Historical Grizzly

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Grizzlies and Grizzled Old Men by Mike Lapinski - 1976.

I seen me a big grizzly back in the 1950s. Ol' Jack Horning and me were elk hunting up in the North Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River. We come around a corner on an old logging road and there the ol' boy stood, not more than 30 yards away. Oh, he was a big brute! He was a perfect silver-tip. He huffed and pounced stiff-legged at us and popped his teeth. Jack was gonna shoot him, but I told him not to. We just back off and let that ol' bear wander into the brush. It's nice to know there's a few animals out there that ain't afraid of man.
- Lester Smith ... Red Ives Ranger Station, North Idaho.

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Continued...
Unfortunately, not all men, before or after Lester Smith, have shared his opinion. The first recorded meeting between a white man and a grizzly bear ended typically - with a dead bear, as noted in "The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition". The following decades didn't get any better for the great bear. Settlers and ranchers moved into grizzly country and depleted bear' natural food sources, forcing them to take an occasional cow. As a result stockmen and state governments, along with the federal government, embarked on a century of sustaining eradication - using guns, traps, poison, and fear - to push the grizzly to the verge of extinction in the West.
Once totaling somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000, only a few hundred bears survived in the most remote, fugged mountainous areas. And still the killing continued. Whenever a grizzly bear was spotted, hunters, houndsmen, and trappers descended upon the area in a macabre show of bravado to lay claim to killing the last grizzly. With bear numbers so low and public sentiments so overwhelmingly against the grizzly, some naturalists went so far as to declare the bear virtually extinct in the lower forty-eight states. Only a miracle would save the great bear.

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Continued...
Yet in the midst of this unprecedented carnage, winds of change began to blow. Daring men stepped forward and questioned the accepted public opinion that the only good bear was a dead bear. Through the printed word and through their actions and deeds, these men spread a new gospel - that the universally vilified, feared, and loathed grizzly bear was instead a noble beast worthier of our admiration than a bullet through its heart.
This change in men's hearts took root in a most unexpected source. Grizzly Adams, a brutal bear trapper and sideshow exhibitor of California's giant grizzlies in the mid-nineteenth century, came to love the great beasts he once tortured. He took to sleeping with them and voiced regret for his misdeeds before he died. Then the great bear hunter, William Wright, who authored a book about his sordid exploits, wrote of his grudging admiration, and regret, for all the grizzlies he'd killed. Our great sportsman/conservationist president Theodore Roosevelt not only wrote about the lordly presence of the grizzly, but he also staved off its extermination by creating and enforcing laws to protect the last few great bears in our national parks.

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Continued...
Long before professional biologists developed a strategy for proper human coexistence with the grizzly, French Canadian Bud Cheff learned from his Salish Indian friends while roaming Montana's wild Mission Mountains in the 1920s, "You no bother'um Sumka ( Salish for "grizzly" ), Sumka no bother'um you." Bud's life among the last free-roaming Indians and his acceptance of the grizzly as a treasured animal, became a gospel that he preached - not only about the majesty of the bear but also the nobleness of Indians.

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Continued...
No one brought the plight of the grizzly bear to the public eye more vividly than Frank and John Craighead, whose pioneering bear studies in Yellowstone were broadcast into our living rooms via black-and-white television in the 1950s. We watched with bated breath as these irrepressible brothers scrambled back to their pickup mere seconds ahead of an angry grizzly that had abruptly recovered from sedation. But the Craighead brothers weren't in it merely for entertainment. Their pioneering use of radio collars to study and track grizzly bears ushered in today's scientific era of bear management.
These men, plus a number of others - some famous, some not - stood in the gap and courageously halted the fusillade of bullets, traps, poison, and poor policy in their circles of influence to staunch the flow of innocent blood and bring the grizzly back from the brink of extinction.

