"The Beast in the Clouds" | Reviewed by William Winkler

As children Ted and Kermit, president Theodore Roosevelt’s two eldest sons, delighted in playing “Hunt the Bear” with their father. The president would hide himself in a closet or under a bed in one of the Summer White House’s many rooms and, as their father made growling noises, the two children would search for him.

In 1929, a decade after Teddy Roosevelts’ death, his two older sons planned a bear hunt of a different sort. Intrigued by reports of a mythical giant black and white bear, whose existence was supported only by a single skin purchased by a missionary to China, the brothers planned to travel to western China and the Tibetan plateau in search of an animal many felt to be non-existent.

Nathalia Holt’s most recent book, “The Beast in the Clouds,” details the brothers’ search for what they felt would be a creature equal in majesty and ferocity to the all-white polar bear. Sponsored by Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, they set out for a world neither of them had visited, although their previous hunting experience had taken them to Africa and the Amazon basin.

Accompanied by other trained scientists and biologists, the Roosevelts encountered barriers unlike any they had previously experienced. They suffered mountain sickness in the lofty Himalayas and malaria in the tropical lowlands. The Kuomintang government, under Chiang Kai-Shek, was active in uniting China by brutally suppressing the regional warlords who dominated western China; the expedition was only partially successful in escaping the turmoil of this action. The multiple isolated languages and cultures of the region made communication with locals difficult, even for the most capable of interpreters.

The Roosevelts’ persistence eventually led them to a giant panda, which they were able to shoot, skin, and prepare for shipment to the museum in Chicago, where it went on exhibit in 1931.

The expedition and acquisition of the panda changed the Roosevelts. What they had felt to be a vicious and ferocious beast turned out to be shy, avoiding contact with humans as well as members of its own species. They came to realize their father’s belief that human intervention was the only way to preserve endangered species was not accurate. China’s active work to preserve the animal has shown to be a model for the protection and preservation of other species.

Holt provides a brief follow up to the lives of the brothers. Kermit, plagued by financial difficulties and alcoholism, took his own life in 1943. Ted, the only brigadier general to land in Normandy on D-Day, died of heart disease weeks after the invasion.

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