Jason Bittel wants you to love America’s wildlife like he does

Many scientists and nature writers will tell you not to think of animals as if they're human. Animals have different minds than we do, they'd say, and it's worth keeping some emotional distance to avoid getting too attached.

Jason Bittel (A&S '10G), however, knows what team he's on.

"If all things were equal, none of these animals would need our help. But we've kind of messed things up," he said. "So, my thumb is on the scale, and I think that's okay."

The Pitt alum's latest effort to move the needle is his new book "Grizzled," an ode to the forgotten and maligned fauna of the U.S. - or as he describes in his introduction, a pump-up speech for opossums and a power ballad for ants. In it, Bittel swaps the dry descriptions of a field guide for essays that bounce between playful, contemplative and full of weird facts.

To pick one Pitt-related tidbit: Did you know that mountain lions (also known as panthers) are the biggest cats that purr? You may never see Roc the same way again after reading one of Bittel's essays, just like the you might look differently at the deer in Schenley Park or those giant flocks of crows by the Cathedral.

"The whole premise of this book is that every animal has some sort of epic poem lying within, and it's up to me to find it and figure out how to communicate it," Bittel said.

Bittel grew up playing in the Southwestern Pennsylvania woods, but high school discouraged him from pursuing science. It was during college and through his experience in Pitt's Creative Writing MFA program that he found a way to return.

"I sort of fell backwards into science writing," Bittel said. "I grinded away for a number of years writing anything I could get my hands on. As the years went by, I was writing more and more about animals, and it really became my beat."

Bittel's writing found a home in National Geographic, the New York Times, Popular Science and more, along with four children's books. In 2016, he began putting together the book that would become "Grizzled" and spent another decade developing it. Many of us can rattle off facts about exotic animals like elephants or penguins, but Bittel saw a need to give the same spotlight to nature that's a little less glamorous and a lot closer to home.

"I've always thought it was wild that we don't know a whole lot about the animals all around us that we maybe take for granted as background noise," he said.

The result is a guide that gives fierce symbols of national pride like bald eagles the same respect as our more reputationally challenged neighbors - such as the hellbender, a reclusive giant salamander alternately known as the "snot otter" or "old lasagna sides" on account of its mucus-y, wrinkly skin.

Hellbenders, like each of the 50 animals featured in "Grizzled," have had their habitats disrupted by humans, a narrative that Bittel weaves throughout the book. As much as the essays are power ballads, they're also calls for understanding and respect.

And let no one say Bittel doesn't walk the walk. While writing the book, his writing shed hosted a nest of yellowjackets that would come crawling in through the lights. Refusing to kill them, he found himself in a monthslong game of catch-and-release.

"By late summer a yellowjacket nest can have thousands and thousands of workers, and so I had hundreds of yellowjackets in my shed," Bittel said. "I was never stung, but the droning, the constant buzzing - it was mind-numbing."

Bittel knew that yellowjackets are valuable pollinators and pest-control experts. And he also learned an interesting fact when talking to a researcher for the book: As the weather cools, a yellowjacket colony entirely dies off save for the queen, who departs and burrows in the ground until the spring. As long as he could wait it out, he could evict the colony without resorting to killing.

Winter came, Bittel sealed the holes, and he hasn't had a yellowjacket problem since. After reading "Grizzled," Bittel hopes that you too might have a little more understanding for our animal neighbors - and hopefully, you'll act a little more neighborly toward whatever's living in your local park, your backyard or even your shed.

"Most of us don't have all day to sit around and read scientific papers about porcupines," he said. "But I do, and so my career has been talking to the people who have devoted their lives to these animals, taking the best bits and translating them for the public in a way that is hopefully informative, but also entertaining."

Bittel will read from and discuss "Grizzled" at White Whale Bookstore in Pittsburgh's Bloomfield neighborhood on March 6 at 7 p.m..

Photography courtesy of Jessica Bittel