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Post by brobear on Mar 28, 2017 8:45:14 GMT -5
www.discovery.com/tv-shows/great-bear-stakeout/about-grizzlies/test-of-skill/ A Test of Skill In the days before California became part of the Union, grizzlies roamed the land in such abundant numbers that the predominantly Spanish inhabitants had difficulty keeping their cattle safe from bear attacks. While most lived in fear of the great bears, a few actually tracked the bears with the intent to capture - not to kill. These men called themselves "vaqueros" and they were masters at handling ropes and horses. A team of skilled vaqueros, working together, could successfully capture a grizzly bear without wounding it. The trick to this dangerous feat was to get the bear out in the open. A bear coaxed from its refuge in the rocks or its shelter in the bushes had usually passed from annoyance to fully developed rage, making it an even more fearsome adversary. Under these circumstances, a mounted vaquero would launch an ox-hide lasso at the grizzly and rope it around the neck or paws, all the while controlling and calming his horse. Once roped around the bear, the lasso would be immediately jerked in order to lay the grizzly flat. The other vaqueros then roped its paws and legs, taking great care to avoid injury. With that accomplished, the four horses would strain at the ropes to stretch the grizzly out. In this position, the men were somehow able to hogtie the grizzly while tightening a noose around its neck, cutting off the air supply. Once all four legs were tied together, a rope was wrapped around the grizzly's muzzle to prevent it from biting and the noose was finally removed. This was, at least in theory, how the capture of a grizzly bear proceeded. Not a creature to go without a fight, the grizzly frequently fled with ropes in tow or attacked the men and their horses. A single slip in concentration could mean a vaquero's death. It may seem strange that men would risk their lives in such a fashion, but it was often done for money or to protect valuable livestock (though certainly some vaqueros simply enjoyed the thrill). In most instances, the captured bear was destined for the arena. There, on fiesta day, the animal was tethered to a post by a steel chain. As the crowd cheered wildly, a Spanish bull with sawed-off horns would lope into the arena and the battle would begin. Bear-and-bull fights were extremely popular before the middle of the 19th century. Grizzlies usually had the upper hand in one-on-one matches, but they were often forced to battle multiple bulls at once or several bulls in a row. Sometimes they were allowed to roam freely within the enclosure, but even then, death was nearly always the final outcome of this brutal and inhumane event.
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Post by brobear on Mar 28, 2017 8:47:14 GMT -5
www.discovery.com/tv-shows/great-bear-stakeout/about-grizzlies/grizzly-companions/ Grizzly Companions In the mountains of California - not far from where the vaqueros banded together to capture bears for the arena - an entrepreneurial hunter named James Capen Adams set about capturing wild animals for an entirely different purpose. On one occasion he came across a grizzly bear mother and her two cubs. He shot the mother and brought the two cubs back home to add to his growing collection of wildlife, which he kept in cages beside a log cabin. Adams took a special liking to the female cub and decided to train her. He named her "Lady Washington" and she became his constant companion, accompanying him on hunting trips, carrying a pack on her back, sharing his food and even defending him against bears and other predators. In winter, Lady Washington slept in Adams' cabin while the other animals - grizzlies, wolves, panthers and more - endured the cold weather in wooden cages. In 1854, Adams shot another mother with cubs and adopted one of them as a second companion. Named "Ben Franklin," the young bear eventually joined Lady Washington as one of Adams' loyal companions. The two stuck by him as he killed and collected dozens of grizzly bears in the mountains and foothills of California. Finally satisfied with his collection, Adams left the wilderness to display his assortment of animals throughout California. He eventually settled down in San Francisco in 1856. There he set up a wildlife exhibit in his basement and called it "The Mountaineer Museum." The museum would be the eventual meeting place of Adams and Theodore Hittel, who would go on to write Adams' life story, and Charles Nahl, who provided illustrations of the man and his grizzlies. In 1860, Adams took his animal collection to New York City. The exhibition, which he dubbed the "California Menagerie," was the toast of Broadway for several weeks. P.T. Barnum took notice and invited Adams to join his circus for the summer. Adams passed away later that year, possibly from head trauma caused by a rough and tumble life working with grizzlies and other wild animals. That same year, Hittell published The Adventures of James Capen Adams, Mountaineer and Grizzly Bear Hunter of California. The book and exhibit may have opened the eyes of Americans to the grizzly bear as more than simply a vicious, killing beast. But no amount of good publicity could spare the grizzlies from the ravages of Manifest Destiny...
