In his 2013 book聽, British author George Monbiot laments the fact that he feels ecologically bored: the UK聽has no apex predators on the landscape of which he should be afraid. Those of us who live in the American West, however, have enough wolves, cougars, black bears, and grizzlies roaming around to keep us on our toes. Often聽the less ecologically boring聽a place is, the bigger a conservation issue human-predator conflict becomes.

Bryce Andrew鈥檚 book聽 ($25, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)聽explores the issue聽in one particularly grizzly-dense location, Mission Valley, near Missoula, Montana. The book starts with the birth of a grizzly cub in the Mission Range, using information from bears that have been tagged and collared with GPS so that their movements can be tracked. Relying on scientific studies, the author describes the cub鈥檚 initiation into grizzly life by her mother聽before heading out on her own at age two. In 2006, she is caught by local conservationists, collared with GPS, nicknamed Millie after the woods in which she was trapped, and sent on her way.

The book then shifts to a parallel story, introducing Andrews, who used to be a Missoula-area rancher but, in 2013, realized that he wasn鈥檛 suited for the hard part of ranching: taking his cows to be butchered. 鈥淭he essential gearing of my soul had been worn out by the task of turning animals into meat,鈥� Andrews writes. He sells his ranch share to his partner and looks for other animal-related work that will keep his hands busy and his heart happy. He finds that connection with the nonprofit , a Missoula group that works to mitigate relationships between the two.

It鈥檚 about the tightrope bears walk between living in their mountainous territory, consuming聽pine nuts, army cutworm moths, and winterkill, versus coming down the mountain to scavenge in human territory.

Andrews鈥檚 writing about wilderness is much like that of聽author Rick Bass, who displays聽both a healthy reverence for ecology and an easy way of talking about it. This story is not just about Andrews鈥檚 shift from rancher to conservationist. It鈥檚 an ode to wildness and wilderness in the form of grizzlies. It鈥檚 about the tightrope bears walk between living in their mountainous territory, consuming聽pine nuts, army cutworm moths, and winterkill, versus coming down the mountain to scavenge in human territory. It鈥檚 about the resulting relationship between humans and grizzlies when they live in close proximity.

On behalf of People and Carnivores, Andrews visits the 聽to collaborate with its聽conservation team. The area has a large grizzly population and plenty of attendant human-bear interactions. Those problems are increasing annually: the bears eat livestock and dig up alfalfa fields to get gophers, and they鈥檝e been eating cultivated聽tree fruit like apples聽for over a century, leaving wild聽fruit trees across the landscape. But that鈥檚 because people are making food too accessible by not using electric fencing and leaving fruit on trees for the bears to find. Once grizzlies are habituated to finding food in rural and suburban areas, they keep returning聽instead of going back up into the mountains.

Humans and grizzlies need to find a way to coexist because, as Andrews notes, 鈥渢here are two kinds of mountains in Montana: those that still contain grizzlies and those that have lost them.鈥� If there are too many nuisance bears in the Mission Valley, this could become a mountain region that loses its grizzlies.

The team decides to prioritize an affordable bearproof fence around farmer Greg Schock鈥檚 corn field, as he鈥檚 lost up to $10,000 from bears eating his corn, which is meant to be winter silage for his dairy cows. Corn is like junk food for bears鈥攕ugary, but without much substance. It鈥檚 a tricky conservation balance. The field shouldn鈥檛 have been planted in the first place since it鈥檚 so close to bear country, but Andrews understands that Schock is just trying to get by with his struggling dairy farm.

Meanwhile, Millie is teaching her two female cubs聽where to feed, how to travel quietly, and how to stay away from humans.聽Andrews weaves Millie鈥檚 story in alongside his own. He uses her abundant GPS-collar data to visit the potential denning sites she鈥檚 checked out聽and to write about food-gathering forays as if we鈥檙e right there with her and her cubs. It鈥檚 a pastoral section of the book, as Andrews builds his fence and Millie feeds and trains her cubs.

As he works, Andrews starts to feel the irresistible urge to see one of these fearsome predators up close, to ditch his 鈥渆cological boredom.鈥澛燞e has seen聽grizzlies previously during his ranching career聽and writes that 鈥淟ooking bears in the face has given me a better grasp of what I am and how I fit into the old wilder world.鈥澛燞e tempts fate by walking into the cornfield where there could be a grizzly anywhere, noting somewhat romantically that 鈥渨hen a human meets a bear, their eyes meet like the two halves of a split stone.鈥�

Andrews doesn鈥檛 encounter聽the grizzly he鈥檇 hoped to see: sleek, well-fed, large and lumbering. Instead, his and Millie鈥檚 stories collide when he discovers her on one of his trailcams鈥攅maciated and with extensive facial damage after someone fired a load of buckshot at her. At this point, the book shifts briefly into a whodunit as the tribal game warden works with the聽U.S. Fish and聽Wildlife Service to find out who shot Millie (it鈥檚 illegal to shoot a grizzly). Her cubs, meanwhile, are sent to a zoo in Maryland.聽

Humans and grizzlies need to find a way to coexist because, as Andrews notes, 鈥渢here are two kinds of mountains in Montana: those that still contain grizzlies and those that have lost them.鈥�

Ultimately, Down from the Mountain addresses the difficulty of deciding which conservation projects are most important in areas where humans and apex predators exist聽and how we need to make (and save) room on the landscape for them to safely roam. It may not be easy, but it鈥檚 something we鈥檒l have to think about more as the population grows and the linkages between humans and grizzlies become more entangled.

The outcome聽of the search and the completion of the electric fence don鈥檛 bring easy answers. Andrews聽still wonders:聽How can we maintain a healthy grizzly population so close to humans?聽How can humans and grizzlies coexist without bears becoming habituated to human food鈥攅specially when their traditional foods, like pine nuts, are declining due to human-caused climate change? And what does it mean for us environmentally and as a society to have apex predators wandering through our yards?

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