Smiling Bears: A Zookeeper Explores the Behavior and Emotional Life of Bears

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 Weep

Few 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.