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The big sow grizzly hurried down the forested trail but paused long enough to throw her snout skyward, sniffing loudly. The sweet odor of decaying flesh once again reached her nostrils and set her belly to grumbling. Since emerging from hibernation two weeks ago, she had eaten only the same dry grass and bark from a few saplings.
The tantalizing odor made her want to gallop forward, but her three cubs were hanging back, play-fighting and snooping under rocks and logs. At any other time, she would have encouraged their play and foraging. Now, she uttered a deep grunt of impatience. The startled cubs scrambled close to her.
At a bend in the trail beside a creek, the odor became overpowering, and the sow loped ahead to a pile of freash-cut logs. At the base of the log pile she found the hide and guts of a deer. The sow stepped forward, mouth agape to devour the food. Suddenly she felt a sharp pain in her right leg. For a moment, she stared down, confused by the strange thing fastened to her paw. Then she smelled the steel.
A furious bellow ripped through the air, knocking the frightened cubs backward. The sow lunged to escape the massive no. 5 Newhouse bear trap, but the heavy device stayed securely fastened to her paw, even though she dragged two eight-foot logs attached to the trap with heavy chains some 50 feet down the trail. Soon the logs became entangled in a thicket of small trees.
The sow turned her fury on the trap and bit it so hard that her upper canine teeth were broke. The pain, at first bothersome, became maddening as the trap bit deeper into her flesh with every frantic lunge.
For three hours the sow was a whirling dervish of bellowing, fighting, roaring, tearing fury until at last she lay back, exhausted. The cubs timidly approached her to nurse, but the sow pushed them away and returned to biting at the trap. By sundown, her lower canines and all of her molars were cracked or broken.
The next day was a torturous blur for the sow, by now almost mad with pain and thirst, and the pitiful wailing of her hungry frightened cubs. Then came night, then day, and night and day. The pain eventually was replaced by a numbness in the paw, which had swelled to twice its normal size as a mixture of blood and lymph oozed from deep cuts made by the steel jaws.
On the morning of the fourt day, the sow was startled awake. She heard and smelled something. She reared up to her full height of seven feet, the big bear trap dangling from her right paw, and spotted the man cautiously approaching. The sow laid back her ears and lunged, but the trap held her fast.

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Continued...
In his book "The Lochsa Story" Bud Moore reported:
Trapper Wes Fales laid the sights of his rifle between the sow's eyes. The rifle blast echoed through the narrow canyon, and the sow collapsed. As Wes cautiously approached the inert bear, three small cubs hopped onto a large spruce log and hesitantly approached their mother. They sniffed the sow and began to wail, looking first at the man, then at their dead mother.
Fale's first thought was that this was his lucky day. Besides the bounty and the price of the sow's hide, he'd make good money if he could capture one of the cubs. He tore off his wool jacket and dove at a cub, managing to latch onto a tiny rear leg, then rolled the crying, biting animal in his shirt and stuffed it into his backpack. He hurriedly peeled the hide off the sow and left the oozing carcass and two other cubs behind as he trudged down the trail. All in all, it had been a good day, with more bear traps yet to check. But the cub wailed pitifully throughout the journey, and Wes Fales felt a pang of remorse - a dangerous emotion for a man determined to do his part to rid that corner of Eastern Idaho and Western Montana of every grizzly bear.

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The predator problem was approached with the same zeal. The grizzly bear, because it was big and ferocious when provoked, was considered a threat to the livelihood and personal safety of every man, woman, and child, and consequently deemed evil. The grizzly bear had to go. Infrequent bear attacks on humans were headlined in newspapers, along with atrocious stories of bears killing scores of cattle and sheep. With the taming of the Indian, it didn't take much prodding for the predominantly farming and ranching populace to adopt a policy of eradication toward the grizzly.
The near-extermination of an estimated 100 million buffalo in the West in little more than two decades by market hunters is well documented. Actually, it was relatively simple, due mostly to the herding nature of these dim-witted beasts the habit of which was restricted to open grasslands. The big predators such as the mountain lion, gray wolf, and the grizzly were a different matter. The lion by nature is a secretive animal and seldom seen, even when plentiful. The wolf proved cunning and quickly learned to stay out of sight during daylight hours. And the great bear was difficult to find because it lived mostly in dense cover and rugged mountains, and it possessed none of the dim-wittedness of the buffalo.

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Continued...
However, there was a vast difference between the mountain lion and wolf, and the grizzly, in the mind of the average settler. The mountain lion seldom stood its ground when confronted by a human. The wolf garnered even less respect and came to be considered nothing more than vermin, a large version of the lowly coyote, which killed by night, then slunk off back to its hole come daylight and cringed like a coward when cornered. The grizzly, on the other hand, proved its fearsomeness over and over again when cornered, often fighting ferociously to its last breath against hopeless odds. And not just fighting, but sometimes even winning, tearing the life from some brave or foolhardy human soul who had made the fatal mistake of pursuing a grizzly.