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Post by brobear on Mar 28, 2017 8:49:35 GMT -5
www.discovery.com/tv-shows/great-bear-stakeout/about-grizzlies/make-room-for-cattle/ Make Room for Cattle Manifest Destiny - the widely held belief that the United States was divinely ordained by God to expand across the continent to the Pacific Ocean - was the ultimate cause of the grizzly's destruction in the American West. The heaviest blow was dealt by the cattle industry. Grizzlies began preying on cattle as early as the 16th century when conquistadors traveling north from Mexico brought them into the region as food. Over time, cattle escaped into the wilderness and feral populations emerged. Ample and easy to catch, cattle became a prime food source for grizzlies in the Southwest, and they made little distinction between wild herds and domestic stock. As the United States expanded westward, cattle inevitably followed and quickly became the valuable commodity of big business. As early as the late 1830s, large tracts of prime grizzly country were being converted to pasture. Inevitably, some of the bears began preying on livestock, and cattlemen were quick to retaliate. With the emergence of large caliber rifles and eventually repeating rifles, grizzly hunting became far less dangerous than it had been in the past. Some ranchers took it upon themselves to shoot the bears, while many others offered bounties for their deaths. Trained hunting dogs were frequently used to track grizzlies and then keep them at bay while hunters moved in for the kill. Other times an animal carcass was used as bait - when a hungry grizzly appeared, it was quickly shot. Steel traps also came into frequent use, but grizzlies soon became wary of them, and those that were trapped would often chew their toes off to get away. Nevertheless, many were caught and killed this way. Aside from guns and steel, the most popular method for killing grizzlies was to poison them. Strychnine applied to an animal carcass almost certainly delivered a fatal blow to a scavenging grizzly bear. The campaign to exterminate the grizzly was supported by local and state governments, which offered bounties for their pelts. Eventually the federal government got involved, sending predatory control men into the wilderness to hunt the bears down. In time, no grizzly was safe in the American West. Grizzly bears got the hint pretty quickly. Once the killing started in earnest, they quit the open meadows and prairies where they once roamed and retreated into the mountains. Even there they were hunted down and killed, despite the fact that most of them learned to avoid men and very few of those left continued to prey on cattle. By the end of the 19th century, grizzly bears had been pushed into the hinterlands of the West. Tucked away in remote forests and high mountains, their dwindling numbers had become less threatening to owners of livestock. Still, the hunting continued...
