BETH PRATT-BERGSTROM DISCUSSES HER BOOK WHEN MOUNTAIN LIONS ARE NEIGHBORS

When Mountain Lions are Neighbors: People and Wildlife Working It Out In California (Heydey Books)

Did you know that a mountain lion, known as P-22, lives in the middle of Los Angeles, that on the Facebook campus in Silicon Valley, Mark Zuckerberg and his staff have provided a home for an endearing family of wild gray foxes, or that wolves have returned to California after a ninety-year absence, led by the remarkable journey of the wolf OR-7?

A movement of diverse individuals and communities is taking action to recast wildlife as an integral part of our everyday lives.

When Mountain Lions Are Neighbors explores this evolving dynamic between humans and animals, including remarkable stories like rice farmers sharing their fields with Sandhill Cranes, how California's endangered desert tortoises are getting some much needed protection from a formidable ally: the United States Marines Corps, and how park staff and millions of visitors rallied to keep Yosemite’s famed bears wild, and many more tales from across the state that celebrate a new paradigm for wildlife conservation: coexistence.

Beth Pratt-Bergstrom, wildlife advocate, author and California Director for the National Wildlife Federation, will share tales of wild wonder from her new book, accompanied by LA’s celebrity mountain lion, P-22 (his likeness).

Praise for When Mountain Lions Are Neighbors 

“A contemporary and exciting look at wildlife that we all can celebrate.”--Ed Begley Jr.

“This delightful book details our ever-evolving relationship with Earth’s wildest creatures, promising that peaceful coexistence is possible.” Jennifer Holland, author of the best-selling Unlikely Friendships series

"It’s one thing to say we should figure out how to live with other critters and another thing to do it. Beth Pratt-Bergstrom’s new book, When Mountain Lions Are Neighbors, provides a pretty happy litany of species we do still have around, and positive stories about how folks are getting along with them."--Mary Ellen Hannibal, author of Citizen Science, in the Huffington Post

"One comes away from the book with a feeling of domesticity, mostly content that California seems to be one big happy multispecies family, but with underlying concerns, of course, as in any modern family."--Jon Christensen, LA Observed

“At a time when books about conservation often and understandably focus on challenges and failures, Beth Pratt-Bergstrom’s When Mountain Lions Are Neighbors, co-published by Heyday and National Wildlife Federation, beautifully captures a series of successes, all in California. By focusing on individual case studies, and often individual animals, the book turns these examples into effective narrative stories.” Jeff Fleischer, Foreword Reviews

A lifelong advocate for wildlife, Beth Pratt-Bergstrom has worked in in two of the country’s largest national parks: Yosemite and Yellowstone. As the California Director for the National Wildlife Federation, she says, “I have the best job in the world—advocating for the state’s remarkable wildlife.”

She leads the #SaveLACougars campaign to build the largest wildlife crossing in North America—and potentially the world—to help save a population of mountain lions from extinction, and her conservation work has been featured by The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, BBC World Service, CBS This Morning, the Los Angeles Times, and NPR. Her new book, When Mountain Lions are Neighbors: People and Wildlife Working It Out In California, was published by Heyday Books in 2016. Beth spends much of her time in LA, but makes her home outside of Yosemite, “my north star,” with her husband, five dogs, two cats, and the mountain lions, bears, foxes, and other wildlife that frequent her backyard.