Life Ecology

Once a killing ground for whalers hunting a leviathan they called the "devilfish," the San Ignacio Lagoon in Baja, Mexico, is now an environmental and spiritual sanctuary—the only place in the world where animals in their natural aquatic environment routinely seek out human contact. A nursery for the gray whale since before recorded history, the lagoon and its stories, told here by James Michael Dorsey, illuminate the magic of human connection to animals, and what those bonds teach us about ourselves and our purpose on this shared planet.

Conraad de Rosner is a pioneering game ranger, working with dogs to protect wildlife against poachers – both ‘bushmeat’ poachers, who use cruel snares to trap animals, and criminal syndicates killing for rhinoceros horn and capturing critically endangered pangolins, the most trafficked animal in the world. Con’s life – constantly at risk from poachers, wildlife and even his own fellow rangers – has been saved on numerous occasions by his devoted canine companions.

Grandpa says circles are all around us. He points to the rainbow that rises high in the sky after a thundercloud has come. Can you see? That's only half of the circle. That rest of it is down below, in the earth. He and his granddaughter meditate on gardens and seeds, on circles seen and unseen, inside and outside us, on where our bodies come from and where they return to. They share and create family traditions in this stunning video adaptation of the Pura Belpre award-winning exploration of the cycles of life and nature.

The news about wildlife is dire—more than 900 species have been wiped off the planet since industrialization. Against this bleak backdrop, however, there are also glimmers of hope and crucial lessons to be learned from animals that have defied global trends toward extinction: bears in Italy, bison in North America, whales in the Atlantic. These populations are back from the brink, some of them in numbers unimaginable in a century. How has this happened? In crisp, transporting prose, Christopher Preston reveals the mysteries and challenges at the heart of these resurgences.

Living with three strong-willed, highly individual Dachshunds can be equal parts entertaining, frustrating and rewarding. Just ask Matt Ziselman. Armed with a fresh, creative voice that is unabashedly cranky one moment and profoundly poignant the next, Ziselman mixes hilarious canine stories, with heartfelt reminiscences from his own life, the results of which is a memoir of illuminating life lessons, courtesy of the three thoroughly Teutonic Dachshunds that he shares his life (and couch) with: Baxter, Maya, and Molly.

Inside every loggerhead turtle is genius: the ability to find their first home, no matter how far away. Follow one, from her birth on a beach in Australia...to her trip across an ocean filled with sharks and seahorses and much more...to her rescue from a net by a fisherman, who names her Yoshi...to her rehabilitation at an aquarium...to her record-breaking swim across the Indian Ocean to the beach on which she hatched, to lay her eggs.

Adam Henson has spent his whole life on Bemborough farm - over 50 winters and Christmases. During that time, the troughs have frozen over, snow has fallen so thickly riding shire horses out to the fields has been the only option, puppies have been found under the Christmas tree - and crises out in the world have almost brought the farm to a close. Christmas for a farmer takes a different shape to everyone else's, because the animals always have to come first. So settle down to hear the tales that have defined festivity for the Henson family.

When Chris Dombrowski burst onto the literary scene with Body of Water, the book was acclaimed as “a classic” (Jim Harrison) and its author compared with John McPhee. Dombrowski begins the highly anticipated The River You Touch with a question as timely as it is profound: “What does a meaningful, mindful, sustainable inhabitance on this small planet look like in the anthropocene?”

You are among the last in a long line of animals that were the likeliest to survive half a billion years of evolution. But you wouldn't be here today without all other wildlife. Over the past fifty years, we've killed three quarters of the creatures we need to keep ecosystems healthy. Now we have a choice to make: re-find our place among them, or succumb to the power of nature.

Water is the source of all life on planet Earth. But, to the surprise of many, we are running out of it. Why is that? To some, it is impossible to imagine a city running out of water. The possibility just doesn’t exist for so many of us who are fortunate enough to have nearly unlimited access to clean drinking water. It is something many people take for granted. But that unlimited well has a limit, and we are reaching it quicker than you might imagine.

This is the true story of a Londoner who gives up his job as an estate agent in the city, moves to the wilds of Exmoor, starts a smallholding and becomes self-sufficient, with a few bumps along the way. Simon's journey from urbanite to self-sufficient smallholder is brimming with incidents - some funny and some tragic - leading him to question Mother Nature, himself, the food he eats and his role in it all.

You don’t have to be an animal rights activist to take an interest in how we treat other creatures. All of us, with few exceptions, use animals in some way: for food, research, recreation, and companionship. In Britain, we eat around a billion chickens every year, while 60 percent of all mammals on Earth, by biomass, are now livestock.

Joan Bomford, BBC Countryfile's Farming Hero of 2015, has lived all her life in the lush, rolling countryside of the Vale of Evesham, where cows graze the water meadows of the River Avon and modern life seems far away. Farming is in Joan's blood. Generations of her family have worked the land, and in Up with the Lark, Joan tells us with warmth, wit and great insight what it's been like to live through an era of such enormous change.

Baking soda, salt, vinegar, and lemons are all you really need to do the job the most chemical cleaners can do. For those of you that are interested in finding out just how useful these items can be and how many different ways they can be used, this book is the perfect choice for you. Inside this amazing book you will discover how you can use baking soda to clean your house, including the bathrooms, without using harsh chemicals. You will also find out how easy it is to treat common ailments, such as burns and bee stings at home with the help of baking soda.

Rat Island rises from the icy gray waters of the Bering Sea, a mass of volcanic rock covered with tundra, midway between Alaska and Siberia. Once a remote sanctuary for enormous flocks of seabirds, the island gained a new name when shipwrecked rats colonized, savaging the nesting birds by the thousands. Now, on this and hundreds of other remote islands around the world, a massive - and massively controversial - wildlife rescue mission is underway.

In Unnatural Companions, journalist Peter Christie issues a call to action for pet owners. If we hope to reverse the alarming trend of wildlife decline, pet owners must acknowledge the pets-versus-conservation dilemma and concede that our well-fed and sheltered cats too often prey on small backyard wildlife and seemingly harmless reptiles released into the wild might be the next destructive invasive species. We want our pets to eat nutritionally healthy food, but how does the designer food we feed them impact the environment?

For the Birds offers listeners a glimpse behind the binoculars and reveals birders to be important allies in the larger environmental conservation movement. With a wealth of data from in-depth interviews and over three years of observing birders in the field, environmental sociologist Elizabeth Cherry argues that birders learn to watch wildlife in ways that make an invaluable contribution to contemporary conservation efforts. She investigates how birders develop a “naturalist gaze” that enables them to understand the shared ecosystem that intertwines humans and wild animals.

Natalie Angier knows all that scientists know—and sometimes more—about the power of symmetry in sexual relations, about the brutal courting habits of dolphins, about the grand deceit of orchids, about the impact of female and male preferences on evolution. She knows how scientists go about their work, and she describes their ways, their visions, and their arguments. Perhaps most poignantly, she understands the complexities and the sad necessity of death.

A tiny honeybee emerges through the wax cap of her cell. Driven to protect and take care of her hive, she cleans the nursery and feeds the larvae and the queen. But is she strong enough to fly? Not yet! Apis builds wax comb to store honey and transfers pollen from other bees into the storage. She defends the hive from invaders. And finally, she begins her new life as an adventurer. The confining walls of the hive fall away as Apis takes to the air, finally free, into a clear blue sky full of promise.

From the big bang to the origin and evolution of intelligent life in a search for the meaning of human existence, Why Are We Here?, by author Bruce Brodie, offers a look at evolution and the future of life on the planet.