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Post by brobear on Mar 28, 2017 8:51:30 GMT -5
www.discovery.com/tv-shows/great-bear-stakeout/about-grizzlies/teddy-bears/ Teddy’s Bears Roosevelt Shows Mercy Read more Roosevelt Shows Mercy A famous political cartoon by Clifford Berryman shows President Theodore Roosevelt refusing to shoot a helpless grizzly bear... DCL Teddy's Bears As the Old West began to fade into the past, trophy hunters arrived from the East to join ranchers, bounty hunters and predatory control men in pursuit of grizzlies. But, fortunately for grizzlies, this new type of hunter saw the value in conserving these giant carnivores, which were viewed primarily as pests by the others. They fought for game laws and other conservation measures, including the establishment of game reserves to prevent grizzlies from disappearing. Theodore Roosevelt, who would become President of the United States in 1901, was perhaps the most outspoken of these early trophy hunters. From the time he shot his first grizzly in his early twenties, Roosevelt was driven to understand their character and varied dispositions, becoming an amateur naturalist in the process. He was among the first to note that grizzlies of the late 19th century were "much better aware of the death-dealing power of men." The passage, taken from Hunting Trips of a Ranchman (1885), continues, "as a consequence, are much less fierce than was the case with their forefathers, who so unhesitatingly attacked the early Western travelers and explorers." At one point, Roosevelt tried to get the spelling of "grizzly" changed to "grisly," suggesting that "the name of this bear has reference to its character, and not its color." He conceded, however, that perhaps the spelling "grizzly" was "too well established to be now changed." Many believe that the teddy bear was inspired by President Roosevelt's refusal to shoot a tied and exhausted black bear during a hunting trip in 1902. In some small way, the stuffed toys may have helped a new generation of Americans see grizzlies in a more positive light than their predecessors, who generally regarded them as agricultural pests and menaces to mankind. Nevertheless, despite the efforts of Teddy Roosevelt and other trophy hunters of the late 19th and early 20th century - and in some ways because of them - grizzly numbers continued to decline...
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Post by brobear on Mar 28, 2017 8:54:02 GMT -5
www.discovery.com/tv-shows/great-bear-stakeout/about-grizzlies/final-assault/ The Final Assault By the turn of the 20th century, grizzly bears had grown so rare in the United States that, according to zoologist William F. Hornaday in his book Camp-fires in the Canadian Rockies (1906), it was "impossible for a sportsman to go out and kill one, no matter where he hunts, and no matter how much money he spends." Less than a century earlier, explorers reported seeing up to 200 grizzlies in a single day. By the early 1900s, the most dedicated, intrepid explorer could find nothing in areas where grizzlies were once abundant. California, for instance, boasted the largest grizzly population in the nation in 1850, when it achieved statehood. Twenty-five years later, the numbers had been reduced so much that hardly any grizzlies still existed in the state. The last California grizzly was killed in August 1922. Ironically, in exterminating grizzlies, Californians were exterminating their very state symbol; the grizzly had been adopted as the official symbol in 1846. The extermination of grizzlies in the Great Plains was completed before any record of their numbers could be compiled. Texas and North Dakota exterminated their grizzlies before the end of the 19th century - 1890 and 1897 respectively. States like Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Oregon saw their last grizzlies killed in the 1920s and early 1930s. By the 1950s, the grizzly bear population in the United States had plummeted to between 800 and 900 animals occupying only two percent of the grizzly's former range. Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Washington were the only states left with grizzly bear populations, and of those only Idaho had passed a law protecting grizzly bears from hunting. No longer viewed as a serious threat to people, the grizzly bear lost its "monster" persona. Books like Harold McCracken's The Beast That Walks Like Man: The Story of the Grizzly Bear (1955), on which much of this chronology is based, helped establish grizzly bears as symbols of the fading American wilderness. Sadly, this interest in grizzly bears came too late to save much of the population.
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Post by brobear on Mar 28, 2017 8:55:49 GMT -5
www.discovery.com/tv-shows/great-bear-stakeout/about-grizzlies/grizzly-today/ The Grizzly Today grizzly-today-large Heading for the Unknown DCL The Grizzly Today Grizzly bear numbers in the lower 48 states haven't changed dramatically since the early part of the 20th century. According to most estimates there are between 1,000 and 1,500 bears left in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Washington, still occupying a mere 2 percent of their former range. Grizzlies have been protected under the Endangered Species Act since 1975, when they were listed as a threatened species. In 1983, the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee - an alliance of state and federal agencies - was formed to protect the animal in an area called the Grizzly Bear Recovery Zone, which includes six ecosystems. The North Cascades ecosystem, located in Washington, currently has less than 20 grizzlies. The Selkirk and Cabinet-Yaak ecosystems, located in Washington, Idaho and Montana, have 40 to 50 grizzlies between them. An estimated 765 grizzlies live in Montana's Northern Continental Divide ecosystem and more than 580 in the Yellowstone ecosystem of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. A study published in 2009 showed that the genetic health of grizzlies in northwest Montana is good. The sixth recovery zone, the Selway-Bitterroot ecosystem of Idaho and Montana, has 15,000 acres of wilderness but not a single grizzly. A plan to reintroduce grizzlies to this area as a nonessential experimental population was approved in November 2000 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but was withdrawn the following year. The reasoning was that recovery efforts and resources should be concentrated on existing grizzly bear populations before new ones are established. Grizzlies are doing fairly well in Canada and Alaska, though their numbers are not at historic levels. Canada has between 15,000 and 25,000 grizzlies remaining, and most of these are found in British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon Territory. Alaska is home to the largest grizzly bear population in North America with some 25,000 to 40,000 living in the state.
