Les Beletsky is a professional wildlife biologist and university zoology teacher. Prior to taking up writing wildlife guides, he conducted many years of field research into the ecology and behavior of birds, along the way publishing many scientific reports and writing two books. An avid ecotraveller, he visits the Americas, Africa, and Australia often. His basic view of life is that he’d rather be travelling and visiting new places and exotic locales than be doing anything else. Costa Rica, he now says, is his favorite spot on the planet. Currently he makes his home in Seattle, Washington, USA.

"Moving from the urban to the wild, a new breed of guidebooks focuses on flora and fauna (and not in the way Harold Gatty did). The Ecotraveller's Wildlife Guides grew out of its nature-loving author's frustration that 'I could not locate a single book to take along on a trip that would help me identify all the types of animals that really interested me.' So Beletsky wrote one that did. Combining natural history -lore, habits, best places to spot each creature- with pointers on specific sites and background on the state of conservation in the region today."