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Continued...
The demise of the grizzly would not be as easily accomplish as the wolf. To eradicate an animal as powerful, dangerous, and reclusive as the grizzly would take a determined effort by dedicated men who used American ingenuity, technology, and resourcefulness to reach their goal. One other thing was needed: to vilify the great bear to the point where the only good bear was a dead bear.

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Continued...
Looking at the metropolis of Los Angeles today with its population of 50 million, it seems laughable to call this sprawling concrete jungle prime grizzly habitat. Yet, in its natural state it was a fertile land that produced a plethora of native fruits, nuts, and berries, and plenty of grass to feed thousands of elk, deer, and antelope, and a variety of lesser animals. It is estimated that upwards of 10,000 grizzlies roamed southern California alone when the Spanish explorers appeared in the early 1800s. Not only was the California grizzly abundant, it also grew to massive proportions due to the abundance of food. Specimens topping 1,000 pounds were not unusual, and a few tipped the scales at 1,500 pounds.

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www.bearbiology.com/fileadmin/tpl/Downloads/URSUS/Vol_2/Kai_Curry-Lindahl_74-83.pdf

The Brown Bear (Ursus arctos) in Europe:
decline, present distribution, biology and
ecology
KAI CURRY-LINDAHL
UNESCO Field Science Office for Africn P.O. Box 30592,Nairobi, Kenya.
INTRODUCTION
Due to commitments in Africa I was unable to accept the invitation to attend
the Symposium in November 1970 and to contribute a paper on the brown bear
(Ursus arctos) in Europe. Later, I was again asked to write such a paper for
the Symposium Proceedings. In doing so, I have had the privilege of previously
reading and commenting on Ian McTaggart Cowan's paper, published in this
volume, on the status and conservation of the Ursidae of the World, before preparing
my own contribution, but even so it has been impossible to avoid some
slight overlapping of subject matter.
PAST DISTRIBUTION
In the past the range of the brown bear covered almost the entire coniferous,
mixed and deciduous forest zones of Europe. Probably the subalpine birch
forests of Scandinavia, Finland and the Urals were included in its past range
as nowadays. Although the brown bear seasonally visits the tundras and arctic
heaths above the timberline for feeding purposes, it has never in Europe been
a true inhabitant of treeless habitats. This feature seems to distinguish it
ecologically from the conspecific North American grizzly (cf. Cowan in this
volume).
HTSTORY OF DECLINE

The history of local extinctions of the brown bear in Europe is geographically
and chronologically as follows:
Denmark: Extinct probably already about 5000 years ago.
Great Britain: Became probably extinct in the 10th century and had certainly
vanished by the beginning of the 11th century. It is uncertain whether it has
ever existed in Ireland.
Eastern Germany (Silesia): Extinct in 1770.
Western Germany (Bavaria): Extinct in 1836.
Switzerland: Extinct in 1904. Occasional visitor, observed in 1914.
French Alps: Extinct in 1937.

PRESENT DISTRIBUTION
Although the brown bear has thus disappeared from the greater part of its
range west of the USSR, it still occurs in most European countries. The destruction
of forests and heavy hunting pressure have obliged it to retreat to
forest-clad mountains in various parts of Europe, where the populations are
isolated. There are at least 13 and probably as many as 19 or 20 insular
brown bear populations in Europe. Several of these pockets hold very small
populations, the future of which is far from being bright. The main populations
live in the USSR, Romania and Yugoslavia.
Information about the size of the European populations varies in accuracy.
Therefore, the following data are only indicative.
In Spain the brown bear is to be found as two isolated populations, one in the
Cantabrian Mountains, west of the Pyrenees, and the second in the Pyrenees.
According to Couturier (1954) there were about 40 animals in the Cantabrians
and about 60 in the Spanish Pyrenees. However, the latter population is connected
to the French one in the same mountains. There are about 70 brown
bears in the French Pyrenees and that is all that remains of the species in
France.
In Italy the brown bear still exists in two areas, the Abruzzo National Park
in the Apennines and between Adamello and Brenta in the Dolomites. In 1922
there were only 30 or so brown bears in the Abruzzo National Park, which
was established the following year. In 1935 more than 200 animals were reported
from the area, a figure repeated by Couturier in 1954 for the whole of
Italy. This estimate was probably much too high, for in 1964 the population
in the Abruzzo National Park was found to be only about 60 bears (CurryLindahl
1964).l In 1971, Mr Franco Zunino and Dr. Stephen Herrero worked
in this National Park and estimated the population there at 70-100 brown bears
(Herrero iz lift.).
Of the large European carnivores-the bear, the wolf and the lynx--only the
bear has survived in the Alps with about 8-10 animals in the Italian Dolomites.
(However, the lynx has recently been reintroduced in Switzerland.)
In Yugoslavia, brown bears live in isolated mountains of both the northern
and southern parts of the country. Couturier (1954) estimated the population
at more than 700, a number that 16 years later seems to have increased considerably:
about 2000 (Isakovic 1970). Also in Albania there are 'numerous'
brown bears (Hainard 1961), but no figures are available.