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Post by brobear on Apr 20, 2017 10:41:24 GMT -5
Monarch... www.scpr.org/programs/take-two/2012/10/24/28981/monarch-the-sad-amazing-story-of-the-bear-on-calif/ Monarch: The sad, amazing story of the bear on California's state flag We might be biased — but California has one of the best state flags, no? The bold star on the left, the green patch of land… and — of course — the California grizzly bear, our state animal, forever trudging along. But why a bear? Where did it come from? Does it have a name? KPCC's Kevin Ferguson asked those same questions. The study of flags — their history, meanings, and symbols — is a little known practice known as vexillology, named after the Latin word for flag, vexillum. To learn more about the bear on our state flag, I called the North American Vexillological Association (NAVA) and talked with William Trinkle. He's a former director of NAVA and runs the Bear Flag Museum. He said the flag’s story goes back to 1846, when California was still a territory of Mexico. "Once upon a time there were a number of Americans who had come to what was then Mexican California," said Trinkle. "There was at that point in time the possibility of a war between the United States and Mexico." And one particular group of American settlers, based in Northern California, took matters into their own hands. They banded together and captured the city of Sonoma from the Mexican Government. The Republic of California was formed and it needed a flag. On their hastily made banner was an uneven red star, a red line and a crudely drawn animal that in theory was supposed to be a grizzly bear. "These were farmers and ranchers and adventurers, and they did not have great artistic skill," said Trinkle. "The grizzly bear at that point in time was extraordinarily common. It was described as you couldn't ride on a horse for a mile without seeing ten grizzly bears. And they could be dangerous. So the idea was to put an emblem on the flag that would scare the Mexican authorities, that these people were serious." Serious as they were, the flag flew for just under a month. Once the settlers found out the U.S. had declared war with Mexico, they swapped out the bear flag for the stars and stripes. In 1850, California was declared a state. As the population grew, the number of California Grizzlies declined. Habitat destruction, gold miners and hunting brought the bear to the brink of extinction. But in 1889, an up-and-coming newspaper mogul decided to bring the bear back into the spotlight. William Randolph Hearst, in one his very first publicity stunts, wanted to bring a live California Grizzly Bear to San Francisco. Hearst sent Allen Kelly, one of his own journalists, to find a grizzly. "Kelly had no hunting experience, so it was an odd choice," said Susan Snyder, a librarian and author of the book Bear in Mind: The California Grizzly. "But he was game and went down to Ventura County, because that was one of the last strongholds of wild grizzlies in California." It took Kelly months to find his grizzly: he hired help, fired help, had several close calls. Finally he found the assistance he needed in a group of hired Mexican hunters. Once he had the bear, it was time for the glamour. Hearst put the bear on display in Golden Gate Park and named him Monarch. At more than 1,200 pounds, Monarch was the largest bear ever held captive. "It's interesting, because when he first arrived, Hearst reported that 20,000 people showed up for his arrival," said Snyder. "But then, five years later… we have photographs in the library of him later on. He looks very despondent, and he's in his concrete cage. And I guess not very many people came to see him at all, he was kind of passé." Monarch died in 1911. His skeleton was taken to the Berkeley Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, his pelt stuffed and put on display at the California Academy of Sciences. That same year, though, California at last adopted a state flag. Taking a cue from the Sonoma revolt in 1846, the state again decided to make the California Grizzly the flag's focal point. Only this time they wanted a bear that actually looked like a bear. Illustrators used the recently deceased Monarch as the model for the bear on our state flag. In San Francisco is one of the world's only experts on Monarch: Psychologist Rodney Karr. He runs a website called the Monarch Bear Institute and, for Karr, Monarch is more than just a bear. "The story of