Polar Bear [antikvár]

'I |l ' 1 I I ,1 r;, 11 I - 1 MI, i' ; i . 1 I ^ , ¦ ¦I II I 'I'.'. II ; ' 'r . i'' ¦ ¦ '1'' ii , , ^ i' . I ! I I r ¦ . I', I ¦I . r, ¦ ¦ <¦!•'¦! ill II .; 'I ' 1, I I 1 ¦ ' '11 ' ' I !','¦. "I 'I 1-" A Passion for Polar Bears: Preface Dan Guravich Right: In the wild, 20 years' is a long life for a polar bear, although one may live up to 40 years in captivity. In 60 years as a photographer and biologist, I have never found a subject more compelling, more satisfying, than that of polar bears. Personally, I find nothing exceptional about that. But when others learn of my interest, they usually express amazement or skepticism, especially when I tell them tliat I live in Greenville, Mississippi. Of course, my passion for polar bears didn't originate in the Deep South, but in the Far North. For one thing, I am a Canadian, bom in Wirmipeg, Manitoba, a province famous for its polar bears. My interest in photography began as a childhood hobby and grew steadily until, as a geneticist with the United States Department of Agriculture assigned to a cotton research station in Greenville, I discovered that it was possible to make a living as a location photographer. I encountered my first wild polar bear in his natural habitat when serving as official photographer aboard the SS Manhattan during her historic voyage through the Northwest Passage in 1968. Eight years later, given a magazine assignment to photograph polar bears, I journeyed to Churchill on the shores of Hudson Bay, where polar bears congregate each fall. There I met Len Smith, a mechanical genius. At my suggestion, Len contrived a Tundra Buggy in which we might transport ourselves and our gear onto the frozen tundra for weeks of observing polar bears up close. I became so thoroughly charmed with the magnificent animals that I began to welcome the arrival of fall with the eager anticipation one normally reserves for a dear old friend. From one side of the Arctic to the other, I have followed my white-fiirred brothers, watching, listening, and photographing, but mostly, enjoying. I've shared the love of a starving mother as she suckled her two cubs; I've felt the joy of young bears as they played together in the snow; I've suffered anguish over the death of a cub in the jaws of a predatory male. I have followed closely the growing scientific understanding of the species, and I have lamented the killing of polar bears by so-called hunters and the mistreatment of bears by insensitive researchers. In short, my focus on polar bears has sharpened my appreciation of the entire natural world. To my way of thinking, there is no animal anywhere, including those of the great plains of Africa, more deserving of man's admiration and more worthy of his protection. In these pages, Downs Matthews and I have sought not only to examine a fascinating species in intimate detail but to convey a sense of the respect and affection that we have come to feel for the polar bear. I hope that you, too, vtall be similarly persuaded that the lords of the Arctic have few peers in the kingdom of the animals.