SOURCE: A review of The Lost Grizzlies: A Search for Survivors in the Wilderness of Colorado, in Western American Literature, Vol. 31, No. 2, Summer, 1996, pp. 162–63.

In the following excerpt, Branch praises The Lost Grizzlies as an appealing narrative which explores both sorrow and optimism in the battle to conserve American wildlife.

In The Lost Grizzlies, his ninth book, Rick Bass filters the bear story through a very different sensibility. Bass’s more literary version of the tale is distinguished by his appealing, characteristic blend of idiosyncratic humor and lyrical intensity. The book’s humor centers on the legendary Doug Peacock, whose remarkable passion and eccentricity blossom beneath the author’s appreciative gaze. Calling his friend “the ultimate indicator species,” Bass suggests that a world too tame to sustain the divine madness of a Peacock is a world too tame indeed. The Lost Grizzlies reckons the value of big wilderness...