America's 56 national parks draw visitors not just for their scenery, but for their wildlife. Millions of people have hoped for a grizzly sighting at Yellowstone or watched the evening bat flight at Carlsbad Caverns, spied dolphins at Channel Islands or visited prairie dog towns in the Badlands.

Now wildlife lovers can learn more about these residents with Mammals of the National Parks. SIUC forestry professor John Burde and zoology professor George Feldhamer teamed up to write the book, published recently by Johns Hopkins University Press.

In the first half of the book, Burde profiles the history, geography, and vegetation of each park, along with the kinds of mammals that live there and where and when visitors are most likely to spy them.

In the second half, Feldhamer describes the looks, lifestyle, and ecological status of the types of mammals found on park lands, from manatees to peccaries, lynxes to wild horses. More than 270 mammalian species live in the parks, including 44 different species of bats and around 200 species of rodents.

Yosemite and the Grand Canyon have the most mammalian diversity—about 90 species each, thanks to diverse ecosystems within each park. By contrast, Hawai'i's Haleakala Park has only one native mammal (a bat species), but is threatened with ecological catastrophe from introduced mammals such as rats and feral pigs.

The book is also a call to action. Its subtitle, "Conserving America's Wildlife and Parklands," is backed up by a discussion of conservation concerns for each park and group of mammals.

Burde and Feldhamer did several years of background research for the project, which both of them have called "a labor of love."

—Marilyn Davis