Shadow of the Bear: Travels in Vanishing Wilderness

Beryl Hamilton is a freelance writer in Thunder Bay who specializes in
home gardening.

Brian Payton, like most of us, was first brought up as a child on
stories of the lovable, huggable teddy bear, then eventually was exposed
to tales of vicious bear attacks on hapless hikers and campers. As he
explains, “The result is that many of us tend to either
anthropomorphize or demonize bears out of ignorance or expediency. I was
determined to move beyond all that and hopefully get a glimpse of what
these creatures really are.”

In this fine book, Payton has clearly obtained much more than just a
glimpse of bears. Having travelled to many countries where bears still
exist in reasonably large numbers, he gives an eloquent account of his
experiences and their significance for both bears and humans. He relates
in compelling detail the risks he took in observing bear species and the
commercial trade around them, as well as his own feelings of anger and
despair at man’s cruelty to the world’s eight surviving bear
species.

Among the most memorable highlights of Payton’s book are his
descriptions of the Indian sloth bear, the spectacled bear of Peru, the
cruelty of China’s bear bile trade, the insatiable paparazzo pursuing
the Canadian polar bear, the magnificent grizzly, and the Cambodian
poaching trade. Payton superbly documents bear culture and makes a
compelling case for heeding their decline and, in many places, impending
extinction. As he points out, some biologists argue that bears act as an
indicator of the general health of the ecosystem that supports them. If
bears are protected and thriving, so too will a whole range of animals
and plants on the food chain below them. For bears, the world’s most
dangerous predator is man, while the decline of this extraordinary
species suggests threats to humankind as well.