AHC Earth Day Event: THE SHEPHERD AND THE BEAR with Brooks Kohli

Join us Wednesday, April 22nd at 7:00 p.m. to celebrate Earth Day with a beautiful documentary that tells the story of two species whose lives are under threat of extinction in the French Pyrenees — the brown bear and the shepherd.

Admission is FREE – Tickets are required

This event will include a pre-show talk by Dr. Brooks Kohli of the OU Biological Sciences Department

About the film

In this immersive film by British filmmaker Max Keegan, we are transported to the mountains of southern France and the rugged environment where brown bears were hunted to extinction a quarter of a century ago, largely because of the perception that the large, predominantly vegetarian predators are lethal to the herds of sheep who graze the mountainsides. Through the efforts of conservationists, however, the bears have been slowly re-introduced to the area — against the wishes of the few shepherds who still ply their trade in the region. And so, we meet Yves, an aging sheep-herder who is struggling to train a young woman about his traditional way of life before he becomes too elderly to maintain his flock. Yves is staunchly against the return of the bears because he sees them as an primary threat to his livelihood.

Gorgeously-shot and insightful, The Shepherd and The Bear is an unforgettable film that reveals how the conflicting needs of Nature and Humankind can shape the past, present, and future of a land and its people.

About the Speaker

Brooks grew up in Circleville, Ohio, the home of the Pumpkin Show, and earned a B.S. in Biological Sciences from the Honors Tutorial College at Ohio University. After graduating, he moved to various corners of the country for graduate school, work as a wildlife, fisheries, and conservation technician, and academic positions before ending up back in Athens in 2022 as a faculty member in the Honors Tutorial College. He joined the Biological Sciences Department in January 2024. His favorite place in the world is Great Basin National Park, Nevada, where he did much of the field work for his dissertation on small mammal ecology, biogeography, and conservation. His research interests are centered on the diversity, distribution, monitoring, and conservation of mammals, especially small mammals like rodents and shrews.