FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Chris Cauble
Phone 406-449-0200
Email ccauble@riverbendpublishing.com
A new book may become a rallying cry for conservationists trying to protect intact ecosystems. In “Incredible Vision: The Wildlands of Greater Yellowstone” (Riverbend), author Pete Bengeyfield of Dillon, Montana, calls the Greater Yellowstone area “the beating heart of America’s conservation movement.”
The Greater Yellowstone area in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho includes Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, six national forests, several towns, and intermingled public and private lands. Within its 18 million acres are the headwaters of three major rivers, habitat for several species of endangered wildlife, and the world’s largest undamaged geyser system.
Despite the numerous man-made divisions, Bengeyfield insists Greater Yellowstone is defined by natural forces, not political boundaries, and he argues that sustaining the natural ecosystem is crucial to the area’s wildlife, water, plants, and even its people and their economies.
Bengeyfield is a hydrologist by profession and his thorough understanding of natural forces is evident in the chapters on geology, water, plant life, and wildlife. Noted Yellowstone author Paul Schullery (“Lewis and Clark Among the Grizzlies,” “Mountain Time”) wrote the book’s foreword and said Bengeyfield’s scientific background gave him “an advantaged eye.”
more
“Pete Bengeyfield has explored Yellowstone as
have many of us, as a
person enchanted by the incredible diversity and beauty of the place. But he
has also explored it with a scientist’s sensitivity to how landscapes work,”
Schullery writes. “With no sacrifice of his sense of wonder, he has stood back
far enough from greater Yellowstone to see the big patterns, and to embrace the
perhaps even finer wonder those patterns provide to the person who is open to
them.”
Bengeyfield also examines the various human forces that have tried to save or exploit the area’s natural resources. He concludes with a compelling description of what Greater Yellowstone should be—and could be—for its wildlife, its wildlands, and its people. His strategy is reasonable and one that many conservationists will embrace. In fact, a special edition of “Incredible Vision” has been commissioned by the Greater Yellowstone Coalition conservation group to celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2003.
More than 90 color photos by Bengeyfield and his wife showcase the area’s pristine beauty and wild creatures, and many images are unique. For example, there is a full-page photo of a coyote catching a spawning Yellowstone cutthroat trout, an event rarely witnessed and possibly never before photographed.
“Incredible Vision” sells for $22.95 and is available at bookstores and from Riverbend Publishing toll-free 1-866-787-2363.
Incredible
Vision: The Wildlands of Greater Yellowstone
By Pete Bengeyfield
Foreword by Paul Schullery
8 1/2 x 10 inches, paperback, 144 pages
93 color photos, 1 map
ISBN 1-931832-25-0
Riverbend Publishing, Helena, Montana
Incredible Vision: The
Wildlands of Greater Yellowstone
Pete Bengeyfield is a hydrologist for Beaverhead National Forest, one of the six national forests in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. He holds a B.S. in Forestry and a M.S. in hydrology from West Virginia University. He has more than 30 years of experience in natural resource management in the West with the Forest Service, the state of Montana, and private industry.
Pete and his wife, Alice, started doing nature photography as a hobby and began submitting pictures for publication as they improved. Their photographs have been published in National Wildlife, Outdoor Photographer, Sierra Club calendars, and many other publications. In 1996 they wrote and photographed the book, Mountains & Mesas: The Northern Rockies and the Colorado Plateau (Northland). Incredible Vision is their second book.
Alice Bengeyfield has taught elementary and special education for more than 20 years. She currently teaches fifth grade and is an AIDS educator for the state of Montana. She received her B.S. from West Virginia Wesleyan.
The Bengeyfields live in Dillon, Montana.
To contact Pete
Bengeyfield, please email pbengeyfield@fs.fed.us
or phone 1-406-683-5538.
Paul Schullery first worked in Yellowstone National Park as a seasonal ranger-naturalist more than thirty years ago. He is the author, co-author, or editor of more than thirty books on nature, conservation, and outdoor sport, including ten about Yellowstone. For his work as a historian and writer, he has been given an honorary doctorate of letters by Montana State University, the Wallace Stegner Award from the University of Colorado Center of the American West, and other awards. He is an adjunct professor of American Studies at the University of Wyoming, and an affiliate professor of history at Montana State University. His recent books include Real Alaska: Finding Our Way in the Wild Country, and Lewis and Clark Among the Grizzlies: Lore and Legend in the American West.
Incredible
Vision: The Wildlands of Greater Yellowstone
By Pete Bengeyfield
Foreword by Paul Schullery
8 1/2 x 10 inches, paperback, 144 pages
93 color photos, 1 map
ISBN 1-931832-25-0
Riverbend Publishing, Helena, Montana
Phone toll-free 1-866-787-2363