What should you do if you encounter a mountain lion when you’re hiking?
Make yourself look big and scary, loud noises will often scare them off. If one does attack you and you are not able to fight it, curl into a ball and protect your neck and face. Attacks from mountain lions are very rare and often happen as a case of mistaken identity.
What should you do if you come across an injured wild animal?
It’s always best to quickly alert your local wildlife rehabilitation center. These professionals will help you address the situation or will come to your and the animal’s aid. Never try to handle or interact with an injured wild animal as they are likely in pain and very scared. This can result in them biting or attacking you and causing injury to you or further injuring themselves. Calling for help from animal experts is always the right thing to do!
Do you consult with local wildlife experts on your adventures?
Yes. On almost every shoot we have experts who we work with. Getting the proper permissions for locations and permits to interact with animals is a very important aspect of the preproduction work we do.
What advice do you have for people who want to do what you do?
Anyone can start a YouTube channel, but it takes commitment to keep it going. When it comes to animals, the best place to start is school! Studying animals, their habitats, and their history is a great way to learn about the life around you. If you pursue a career working with animals, a great place to start is volunteering at wildlife rehabilitation centers. These centers are often nonprofits that can use all the help they can get when it comes to taking care of their animal residents. Get involved, be willing and ready to get your hands dirty, and certainly always express an excited love for animals and the work you aspire to do!
About Coyote:
Coyote Peterson travels the world with his team to document the animals that call our planet home. His YouTube channel, Brave Wilderness, boasts over 12 million subscribers and more than 2 billion views. He also loves to write, and you can find his books Brave Adventures: Wild Animals in a Wild World and The King of Sting online and in bookstores everywhere.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my amazing, smart, beautiful, and loyal Wild Rescuers readers and YouTube viewers. Every time I meet some of you at conventions and bookstores, I am completely blown away by how awesome each and every one of you are. You are the reason I get to play games, make videos, and write books every day, and I’m so thankful for your support.
Thank you, Mom, for taking me to Zion and Bryce Canyon National Park (where I first fell in love with the mesa biome), and for being the best brainstorm buddy, creative confidant, and petsitter anyone could ask for.
And thank you, Dad, for taking me camping in Shenandoah National Park, and for helping me so much with my business while I was writing this book.
To my Nan and Papa for giving me such wonderful memories of helping them around their farm. I can’t grow a potato or make jam in real life, but I’m an expert at it in Minecraft.
Thank you to all my friends, fellow Minecrafters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins who have shown up to my tour stops and cheered me on. I love you all.
Thank you to my editor, Sara Sargent. These books were written during two very tumultuous years in my life, and her understanding and grace helped me through some very tough months.
I feel like I don’t have the adequate words to properly thank Vivienne To for another book filled with the best illustrations any author could ask for. Getting to work with you has been a highlight of my career. Thank you again for taking such care with my characters, and turning my crazy ideas into reality.
Thank you, Jessie Gang. You are simply divine, and your positive energy is all over this book. I’m so grateful.
And thank you to Camille Kellogg, Meaghan Finnerty, Caitlin Garing, Paul Crichton, and all the other wonderful people at HarperCollins Children’s Books who I’ve worked with.
And to the amazing people who have been part of team StacyPlays this past year: Madeline Lansbury, Nathan Onandia, Tyler Focus, Madison Finlinson, Jacob Finlinson, Andy Rosenberg, Louis Mensinger, and Meg Campbell—I don’t deserve any of you. Thank you for all your help.
And, of course, I have to mention my little pack—Page, Molly, Polly, Milquetoast, and Pip. Page is very sick as I am writing this from my cabin to send the book to the printer, and I don’t know if she will be here when this book is published, but she will always be with me.
Page and Molly love you; go rescue a dog!
About the Author
Photo by Casey McFarland
STACY HINOJOSA, better known as StacyPlays on the internet, started playing Minecraft in 2012. She immediately fell in love with telling stories through video games and began posting them to YouTube. Her imaginative building series and fun-filled adventures with her wolf pack earned her a loyal audience of over 1.9 million subscribers. When she’s not visiting Minecraft biomes in real life around the world, Stacy splits her time between the mountains of northern Utah and the desert in southern Utah with her two dogs, Page and Molly, and her cats, Milquetoast and Pipsqueak (all rescued by her, of course).
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Wild Rescuers: Guardians of the Taiga
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Copyright
Photos here courtesy of StacyPlays
Photos here courtesy of Coyote Peterson
WILD RESCUERS: ESCAPE TO THE MESA. Text copyright © 2019 by Stacy Plays LLC. Interior illustrations copyright © 2019 by Vivienne To. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Cover art © 2019 by Vivienne To
Logo design by David Coulson
Cover design by Jessie Gang
Digital Edition APRIL 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-279642-4
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-279640-0 — ISBN 978-0-06-291500-9 (special ed)
1920212223PC/LSCH10987654321
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