Theodore N. Bailey, Ph.D. was born in his grandfather’s house at the edge of a small coal mining town in the hills of southeastern Ohio. The rural landscape of his boyhood home later influenced his decision to become a wildlife biologist and a conservationist. He attended a one-room school, enlisted in the U. S. Air Force, served three years overseas, earned B.S. and M.S. degrees from Ohio State University and a Ph.D. from the University of Idaho. He majored in zoology and was a fishery biologist, but then eventually began some of the earliest research on then little-investigated species: striped skunks, bobcats, wolverines, and threatened African leopards. He is also the author of The African Leopard: Ecology and Behavior of a Solitary Felid (1993). He later headed the biology division on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for twenty-one years before his retirement. His reflection on the natural ecology of Leatherwood Creek has been enhanced with the inclusion of his wildlife and nature photography. He died of cancer in January 2021, leaving the publication of this book in his final will.
