Bears are amazing sentient beings with unique personalities. Each individual has a life that not only is valuable to them and their families and ursine friends, but also to humans who interact with them and take the time to learn who they truly are beyond being misjudged as unpredictable, dangerous, aggressive, and untrustworthy beasts.1 For that and many other reasons, I was thrilled to learn of a well-researched new book titled Black Bear: A Story of Siblinghood and Survival by award-winning author Trina Moyles. In this well-written personal memoir, Trina moves beyond irrational prejudices and fear and observes the extraordinary essence of maligned black bears—a keystone species that is subjected to the environmental consequences of an oil economy as well as harm from humans who work for company. Here's what she had to say about her landmark book.

Marc Bekoff: Why did you write Black Bear?

Trina Moyles My first encounter with a black bear happened in 1990, when I was 5 years old. My father, a wildlife biologist, brought home an orphaned black bear cub who had lost her mother—and possibly siblings—in a logging accident. The cub’s mother was crushed by equipment in her den. The cub spent one night with our family in our basement before being sent to a zoo. That early experience, and an awareness of the pressures bears face on the landscape, stayed with me.

Years later, I worked as a wildfire lookout in northern Alberta, scanning the forest for smoke. In 2019, I was stationed at a tower in a dense wildlife corridor. During my first summer there, I had tense, close encounters with a confident,........

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