An evening with Kim Frank, an award-winning writer and photographer who will discuss her new book, "Elephants in the Hourglass: A Journey of Reckoning and Hope Along the Himalaya." Delving deep into an intricate web of unlikely heroes, power struggles, and living legends, the book takes readers on an extraordinary journey of discovery. Kim blends personal narrative, vivid descriptions, and meticulous research as she illuminates the ways we seek to survive on our rapidly changing planet. It is a moving and adventure-filled tale of one woman’s quest for the truth about endangered Asian elephants and their evolving relationship with humans. Kim is a female explorer who found her life completely changed as she was drawn deeper and deeper into the plight of the remarkable Asian elephant. Once she learned about the intense, multi-faceted, but little-known conflict between humans and elephants in North India, she was unable to rest until she had learned more and told this story to the outside world. This was a place and topic totally unknown to her. After a fraught divorce, she felt a need to recapture her own voice and expand her world, and so she set out to the Himalaya with the goal of ...

In partnership with the Sawtooth Interpretive & Historical Association (SIHA) as they kick off their summer Sawtooth Forum and Lecture Series in Ketchum. Join The Community Library for a talk with wildlife biologist Maurice Hornocker about his work, "Cougars on the Cliff: One Man's Pioneering Quest to Understand the Mythical Mountain Lion." North America's biggest cat was once killed for bounty dollars, slaughtered with impunity and driven toward extinction. But today's cat of intrigue, despite our lingering fears and misconceptions, has returned to much of its native range in the western United States and gained respect as a predator integral and necessary to wild ecosystems. This turnaround was triggered by Maurice Hornocker and his research that tracked lions following scent hounds and cat tracks in the snow — before telemetry was available. Hornocker was first to learn that mountain lions living in stable populations limit their own numbers through territoriality and a concept he called “mutual avoidance.” This insight flew in the face of long-held beliefs that cougars were prolific and wanton killers that needed to be controlled as vermin. Thanks to Hornocker’s work, today cougars can be found throughout the West and have even started to reclaim their place ...