In Greece the population was estimated at about 115 individuals in the 1950's
(Couturier 1954), but this seems to be too low, because in Macedonia alone
there were about 400 bears in 1959 (Hainard 1961) and, in addition, there is
also a population in the Pindus Range of northern Greece (Curry-Lindahl 1964).
From Bulgaria about 1,300 brown bears were reported by Couturier (1954).
Romania has a fairly sizable population. According to Professor Valeriu Puscariu
(verbal comm. 1971) there are more than 3,000 bears, chiefly living in
the Carpathians.
In Hungary there were three to six brown bears in the 1950's (Couturier 1954),
1 The IUCN Mission to the Park in the same year accepted a figure of about
100 for for the Abruzzi as a whole, based mainly on sightings by forest guards
-Ed.

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Continued....
but recent information is lacking. From Czechoslovakia the same author reports
70 to 80 bears and from Poland only about six. These figures were probably
too low, because at present there are about 230 bears in the Tatra
National Parks alone, located in the northern Carpathians of both Czechoslovakia
and Poland (Curry-Lindahl & Harroy in press). In fact, the brown
bear is distributed almost throughout the Carpathians.
Hence, the Balkan and Carpathian populations at the present time consist of
at least 5,230 bears if only figures of the 1960's for Yugoslavia, Romania,
Czechoslovakia and Poland are included. If data of the 1950's for Greece and
Bulgaria are added, there are altogether about 7,000 animals in the region.
In Scandinavia there are between 25 and 50 brown bears in Norway (Myrberget
1969) and about 300 in Sweden (Curry-Lindahl 1970); some estimates in 1968
reached a total of about 400 (Haglund 1968) but this figure is somewhat uncertain.
In Finland the population seems to be larger than in Scandinavia (cf.
Pulliainen 1971) judging from the number of bears shot annually in the former
country. However, recently (1971) the conservation journal Suomen Luonto
stated that the number of bears in Finland has been established at 150.
Obviously it is in the USSR that the bulk of the European brown bear population
is to be found. In the Baltic countries the bear now appears only in Esthonia.
In southern USSR it occurs as far west and south as White Russia along the
Oka River; to Rjazan near Moscow, and farther east in Mordow and Mari to
the Urals. Thus it occurs farther south in western USSR than in the east
(Curry-Lindahl 1964). Cowan (this volume) summarizes the data from various
parts of the USSR territory. The total population in the European part seems
to be about 10, 000-11, 000 animals.
The grand total of European brown bear populations therefore seems to be
approximately 17, 700-18,000 animals. This is about 8,000 animals less than
the estimated North American brown bear population (Cowan, this volume).

THE BROWN BEAR IN SWEDEN AS AN EXAMPLE OF RETREAT AND EXPANSION
DURING 370 YEARS.
The oldest records of the brown bear in Sweden date back about 8,000 years.
Fig. 1 shows the decrease of the brown bear in Sweden, indicated by the southern
boundaries of its range in each century from 1600 onwards. It is unknown when,
before historical times, the species became exterminated in the southernmost
provinces but there are subfossil records from deposits contemporary with
human presence.
Between 1800 and 1900 the brown bear decreased tremendously, retreating
from Southern Sweden to the northern parts of the country. By 1900 it was,
except for two minor enclaves in Central Sweden, almost entirely restricted
to Swedish Lapland.
During the first decades of the 20th century the brown bear decreased further.
The remaining populations were forced upwards into the mountainous regions
of Swedish Lapland, where they found refuge in remote valleys. When the
species was near extinction in 1925 it became totally protected. As a result
of the protection, a certain stabilization of the population seems to have followed
locally in the upper Vindel Valley of southern Swedish Lapland and in
the mountains of Lule Lappmark of northern Swedish Lapland.

