Down From The Mountain: The Life and Death of a Grizzly Bear

By Bryce Andrews

The story of a grizzly bear named Millie: her life, death, and cubs, and what they reveal about the changing character of the American West.

An "ode to wildness and wilderness" (Outside Magazine), Down from the Mountain tells the story of one grizzly in the changing Montana landscape.

Millie was cunning, a fiercely protective mother to her cubs. But raising those cubs in the mountains was hard, as the climate warmed and people crowded the valleys.

There were obvious dangers, like poachers, and subtle ones, like the corn field that drew her into sure trouble. That trouble is where award-winning writer, farmer, and conservationist Bryce Andrews's story intersects with Millie’s.

In this "welcome and impressive work" he shows how this drama is "the core of a major problem in the rural American West—the disagreement between large predatory animals and invasive modern settlers”—an entangled collision where the shrinking wilds force human and bear into ever closer proximity (Barry Lopez).

“Andrews’s wonderful Down from the Mountain is deeply informed by personal experience and made all the stronger by his compassion and measured thoughts . . . Welcome and impressive work.”—Barry Lopez

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Apr 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781328972477

Bryce Andrews

Bryce Andrews is the author of Down from the Mountain, which won the Banff Mountain Book Competition and was a Montana Book Award Honor Title and an Amazon Best Science Title of 2019. His first book was Badluck Way, which won the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, the Reading the West Book Award for nonfiction, and the High Plains Book Award for both nonfiction and debut book. Andrews grew up in Seattle, Washington, and spent a decade working on ranches in the high valleys of Montana. He lives near Missoula with his family.

Reviews for Down From The Mountain

[msf59 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Bryce Andrews is a Montana rancher and conservationist. He loves grizzlies and has been monitoring them for years. Here, he follows Millie and her two cubs as they face the many challenges of survival, on his land and off. He is a very good writer and really keeps the narrative flowing, as we cheer these bears on.

[reader1009-863136 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

nonfiction ecology/biology
a little long-winded but still engrossing story for people who admire bears.

[dele2451 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A balanced and respectful look at the life of endangered grizzly bears and the many challenges of modern humans and large wild mammals peacefully coexisting--even in a place as large as Montana. Bryce's extensive background as both a rancher and a nonprofit conservationist brings a much-needed voice to the land management discussion. Top shelf nature writing and some nice B&W pics--definitely pack a copy before you head to Yellowstone or the Tetons or before you plant any corn in Montana.

[beamis12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mission Hills, Montana, a place that has long harbored and protected grizzlies. Millie's Woods, named after a grizzly who has roamed the woods theere, giving birth to several cubs. As more and more people move into the area, farmers, survivalists, people who just want to be alone, and of course this with no good intention, the grizzlies territory is shrinking. Now they are running into man and what man thinks is his. When the grizzlies discover corn fields, they decide to stay with the protected stalks, eating away, causing huge monetary losses for the farmer. This is a story of Millie, her fate and the fate of her two youngest cubs. A story of those who want to protect these animals, and how they try to do so. When an author is do passionate about his subject it is impossible not to be drawn into the story and into his heart. As mankind goes about killing anything that gets in their way, men and women like those in this book, may well be the last defense. If you're an animal lover, an environmentalist, this story will be heartbreaking. The author says it best in these words, "Knowing how we have misused land and wildlife, I have precious little faith in humankind. I think it likely that we will go on wrecking the beautiful world. But, I put my hope in bears of Baptiste's sort ---hardy, seeking adaptable creatures. They will find away around or through our constructions to places that once belonged to them. Given the merest chance, they will live."One can only hope.ARC from Netgalley.