The Peacock’s new book: The Essential Grizzly

By Lance Olsen, Unfiltered 7-13-07

The Peacocks’ New Book

The Essential Grizzly: the mingled fates of men and bears
Doug and Andrea Peacock. The Lyons Press. Guilford, CT. 2006

Reviewed by Lance Olsen

Over the years, people have asked me what one book they should read if they wanted to learn about grizzly bears. My response has been simple: don’t. No one book is enough, and the question is better asked in terms of which books belong on an essential list of reading. Doug and Andrea Peacock’s The Essential Grizzly belongs on that list.

I recommend the Peacocks’ book for its integration of danger, science, politics, and love. That integration of topics is a necessity because each is an essential ingredient in conservation of grizzly bears today.

Many previous books about the bear focus on one ingredient to the relative exclusion of the others. For example, Enos Mills’ The Grizzly and Adolph Murie’s The Grizzlies of Mt. McKinley are great and – I think, indispensable -- books about the bear. Still, their focus on the bear leaves little room for discussion of, say, politics. Similarly, Steve Herrero’s Bear Attacks covers the dangers that bears can pose to people, and Todd Wilkinson’s Science Under Siege covers the dangers that politics can pose for scientists who study bears.

Each of these other books are excellent and important, and I’d consider my library of grizzly books incomplete without them. But the Peacocks cover the same subjects, and the range of topics they discuss puts The Essential Grizzly in roughly the same elite category as Frank Craighead’s Track of the Grizzly, or Tom McNamee’s The Grizzly Bear. And, of those two books, Craighead’s is probably the closest comparison because, like Doug Peacock, Frank Craighead writes from the perspective of many years spent in the company of grizzlies.

There are differences between Craighead’s book and the Peacocks’, including that Craighead comes to his subject matter as a scientist. But the more recent publication of The Essential Grizzly lets the Peacocks give a nod to the threats posed by global warming, and that’s become an increasingly crucial factor in evaluating whether the grizzly will sink or swim. As one who has been increasingly worried about the varied changes coming on the heels of global warming, I hungered for more treatment of it than the Peacocks’ gave it, but was glad to see it given at least the nod it gets.

Some reviewers have come away from Doug and Andrea Peacock’s new book concluding that it’s a song of praise for the good ol’ fashioned humility that the grizzly bear can confer on human heart and soul. Well, yes, but the humility angle may be just as well understood as another way of telling a love story. For that, the closest comparisons are the books by Enos Mills, Adolf Murie, and Bill Schneider, whose careful telling of stories about the bear reveal a love that the Peacock’s make explicit. So I’ve put The Essential Grizzly on a shelf right next to Mills’ The Grizzly, Murie’s The Grizzlies of Mt. McKinley, and Schneider’s Where the Grizzly Walks.

The Peacocks’ tale is one of love combined with danger. Because the dangers posed by this animal create some of the hottest controversies about it, I’m always glad to see the writing of authors who don’t flinch in discussing it. As the Peacocks say in their introduction, the grizzly reminds us of “…the ancient fear of falling prey to a wild beast.” To love them not only despite that, but because of it, takes a greatness of heart that few can match.

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