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Continued....
Simultaneously the isolated southern populations in central Sweden increased
and spread southwards and eastwards, recolonizing ancient areas as indicated
by the map.
In 1943 a two months annual open season was introduced in Sweden. It has
continued ever since and in some provinces it has even been extended in time.
The hunting pressure on bears living in the upper valleys of Swedish Lapland,
where they had been left in peace for 18 years, led to a gradual evacuation of
these areas and the reappearance of bears in the lower coniferous forests,
where they more easily found shelter and food. Some bears were recorded as
far eastwards as Niemisel and Boden near the Baltic coast.
In 1957 a census of the brown bear in Sweden gave a figure of 252 animals.
BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY
Only a few features in the biology and ecology of the brown bear in Europe
will be commented upon here.
All over its European range the brown bear is an inhabitant of forests, although
it makes visits above the timberline in spring to feed on carrion (in northern
Europe particularly the carcasses of reindeer Rangifer tarandus which have
succumbed during the winter) and in late summer and autumn to feed on
berries. The optimal habitats of the bear are coniferous, mixed and deciduous
forests, with a rich under-vegetation of various vascular plants and whether
located in lowlands or in mountains. Scandinavian subalpine birch forests in
some valleys with favourable edaphic conditions and sun exposure, are characterized
by a luxurious vegetation, which offers the bear optimal habitats. Also
the birchwood steppes close to the southern Ural Mountains in the USSR seem
to be appreciated by bears as a biotope. However, in Europe most bears are
found in the coniferous forests despite the fact that deciduous woods seem
more suitable for them. This is probably due to the fact that man has occupied
deciduous forests more intensively than he has coniferous ones.
If left in peace, the brown bear will stay within a certain large territory; if
often disturbed, it may roam over tremendous areas. Usually it lives alone,
although the females remain with their young up to a year and a half. During
the summer it is chiefly active during the afternoons and the evenings. When
it has scented or heard something unusual, it takes a bipedal position in order
to facilitate vision and scent.
Just before or just after the first snow has fallen in the autumn, the brown bear
retreats to a den, which has been prepared in advance. The den is in a natural
cave, a dug cavity in the earth of a slope, an anthill (of Formica rufa), under a
fallen tree, under low overhanging branches, between or under larger roots
and under overhanging rocks. The den is lined with branches of spruce, moss,
grass, leaves or bark, which form a bed, but there are also dens without lining.
The same den can be used during several years.
There is doubtless a small drop of temperature in the brown bear during
hibernation, although it does not prevent a winter sleeping bear from becoming
immediately active when disturbed. Lobachev (1951) in the USSR found that
respiration and heart beat slowed down and that body temperature falls to
29-34°C. Folk (in this volume) gives support to previously recorded minima
of 31-37.9"C in the case of the black bear (ursus americanus); for the North
American brown bear or grizzly (U. arctos horridilis) he mentions a drop in
heart rate during dormancy similar to that recorded by him for the black
bear, namely from 40 to about 10 beats per minute. Changes of this order
certainly seem remarkably pronounced in relation to the observed alertness
of hibernating European brown bears if disturbed.
The European brown bear is omnivorous, but feeds chiefly on plants. In summer
it eats mostly grass, herbs, fruit, berries and roots. In the Scandinavian
mountains it is especially fond of the great angelica (Angelica archangelica)
and alpine lettuce (Lactuca alpina). The brown bear also relishes ants, honey,
beeswax, insect larvae, small rodents, fish and carrion. Only exceptionally
do brown bears acquire a taste for fresh meat and attack larger mammals
such as moose Alces alces, reindeer, red deer Cervus elaphus and livestock.
The reproduction of the brown bear in Europe usually has the following pattern.
The species is promiscuous. Copulation takes place in May-June. Up to 16
copulations have been observed during the same day. The rutting period of
females is 10-30 days and the gestation period 6-7 months with delayed implantation.
The 1-3, seldom 4, cubs are born in the den in December-January.
Their eyes open after 4-5 weeks and they are regularly suckled up to JuneJuly,
sometimes August, and irregularly as late as up to an age of one and
a half years. Usually the female has cubs every second year. Sexual maturity
is reached at an age of 21h-4 years, females normally when 2 years old, males
when 3 years old. Maximum longevity in captivity is 47 years (Skansen
Zoological Garden, Stockholm).

