Chronicling the caribou-vs.-oil controversy

A wildlife biologist spent part of 2003 observing a migrating of a herd of caribou in the Alaskan wilderness. The biologist, Karsten Heuer, has now turned her experiences into a  book, "Being Caribou: Five Months on Foot With an Arctic Herd."

In "Being Caribou" (Milkweed Editions: 240 pp., $15 paper), Heuer makes a case against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge with a gripping, cinematic tale of following the refuge's herd of 120,000 bulls, cows and just-born calves on a 900-mile migration across the tundra.

Kristina Lindgren, an assistant editor in Book Review, writes of "Being Caribou" in Sunday's Times:

     "You can smell the scat, feel the icy slush in minus-35-degree weather and hear the thundering hoofs, the bleats of newborn calves sucked into frigid whirlpools and washed downstream to waiting grizzlies, wolves, hawks and other predators."

The full review here.

-- Francisco Vara-Orta

Photo: Al Seib/Los Angeles Times