CAMDEN — On Tuesday, January 30, at 6:30 p.m., the Camden Public Library, in partnership with the Coastal Mountains Land Trust, will host wildlife biologist and author Ron Joseph as he recounts the highlights of his storied career detailed in his recently published book Bald Eagles, Bear Cubs, and Hermit Bill: Memories of a Wildlife Biologist. Novelist Paul Doiron will join him to discuss his latest work, Dead Man’s Wake. 

In Bald Eagles, Bear Cubs, and Hermit Bill: Memories of a Wildlife Biologist, Joseph shares his stories of growing up in rural Maine, working as a wildlife biologist, and meeting Mainers like retired dairy farmers Ruth and Martin French, of Dover-Foxcroft, who repurposed their barn’s empty cow stalls into a wildlife rehabilitation center. The couple specialized in rescuing orphaned bear cubs, providing solitary cubs with teddy bears as temporary surrogate litter mates while biologists scrambled to find sow bears willing to adopt the orphans.

The book includes humorous stories, such as one about the time he had to count piles of deer dung on designated mile-long lines and encountered a woman who bluntly asked, “So you went to college for that?”

Other stories border on the absurd, including one of an influential legislator who pressured Joseph to spray concentrated wolf urine on 30 miles of Route 201 in a harebrained waste of taxpayer money to supposedly reduce moose-vehicle collisions. Many of the book’s stories have previously been published in Down East, Maine Boats Homes and Harbors, Bangor Daily News, Moosehead Messenger, PenBay Pilot, and elsewhere.

Belgrade based bookstore Oliver and Friends recently named Joseph and Doiron’s works their number one nonfiction and fiction bestsellers respectively, according to Coastal Mountains Land Trust, in a news release.

This is a hybrid program and will take place in the Camden Public Library’s Picker Room and on Zoom. Please visit the "What's Happening" adults events calendar at librarycamden.org to register for a Zoom link to attend this webinar. No registration is needed for in-person attendance.

Coastal Mountains Land Trust has worked since 1986 to permanently conserve land to benefit the natural and human communities of the western Penobscot Bay. The Land Trust manages over 13,000 acres and maintains over 55 miles of permanent trails for public access.