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Continued....
THE BROWN BEAR, LIVESTOCK AND MAN
The European brown bear is not dangerous to man unless it is attacked and
wounded or its young are threatened or believed to be so. Hence, it does not
share the reputation for aggressiveness of the brown bears of Hokkaido and
the grizzlies of North America.
Although the brown bear lives in many areas where there are livestock grazing
extensively in the same habitats, it does not normally kill domestic animals.
There are observations of brown bears feeding on meadows where cattle were
grazing without any reactions from either the bear or the herbivores. A sizable
bear population haunts the Caucasus Mountains--often in the middle of the sheepbreeding
regions-apparently without coming into conflict with human interests.
In one place in the Caucasus shepherds pointed out to me a cave in a mountainside
where a bear was resting; neither the sheep grazing all around nor the
shepherds seemed unduly concerned. In Swedish Lapland domestic reindeer
and bears meet frequently. The former are normally undisturbed when a bear
is in the vincinity, but when the reindeer females are giving birth or are accompanied
by newborn calves, they are alert to the presence of bears. In
Swedish Lapland some bears-apparently the same individuals and perhaps
their offspring-regularly every spring visit areas where reindeer females
give birth. Many calves are stillborn or succumb just after birth, so this may
be the prime reason for the bear's interest during a season when vegetable
food on which the bear likes to feed is almost non-existent.
Also elsewhere in Europe bears in some areas in late winter or early spring
are forced to feed on carrion or live mammals. In such cases sheep and other
domestic animals may fall victim to them, but in general such cases are quite
exceptional.

CONSERVATION
The brown bear is not endangered by extinction in Europe, but its range is
shrinking due to habitat alterations. Hunting pressure has ceased and the
species is at present totally or seasonally protected in most countries. In
many areas it is showing a gradual adaptation to cultivated habitats. It is
certainly able to live side by side with man without causing serious conflicts.

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REFERENCES
COUTURIER, M. A. J. 1954. L 'ours brun. Grenoble.
COWAN, I. McT. 1972. The Status and Conservation of Bears (Ursidae) of
the World-1970. This volume.
CURRY-LINDAHL, K. 1957. Nggra Djurarters utbredning. Djurgeografi in
Atlas over Svevige. Stockholm.
-1964. Euvope. A Natuval Histovy. 300 pp. New York.
-1970. Large mammals in Europe. New Scientist 46: 372-375.
CURRY-LINDAHL, K. & HARROY, J.-P. 1971. National Parks of the World.
I. In press. New York.
FOLK, G. E., Jr., FOLK, M. A. & MINOR, J. J. 1972. Physiological condition
of three species of bears in winter dens. This volume.
HAGLUND, B. 1968. De stora rovdjurens vintervanor 11. Viltrevy 5 (6):
217-361.
HAINARD, R. 1961. hlammz@.tpes sauvages d 'Eu~ope. I. 322 pp.
Neuchstel.
ISAKOVIC, I. 1970. Game management in Yugoslavia. J. Wildl. Mgmt.
34 (4): 800-812.
LOBACHEV, S. V. 1951. Okhota nu medvedya. Moscow, Voenizdat.
MYRBERGET, S. 1969. The Norwegian population of brown bear (Uvsus
avctos L.) Papers of the Norwegian State Game Research Institute.
2 ser. 29: 21.
PULLIAINEN, E. 1971. The number of bear (Ursus avctos) and lynx
(Lynx lynx) killed in Finland in 1969. Suonzen Riista, 23: 147-151.

