The Last Polar Bear: A Photographic Journey by Steven Kazlowski is a poignant book. Primarily because, at some level, we know that Kazlowski has captured an animal and a place in the process of becoming extinct. Like all extinction journeys, it is neither smooth nor pleasant to watch. Polar bears are drowning, stalking each other as food, walruses are abandoning their young, female polar bears can’t regain their pre-birthing weight, and Arctic creatures are coming into towns creating conflict between humans and animals.
Helen Cherullo, author of the foreword, writes “The plight of the white bear is among the first stories to shock the public and bring voice to the science that has to date failed to move us." What people don’t realize is just how few polar bears there actually are - the world’s population is somewhere between 21,000 to 25,000. When all is said and done, and after the ice has melted, the formidable polar bear – this King of the Arctic – has nowhere to go but to zoos or other forms of captivity.
The Last Polar Bear takes the reader on a photographic adventure from Hershel Island in Canada to Point Hope in Alaska where Kazlowski spent several years capturing images of the animals, people and places that make the North so iconic. Via photos and essays, The Last Polar Bear communicates the complicated and interwoven stories of the animals, peoples, and places, which make up the Arctic world. Aside from the intimate photographs that tell the visual (and frankly, visceral) story of the Arctic, The Last Polar Bear contains essays from a number of formidable naturists and scientists about our connection to the life in the Arctic. Writers include Theodore Roosevelt IV, Charles Wohlforth, Daniel Glick, and Richard Nelson.
A painfully beautiful book that deserves recognition as one of the top climate change books on the market.
Order this book on Amazon.com The Last Polar Bear
Visit: http://www.mountaineersbooks.org/
Publisher: Mountaineer Books
207 Pages
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