National Geographic Rarely Seen: Photographs of the Extraordinary
National Geographic
Language: English
Pages: 400
ISBN: 1426215614
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In this dazzling book of visual wonders, National Geographic reveals a world very few will have the chance to see for themselves. Shot by some of the world's finest photographers, New York Times bestseller Rarely Seen features striking images of places, events, natural phenomena, and manmade heirlooms seldom seen by human eyes. It's all here: 30,000-year-old cave art sealed from the public; animals that are among the last of their species on Earth; volcanic lightning; giant crystals that have grown to more than 50 tons; the engraving inside Abraham Lincoln's pocket watch. With an introduction by National Geographic photographer Stephen Alvarez, whose work has taken him from the Peruvian Andes to the deepest caves of Papua New Guinea, Rarely Seen captures once-in-a-lifetime moments, natural wonders, and little-seen objects from the far reaches of the globe.
We gaze from our cars at a roadside bear, we stand at an overlook above a great river, we stroll boardwalks amid the geyser basins, experiencing the park as a diorama. We remain safe and dry. Our shoes don’t get muddy with sulfurous gunk. But the Plexiglas window doesn’t exist, and the diorama is real. It’s painted in blood—the blood of many wild creatures, dying violently in the natural course of relations with one another, predator and prey, and occasionally also the blood of humans. Walk just
they’re up so high,” he said. “What’s the attraction?” Before I knew it, we were two mountains along, looking down on another bear, a huge one. This grizzly was on a flat above Fan Creek, munching contentedly amid a patch of yellow balsamroot and other vegetation. Again we circled. Stradley seemed puzzled. Balsamroot is not usually mentioned as a grizzly food, although the bear’s dietary choices in Yellowstone are formidably diverse, according to a recent authoritative paper. The list includes 266
wolves were practically eradicated from the lower 48 states). Now both have returned: cougars on their own, wolves reintroduced from Canada by the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Grizzlies never vanished, but there were times in the 1970s and ’80s when the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem held as few as perhaps 140 and the population seemed doomed, says Chris Servheen, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service oficial who coordinates grizzly recovery. Today 700 to 1,000 live there,
animals and food sources Signiicantly affected by decline of cutthroat trout Trumpeter swan Dabbling ducks Canada goose Bison Elk Moose Mule deer Red squirrel Northern pocket gopher Zooplankton Caddis flies Mayflies Buffalo berry Sagebrushes Only selected species are shown. PRODUCERS Phytoplankton Algae Star duckweed Richardson’s pondweed Water sedge Arrowleaf balsamroot Alpine bluegrass Timberline bluegrass Sandburg bluegrass Yamps Biscuit-root Chokeberry A Fight for
especially elk calves and adult elk that have been weakened by winter or the rigors of the autumn rut. Whitebark pine are connected to mountain pine beetles, whose population outbreaks are connected to climate change. Bison are connected to Montana livestock policy by way of a disease, brucellosis, probably brought to America in cattle. Elk are connected to the boreal toad by way of Mitch Bock. Elk are also connected to cutthroat trout. In this case it’s by way of grizzly predation, taking a