Episode 36 Bryce Andrews chats about his new book, Down From The Mountain

Today I answer a listener question and interview Bryce Andrews about his new book, Down From The Mountain.

From Bryce Andrews comes the story of a grizzly bear named Millie: her life, her death, and her cubs.

DOWN FROM THE MOUNTAIN (on-sale from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on April 16, 2019) draws on one individual animal’s life to reveal the changing character of the American West.

The grizzly is one of North America’s few remaining large predators. Their range is diminished, but they’re spreading across the West again. Descending into valleys where once they were king, bears find the landscape they’d known for eons utterly changed by the new most dominant animal: humans. As the grizzlies approach, the people of the region are wary, at best, of their return.

In searing detail, award-winning writer, Montana rancher, and conservationist Bryce Andrews tells us about one such grizzly. Millie is a typical mother: strong, cunning, fiercely protective of her cubs. But raising those cubs—a challenging task in the best of times—becomes ever harder as the mountains change, the climate warms and people crowd the valleys. There are obvious dangers, like poachers, and subtle ones as well, like the corn field that draws her out of the foothills and sets her on a path toward trouble and ruin.

That trouble is where Bryce’s story intersects with Millie’s. On its surface, the collision may seem to be between a single bear and a single farm, both seeking to protect their own. But at heart, DOWN FROM THE MOUNTAIN is a singular drama evoking a much larger one: an entangled, bloody collision between two species in the modern-day West, where shrinking wilds force man and bear into ever closer proximity.

“When we argue about our responsibilities and approach to living with grizzlies, we’re really talking about whether humankind should inconvenience itself on behalf of other species… Should we require communities to forgo growth or prosperity to preserve habitat for dangerous beasts?” Andrews writes. But he has hope: “Across Montana and the West, more people are recognizing the cultural, economic, and biological value of species like wolves and grizzlies. We’re beginning to get creative about coexisting with large predators. … Right now, we’re maturing into a better understanding of grizzlies and a clearer sense of what they mean to us. The next essential task will be acting on that knowledge.”

BRYCE ANDREWS is the author of Badluck Way, winner of the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, the Reading the West Book Award for nonfiction, and a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. He works with the conservation group People and Carnivores and will appear across Montana and in Seattle on book tour.