my own developing relationship with him is very magical and strange," said Karr. Karr first learned of the bear and his story in the early 90s. He was depressed and taking walks in Golden Gate park to deal with it — he said he was seeking a spiritual connection. "I wandered through the National AIDS Memorial Grove and up to this hill next to it," said Karr. "Which I subsequently was told by the gardners in Golden Gate Park is Monarch Bear Hill." The more he learned about Monarch, the more fascinated he became. Now, to get the message out, he's working on an eight-part documentary about Monarch and his history in California, complete with interviews of researchers, authors and footage of druid rituals. After weeks of research, I needed to meet to the bear. He’s still at Golden Gate Park—but now he’s at the California Academy of Sciences. Moe Flannery, the Collections Manager for birds and mammals met me in the Academy’s basement, where he’s housed. After 100 years on display, it's clear that Monarch has seen better days. Monarch was originally a very dark grizzly, almost black. Today, the sun has faded and bleached his fur into a medium brown. Walking around the stuffed bear, Flannery points to Monarch's face. "We assume he had fur on his nose when he was first mounted," she said. "We think that over the years when he was first on display, people were able to touch him. Flannery says that now the mission is to preserve as much of the bear as they possibly can. She and the Academy hope to show Monarch again someday. Rodney Karr, the operator of the Monarch Bear Institute says that Monarch is still a potent symbol. "We need heroes," he said. "And we need a connection to how powerful nature is, and how beautiful it is. This bear really epitomizes that. And also epitomizes the dark and the light. I mean, here's the last bear and he was kept in a cage for 22 years. I also saw some writing from Allen Kelly, who caught the bear, that much later he'd go visit the bear. And that he'd regretted and would apologize to the bear. He felt badly for that the bear went through. I think that's a beautiful thing."
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Post by brobear on Apr 20, 2017 10:45:02 GMT -5
www.monarchbear.org/monarch/ The Monarch Bear "Monarch lived for 22 years in captivity during this transition from flesh and fur commercial coup to mythical beast - embodying the heart and soul of Californians." Bear in Mind - The California Grizzly *Note: If you search online for lion vs grizzly information, you are likely to discover a story ( a fabrication created by lion fan-boys ) that says that the African lion named Parnell fought and killed Monarch. However, his true story is well known and documented. Monarch never in his life fought a lion.
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Post by brobear on Apr 23, 2017 3:23:42 GMT -5
Notorious Grizzly Bears by W.P. Hubbard - 1960 - Introduction. Only a few authentic books and articles have been written portraying the grizzly bear the noble animal that he is. Their authors have been men who hunted, photographed, and, in most cases, made a study of the great bear for years, or were writers who sought out reliable information. No words can speak too highly for their work and effort in rectifying the slanderous charges which have been made intentionally or unintentionally against the grizzly. On the other hand, considerable fiction has been written about them, very little of which is factual or accurately describes their true character and habits. In the early days the majority of grizzly stories did nothing but create conflicting opinion; these, in time, caused the grizzly to suffer almost to the point of extinction.
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Post by brobear on Apr 23, 2017 3:37:23 GMT -5
Continued.... My father, the late Charles Price Hubbard, began collecting data on outlaw grizzlies in 1914. After his passing in 1925, I took up the work. Some of the tales heard were true, others highly exaggerated or purely mythological. Over a period of thirty-four years, I have been able to gain full, authentic accounts of the lives of but a few livestock-killing grizzlies. Three of these grizzlies were what are sometimes referred to as color freaks, or pintos. Eighteen others were outlaw livestock killers with bounties on their heads, but the variation in the accounts of their lives and deeds were so numerous and conflicting that it was impossible to authenticate them.
