Bobcats Before Breakfast

Bobcats Before Breakfast is the firsthand account of a twentieth century naturalist, guide, hunter, trapper, woodsman who spent more than forty years living with and off the land. With grit and zeal this self-taught naturalist gathered knowledge about how animals live and shared his findings leading hikes and survival classes at the Harris Center for Conservation Education in Hancock, NH. Kulish’s daily routine was to rise before dawn, get out into the woods, and track, observe, and record his findings on deer, otters, beaver, wildcats—all before breakfast. “I’m still not sure whether I learned to understand people because they are so much like wild animals, or wild animals because they are so much like people,” wrote Kulish.

As a young man, John Kulish went to the woods because “the books I wanted to read were all in nature’s library.” John and his wife, Aino, raised their family in the New Hampshire woods, and when the time came to hang up his traps and guns, he became one of the nation’s foremost outdoor education instructors at Boston University’s year-round Sargent Camp near Peterborough, New Hampshire, conducting courses in nature lore, animals, birds, conservation, and all-season survival.