Remembering Bears – A Luxury Travel Blog: A Luxury Travel Blog /

A heartbreaking video of a polar bear starving to death in Canada’s Baffin Islands drew attention to the challenges bears face due to climate change. While in China there are images of a bear lying in its cage at a bile farm, the bars just wide enough for a paw to stick out, and reports of rescued “bile bears” in Vietnam arriving at shelters with immense psychological and physical problems, some also weak to walk or climb after a life in cages, drew attention to the plight of these abused animals. With habitats ranging from forests to woodlands and grasslands to the sea, bears are intriguing and captivating – but facing a bleak future.

With shrinking ice and inaccessibility to prey, polar bears could be extinct by 2050, climate change is causing their habitat to literally melt away. Grizzly bears are threatened with extinction as their habitat is being destroyed by logging, mining, oil and gas drilling, and land development. Thousands of Asiatic black bears (moon bears), sun bears and brown bears have been kept in cages and farmed for their bile for decades. Panda bears are being pushed into smaller, less viable areas due to habitat fragmentation, and since bamboo makes up 99% of their food, the dwindling bamboo forests are causing food shortages. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimates that fewer than 20,000 sloth bears survive in the wilds of the Indian subcontinent and Sri Lanka. Of the eight bear species in the world, the IUCN lists six as vulnerable or endangered, with the only exceptions being black and brown bears, which remain endangered in certain locations.

Remembering Wildlife is the collective name for the series of books created by British wildlife photographer Margot Raggett, who in 2014 began asking fellow wildlife photographers to contribute to a fundraising book for animal conservation. Their response was unanimous and Remembering Elephants was published in 2016, featuring images donated by 65 of the world’s top wildlife photographers. Such was its success that Remembering Rhinos was quickly announced and launched in 2017, again to critical acclaim. Remembering Great Apes, the third book in the series, was published in 2018 and featured images donated by 72 photographers and a foreword by Dr. Jane Goodall. 2019 saw the launch of the fourth book in the series, Remembering Lions, followed by Remembering Cheetahs, which won the GOLD award for best wildlife book in The Independent Publisher Book Awards. In 2021, Remembering African Wild Dogs was released.

Since the first book in 2016, more than 230 of the world’s top wildlife photographers have generously contributed to the Remembering Wildlife series, sold more than 33,000 books and distributed more than $1.24 million USD to 59 different conservation projects in 24 countries , through Africa and Asia. Now the stunning visuals of a new book in the series, Remembering Bears, are raising awareness of the plight these special animals face and raising money to protect them.

Margot Raggett, founder of Remembering Wildlife, says: “People have had a special relationship with bears for a very long time – we cuddle them as children at night and love to see them in storybooks and on screen. But in the real world they are not always viewed with the same affection and can be seen as a nuisance or threat… Some face a life of misery – as dancing bears, illegally traded as pets or used for medicine – threats and extinction from climate change, hunting or conflict between humans and animals… Through images and words, this book highlights their diversity, beauty and resilience, raises awareness of their plight and raises funds for organizations passionately fighting for the future of bears. ”

Each page of this beautiful book reveals a different striking image of one of eight bear species – American black bear, Andean bear, Asiatic black bear, brown bear, giant panda, polar bear, sloth bear and sun bear – revealing tender moments with family members, fierce territorial battles and the harsh realities of life as a bear.

Remembering Bears features images from over 80 of the world’s top wildlife photographers, including Marsel van Oosten, Joshua Holko, Dave Sandford, Andrew Parkinson, Vladimir Cech Jr, Kevin Dooley, Tristan Dicks, Will Burrard-Lucas, Shivag Mehta, Fredrik Granath, Daniel Rosengren, Sabrina Schumann, Anjali Singh and Amy Gulick, who generously donated images of bears in their natural habitats from China to Peru, from Alaska to Borneo. This year’s cover photo was created by Morten Jørgensen.

Among the stunning photos, Remembering Bears also features 10 winning images from a global contest.

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Bears are often overlooked among our planet’s dwindling animal species. Many people have the misconception that “if you go to the woods today … every bear that ever was there will surely gather there” … on a global scale, however, the future of bears is much less certain. Bears are extremely intelligent creatures. Not only can they count as well as primates, they have also learned to use tools and are highly sensitive to emotions. In addition to happiness, bears experience sadness and have shown trauma reactions. Their eyesight is much sharper than humans (and they have night vision), their ears are twice as sensitive as ours, and they can smell a meal up to 20 miles away. But they are also threatened by habitat loss, human-animal conflict, hunting, illegal pet trade, traffic fatalities and exploitation, such as dancing bears and bear bile farms. Invest in a copy of Remembering Bears to raise money for conservation projects to protect bears. Each copy of Remembering Bears costs £45 GBP (about $50 USD) and copies can be ordered at www.rememberingwildlife.com.

Remembering Wildlife exists to raise awareness of the plight faced by wildlife, and to raise money to protect them. Famous supporters of the series include Russell Crowe, Michelle Pfeiffer, Chris Martin, Pierce Brosnan and many more. More information about Remembering Wildlife and the projects it has already funded can be found on their website.