventure is an eye-opening--and ultimately hopeful--exploration of how humanity's practices are affecting and shaping not only the Amazon, but our entire environment.

On remote Codfish Island off the southern coast of New Zealand live the last ninety-one kakapo parrots on earth. These trusting, flightless, and beautiful birds--the largest and most unusual parrots on earth--have suffered devastating population loss. Now, on an island refuge with the last of the species, New Zealand's National Kakapo Recovery Team is working to restore the kakapo population. With the help of fourteen humans who share a single hut and a passion for saving these odd ground-dwelling birds, the kakapo are making a comeback in New Zealand. Follow intrepid animal lovers Sy Montgomery and Nic Bishop on a ten-day excursion to witness the exciting events in the life of the kakapo.

A profoundly moving exploration of the intelligence and personality of one of the world's most mysterious, beguiling creatures

Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction * New York Times Bestseller * Starred Booklist and Library Journal Editors' Spring Pick * A Huffington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of the Year * One of the Best Books of t

It looks like a bear, but isn't one. It climbs trees as easily as a monkey- but isn't a monkey, either. It has a belly pocket like a kangaroo, but what's a kangaroo doing up a tree? Meet the amazing Matschie's tree kangaroo, who makes its home in the ancient trees of Papua New Guinea's cloud forest. And meet the amazing scientists who track these elusive animals.

Sy Montgomery--acclaimed author of The Soul of an Octopus and bestselling memoir The Good Good Pig--has shared with readers her amazing encounters with intelligent octopi, great apes, man-eating tigers, and pink river dolphins, but here her muse is an animal whose name and appearance evoke another world altogether. Southeast Asia's golden moon bear, with its luminous coat, lionlike mane, and Mickey Mouse ears, was unknown to science--until Montgomery and her colleagues got on the trail at the dawn of the new millennium. Search for the Golden Moon Bear recounts Montgomery's quest--fraught with danger and mayhem--to reconstruct an evolutionary record and piece together a living portrait of her littleknown subject. This beautiful animal is not just a scientific eureka! It is also a powerful symbol of conservation. Search for the Golden Moon Bear is a field report from the frontiers of science and the ends of the earth, seamlessly weaving together folklore, natural history, and contemporary research into fantastic travelogue.

When Sy Montgomery ventured into the Amazon to unlock the mysteries of the littleknown pink dolphins, she found ancient whales that plied the Amazon River at dawn and dusk, swam through treetops in flooded forests, and performed underwater ballets with their flexible bodies. But she soon found out that to know the botos, as the dolphins are locally called, you must also know the people who live among them. And so in Journey of the Pink Dolphins, Montgomery--part naturalist, part poet, part Indiana Jones--winds her way through watery tributaries and riverside villages, searching for botos and hearing the tales of locals who believe these ethereal dolphins are shape-shifters--creatures that emerge from the water as splendidly dressed men or women only to enchant their human onlookers, capture their souls, and then carry them away to the Encante, an underwater world. Montgomery takes readers on four separate journeys, exploring the river-dwelling dolphins' natural history, chronicling their conservation pressures, unraveling their prehistoric roots, and visiting with shamans who delve into the Encante.

From the author of The Soul of an Octopus and bestselling memoir The Good Good Pig, a book that earned Sy Montgomery her status as one of the most celebrated wildlife writers of our time, Spell of the Tiger brings readers to the Sundarbans, a vast tangle of mangrove swamp and tidal delta that lies between India and Bangladesh. It is the only spot on earth where tigers routinely eat people—swimming silently behind small boats at night to drag away fishermen, snatching honey collectors and woodcutters from the forest. But, unlike in other parts of Asia where tigers are rapidly being hunted to extinction, tigers in the Sundarbans are revered. With the skill of a naturalist and the spirit of a mystic, Montgomery reveals the delicate balance of Sundarbans life, explores the mix of worship and fear that offers tigers unique protection there, and unlocks some surprising answers about why people at risk of becoming prey might consider their predator a god.

An ardent nature lover and author of Journey of the Pink Dolphins describes her unique friendship with a pig named Christopher Hogwood, a once sickly piglet who helped her develop a new relationship with neighbors in her small-town community that gave her an anchor to family and home. Reader's Guide included. Reprint. 35,000 first printing.

What could be better than watching the natural world out your window or on your television? Going out and experiencing it firsthand. In these fifty essays, acclaimed nature and science writer Sy Montgomery takes her readers on a season-by-season tour of the wilderness that is often as close as the backyard. Sy invites — almost dares — readers to follow her and form hands-on relationships with the plants, animals, birds, and even the insects that share space with people. These essays, most of which originally appeared in Sy's Boston Globe column Nature Journal, are by turns enlightening, entertaining, sometimes amusing, and always absorbing and informative. Filled with natural history and lore, the essays urge readers to appreciate what they find around them.

Dr. Robert Mason has been studying a mysterious phenomenon for over fifteen years: the reemergence of tens of thousands of red-sided garter snakes -- the world's largest concentration of snakes -- after a winter spent in a state of suspended animation in subterranean caverns. This gathering each spring in the forests of Manitoba, Canada, is one of the most extraordinary events of the natural world and is the subject of study for Dr. Mason, a.k.a. the Snake Scientist.

Award-winning author Sy Montgomery takes you on an exploratory adventure through the seasons, into the woods, along the seashore, over frozen lakes, and right outside the back door.