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The Grizzly, Our Greatest Wild Animal by Enos Abijah Mills.
In April, 1904, "Old Mose," an outlaw grizzly, was killed on Black Mountain, Colorado. For thirty-five years he had kept up his cattle-killing depredations. During this time he was often seen and constantly hunted, and numerous attempts were made to trap him. His home territory was about seventy-five miles in diameter and lay across the Continental Divide. He regularly killed cattle, horses, sheep, and hogs in this territory, and, so far as known, did not leave this region even briefly. Two missing toes on his left hind foot were the means of identifying his track.
Old Mose killed at least five men and eight hundred cattle, together with dozens of colts and other live stock. His damage must have exceeded thirty thousand dollars. Often he smashed the fences that were in his way. He had a fiendish habit of slipping up on campers or prospectors, then rushing into their camp with a roar, and he evidently enjoyed the stampedes thus caused. On these occasions he made no attempt to attack. Although he slaughtered stock in excess, he never went out and attacked people. The five men whom he killed were men who had cornered him and were attempting to kill him.
Rarely do grizzlies kill cattle or big game. Old Mose was an exception. None of the other grizzlies in the surrounding mountains killed live stock. During his last years Old Mose was followed at a distance by a "cinnamon" bear of large size. This grizzly had nothing to do with the killing, never associated with Old Mose, but simply fed on the abundance which he left behind.
A heavy price on his head led the most skillful hunters and trappers to try for Old Mose. Three of the best hunters were killed by him. All trapping schemes failed; so, too, did attempts to poison. Finally he was cornered by a pack of dogs, and the hunter ended his career with the eighth shot.
Though Old Mose was forty or more years of age when killed, his teeth were sound, his fur was in good condition, and he had every appearance of being in excellent health. He was apparently good for several years more of vigorous life.

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Grizzlies and Grizzled Old Men by Mike Lapinski - 2006.
Much of the West was still uninhabited when professional California grizzly hunters were notching scores of kills. Jedediah Smith, famous scout and trapper, was the first American to note the presence of grizzly bears in California. While beaver trapping in the Sacramento Valley in 1828 he wrote, "I saw a Grizzly Bear and shot at him but did not kill him." John Work and a hunting party in the Sacramento Valley killed forty-five grizzlies between November 1832 and May 1833. George Nidever killed forty-five bears near San Louis Obispo in 1837, and Nidever claimed to have killed about 200 in previous years. William Gordon of Yolo County killed nearly fifty bears in one year in the 1840s. And three hunters in the Tejon Pass region in 1854 are said to have killed 150 bears in less than one year.
Farmers and ranchers paid these men to kill bears on their lands, and the bear meat was sold to hungry immigrants and later to gold miners. Then a curious demand sent these men to the hills to bring grizzly bears back, not dead, but alive. ( bear/bull fights ).

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Continued...
Astonishingly, the poison campaign continued. PARC riders in 1924 spread more than 100,000 poison baits over cooperating ranches in New Mexico alone. The next year, 160,000 baits were spread over 75,000 square miles. Not only was PARC distributing poison and setting out bait stations on carcasses, but "approximately" 155,000 poison baits were given free of charge to cooperators in the predator war. In Colorado PARC men poisoned, shot, and trapped 5,148 bears. A total of 30 million acres were treated with strychnine throughout the West.
In 1928 the U.S. Forest Service estimated only about twenty-eight grizzlies in national forests in New Mexico, ten in Arizona, and two in Colorado. That year only one bear was killed by PARC. That year marked the beginning of the mop-up program to eliminate the last of the grizzlies. It was not unusual for a PARC hunter to waste up to two weeks to kill a lone grizzly hiding in some backcountry arroyo or mountain.

[brobear]

Continued...
Though strychnine was not used as liberally in the Northern Rockies and bordering states as it was farther south, sheep and cattle ranchers used it extensively in parts of the south and central portions of Idaho. Some ranchers in eastern Montana counties also used poison, often to kill off wolves, but if any wandering grizzlies also fell victim to it, so much the better.
PARC also penetrated Wyoming's seemingly vast wilderness and, with the help of strychnine-laced beef balls, managed to exterminate the great bear from all but the northwest corner of that state bordering Yellowstone National Park. Surplus bears that filtered down from the park were killed on site. Colonel William Pickett, a Civil War veteran, founded a ranch on the Greybull River near present-day Meeteetsie, Wyoming, where he killed scores of grizzlies from 1877 to 1904. One fall Pickett killed 19 grizzlies over carcasses he'd set out. And just south of Yellowstone Park in Cody, Wyoming, lived Ned Frost, a famous hunter and guide who claimed he was involved in 350 bear killings.