Environment Nature

What is the difference between a savanna and a prairie? How do bison, zebras, and other grazers avoid hungry grassland predators? Trek across the plant-covered landscape of this book, and find out what makes grasslands one of Earth's treasures.

A paradigm shift is roiling the environmental world. For decades people have unquestioningly accepted the idea that our goal is to preserve nature in its pristine, pre-human state. But many scientists have come to see this as an outdated dream that thwarts bold new plans to save the environment and prevents us from having a fuller relationship with nature. Humans have changed the landscapes they inhabit since prehistory, and climate change means even the remotest places now bear the fingerprints of humanity.

It takes commitment to overcome interests that stand in the way of protecting the environment. Meet three people who weren't afraid to speak up to protect natural areas—and us.

Kneeling in a muddy field, clutching something soft and blue-black, Marc Hamer vows he will stop trapping moles - forever. In this earnest, understated, and sublime work of nonfiction literature, the molecatcher shares what led him to this strange career: from sleeping among hedges as a homeless teen, to toiling on the railway, to weeding windswept gardens in Wales. Hamer infuses his wanderings with radiant poetry and stark, simple observations on nature’s oft-ignored details.

The cod is a large, ugly fish that spends its life with its big mouth wide open for food. For centuries, so many cod lived in the Atlantic Ocean they couldn’t swim without bumping into each other. They were so plentiful that they became the most important fish in many cultures. Best-selling author Mark Kurlansky brings history to life with this entertaining story of how a single fish changed the world.

When we see a bird flying from branch to branch happily chirping, it is easy to imagine they lead a simple life of freedom, flight, and feathers. What we don't see is the arduous, life-threatening challenges they face at every moment. Beaks, Bones and Bird Songs guides the listener through the myriad, and often almost miraculous, things that birds do every day to merely stay alive. Like the goldfinch, which manages extreme weather changes by doubling the density of its plumage in winter.

A century ago, mountain lions were vilified as a threat to livestock and hunted to the verge of extinction. Its recovery has led to an unexpected conundrum: Do more mountain lions mean they're a threat to humans and domestic animals? Or, are mountain lions still in need of our help and protection as their habitat dwindles? Mountain lion biologist and expert Mark Elbroch welcomes these tough questions. He dismisses long-held myths about mountain lions and uses groundbreaking science to uncover important new information about their social habits.

In her late-twenties, feeling utterly overwhelmed by the pace of modern city life, Rosie Steer found solace in the traditions she had been brought up with, influenced by her Scottish roots, that celebrated nature and observed the small steady shifts in the seasons. The Celtic Wheel of the year is an ancient seasonal cycle that aligns with solar events – the solstices and equinoxes – and their rough midpoints. For each mini-season, Rosie shares nature notes for what we can look out for.

Among the more than 34,000 species of fish, few have the walleye's following—among anglers and diners, states conferring official status on the fish, and towns battling for recognition as the Walleye Capital of the World. And among those passionate fans, few know the walleye as well as Paul J. Radomski does—a fisheries biologist, lake ecology scientist, and old fisherman. In Walleye: A Beautiful Fish of the Dark he unspools the mysteries of this fascinating fish.

In Tree Wisdom, Vincent teaches us what a year of healing among the trees can look like. Each lesson mirrors the wondrous way our tall timber friends have learned to thrive through the seasons. Each lesson is simple in nature, a push of the pause button, a chance to re-centre on what matters.

Well, Cool Earth Facts for Kids has all of those facts and more! Made for kids eight and up, and younger ambitious learners, this audiobook breaks down all of the planet's coolest and most interesting processes! Designed to help create a foundation for a broad understanding of Earth's natural history and functions, this audiobook includes chapters on the following:

As humans accelerate global warming while laying waste to the environment, animals and plants must flee to the margins: on scattered nature reserves, between major highways, or among urban sprawl. And when even these places become too hot and inhospitable, wildlife is left with only one path to survival: an often-formidable journey toward the poles as they race to find a new home in a warming world. Award-winning environmental journalist Benjamin von Brackel traces these awe-inspiring journeys and celebrates the remarkable resilience of species around the world.

What’s that red-haired animal swinging through the rain forest’s trees seemingly without a care in the world? It’s an orangutan! Aside from all that red hair, these beautiful beasts look almost human, but they’re a lot stronger. Learn more about these colorful animals, including how they live, how clever they are, how they’re dealing with a shrinking habitat, and what you can do to help.

When Arjan Dwarshuis first heard of the “Big Year”—the legendary record for birdwatching—he was twenty years old, it was midnight, and he was sitting on the roof of a truck in the Andean Mountains. In that moment he promised himself that, someday, somehow, he would become a world-record-holding birder. Ten years later, he embarked on an incredible, arduous, and perilous journey that took him around the globe; over uninhabited islands, through dense unforgiving rainforests, across snowy mountain peaks and unrelenting deserts—in just a single year.

A small reptile scurries across a rock under the hot sun. It's a lizard! Learn more about these desert animals.

A host of endangered amphibians crawl and hop into the spotlight in F Is for Frog: ABCs of Endangered Amphibians. Listeners can check out a Chinese giant salamander, gawk at a Goliath frog, or catch a Kurdistan newt.

On Isle Royale, a unique national park more than fifty miles from the Michigan shore and about fifteen miles from Minnesota, a thrilling drama is unfolding between wolves and moose, the island’s ultimate predator and prey. For over sixty years, in what has been known as the longest study of predator and prey in the world, scientists have studied the wolves and moose of Isle Royale and the island’s ecology to observe and investigate wildlife populations.

Well-known nature and conservation writer Ted Williams is an avid fisherman who has devoted many years to writing about the sport and advocating the preservation of bodies of water and species of fish. Here, he brings together his love of angling with his profound sense of responsibility for the environment.

In this classic work that continues to inspire its many fans, James Lovelock deftly explains his idea that life on Earth functions as a single organism. Written for the non-scientist, Gaia is a journey through time and space in search of evidence with which to support a new and radically different model of our planet. In contrast to conventional belief that living matter is passive in the face of threats to its existence, the book explores the hypothesis that the Earth's living matter - air, ocean, and land surfaces - forms a complex system that has the capacity to keep the Earth a fit place for life.

What plants and animals call grassy flatlands home? Find out what lives in grassland habitats.