This is a fascinating book about the authors observations of black bears in their natural environment. He has raised and released dozens of orphaned cubs and continued to observe them as they mature, mate and reproduce. He believes that, far from being solitary animals, bears actually create and maintain an elaborate network of alliances across territories. He discovered a previously unknown sensory organ in the bear's olfactory system (the Kilham organ) and has worked with Chinese scientists to improve methods of releasing captive-raise pandas to the wild.

This is a difficult book to review because I am emotionally torn between my delight experiencing a true-to-life fascinating wild animal behavior story and my passion for a well-supported scientific theory. To complicate matters, the author spends a great deal of time discussing his dyslexia and how that has hampered him from being a full participant in the scientific arena—an audience that he partially desires to inform and influence with this book.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and learned a great deal about black bear behavior. The book is brimming with fascinating first-hand observations about the behavior of a mostly well-known community of black bears that live in the woods next to the author’s Lyme, New Hampshire, home and maple syrup farm. The author’s been observing these bears for two decades. They tolerate his presence and interact with him on a personal basis primarily because he reared many of them as a surrogate mother and painstakingly taught them how to survive in the wild. Most of the bears in his woods know him, tolerate him, and relate to him as if he were another bear in their community. In essence, he has earned their trust and they have an ongoing social relationship with him. This allows him remarkable entrée into their social world.

I was eager to read this book because I’d seen the National Geographic documentary, “Bear Man.” That film left an extremely positive impression on me. I wanted to know more. That film told the story of Bill Kilham and his surrogate mothering of more than a hundred black bear cubs, and the diligent methods he used to teach each cub the skills it needed to survive in the wild, in particular what it could and could not eat. It was obvious that Kilham had an enormous amount of knowledge about black bears. I wanted to learn all I could from his experience.

The book does an outstanding job of informing readers about black bear behavior, especially how they communicate and relate in social groups. These bears communicate primarily through scent, but also through sight (ear, body, and facial gestures, as well as pantomime), and a number of unique sounds. These bears have a special organ in the roof of their mouths that greatly increases their sense of smell. This organ was discovered by the author and is named after him: the Kilham organ. Black bears appear to have empathy and what human psychologists refer to as a theory of the mind. If it is true, this is enormously important. Learning about all this is reason enough to read this book . I feel enriched to have had the opportunity to learn from this world-class independent wildlife biologist.

However, the book becomes far less interesting toward the end when the author attempts to present some unconventional theories about how his observations about black bear behavior could help inform the scientific community concerning the roots of human evolution, especially the development of language and social communities. Frankly, at this point, I felt genuinely embarrassed for the author. He admits that his work is not based on solid scientific methods…and it shows. There is no bibliography whatsoever for this book, which is understandable because the author is profoundly dyslexic. The author is fooling himself to think that he can propose new theories about the development of human communication and social connections through observation alone.

My recommendation: definitely read the book, but skim the last few chapters. ( )