Bøger af Else Poulsen

A zookeeper's story of her extraordinary relationship with the bears she has rescued and her insights into their emotional lives."An inspiring trip into the mind and reality of bears.”-Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, author of When Elephants WeepFew people know bears as intimately as Else Poulsen. She has raised bears, comforted bears, taught bears, learned from bears, had bears communicate their needs to her, and nursed bears back to health. This remarkable book reveals the many insights about bears and their lives that she has gained through her work with them.In the eighties, Poulsen became a zookeeper in Calgary, where she rehabilitated bears in crisis. She has shared in the joy of a polar bear discovering soil under her paws for the first time in twenty years, felt the pride of a cub learning to crack nuts with her molars, and grieved at the horror of captivity for Asian black bears in China.Smiling Bears provides an enlightening and moving portrait of bears in all their richness and complexity and of Poulsen's exhilarating work with them.

When a 19-year old female polar bear named Barle is rescued from the inhumane conditions of a circus in the Caribbean and flown to safety in Detroit, zookeeper Else Poulsen - renowned throughout the world for her work rehabilitating bears who have been abused - is on hand to meet her and help her on the road to recovery and self-discovery. Thus begins Barle's gradual introduction into the world of polar bears. Slowly she forges relationships with the other bears in the zoo and eventually mates with a young male and successfully raises a cub. By living in a caring, enriched environment focused on her welfare, Barle is able to recover from the trauma she had suffered at the circus and develop skills that are important to thriving as a polar bear. As Poulsen documents, however, not all captive bears are so fortunate. Augmented with black-and-white photographs, Barle's Story provides a rich and moving portrait of a remarkable bear and of the author's inspiring work to help her discover her true polar bear ways.