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Post by brobear on Apr 23, 2017 3:57:48 GMT -5
Continued.... Along with my father's notes, additional information about the outlaw grizzlies usually came to me from talks with old-time stockmen. After that came painstaking searching of available aged livestock association records, and talks with persons mentioned in the records as having knowledge of the bears under investigation. Leads and information were also acquired from old-time bear hunters, reliable books, state libraries, early day newspaper accounts and historical documents. From this mass of information, although a few inaccuracies may have unknowingly crept in, I have been able to set forth in this book the detailed histories of six stock-killing grizzlies that roamed the mountains and range lands of the western United States.
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Post by brobear on Apr 23, 2017 4:57:29 GMT -5
Continued.... However grizzlies were not all the same. With the continuous influx of civilization on his range, the grizzly's food supply dwindled. These bears, like all other wild animals, followed God's given law of self preservation. Therefore, with the passing of much of his natural food supply, and the coming of domestic stock, the grizzly turned to the latter for food on rare occasions. A few of them became persistent livestock killers, or "outlaws," in the eyes of some stockmen. What actually brought that name upon them, as well as the assumed belief that all grizzlies were wanton destroyers of domestic stock because of the acts of a few of their kind, is the fact they hurt "man's pocketbook" when they killed his domestic animals. Man does not call a robin a wanton killer when a robin takes a worm from the ground for food. A grizzly, or any other wild animal, is no more a wanton killer, when it slays a domestic or wild animal to satisfy its hunger so that it can continue its life's existence, than is a robin, when it pulls a worm from the ground for its food to continue its life's existence. Think it over! -W.P. Hubbard.
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Post by brobear on Apr 23, 2017 5:53:38 GMT -5
Notorious Grizzly Bears - W.P. Hubbard - 1960 - The Grizzly Bears - Early History. The English- speaking history of the grizzly bear begins on April 29, 1805, on the banks of the upper Missouri River near the mouth of the Yellowstone River, in what is now the state of Montana. On this day, Captain Meriwether Lewis, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, met one of these animals for the first time. Prior to that meeting, rumors of a huge bear living in the wilderness west of the Mississippi River, differing from the bears known in the eastern states, came back to civilization with returning explorers and trappers, but there was no authentic information about them. Lewis and Clark were the first to enter in their journals full accounts of their various encounters with these animals, and to make inquiries about them among the Indians of the regions where they were found. About forty-five years after their expedition their field notes were still the chief information pertaining to the grizzly.
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Post by brobear on Apr 23, 2017 6:29:59 GMT -5
Continued.... The coming of livestock, continually being hunted by settlers, professional hunters, and trappers, continuous improvement of firearms, and lack of adequate game laws to protect them are the chief factors contributing to the grizzlies' rapid destruction. Before long they were eliminated from much of their once vast domain, and by 1915 they were nearing extinction.
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Post by brobear on Apr 26, 2017 3:53:06 GMT -5
Notorious Grizzly Bears - 1960 - Grizzly Bears of Montana. TWO TOES 1902-1906. Myres saw Two Toes' hide after it had been made into an open-mouthed rug. The whitish hairs on his glossy coat marked him as more than 15 years old, possibly 20. He weighed all of 1100 pounds. His original teeth were in the open-mouthed head. Most of them were broken off. A few were missing, probably the result of his encounter with Rick's trap. The cattlemen were glad to give Dale the $575 reward. Two Toes was a persistent killer. If he had slain only an occasional critter for food the cattlemen would not have cared so much. But he was a hunter who often deliberately stalked his prey and after destroying it frequently never ate a mouthful. He had killed an estimated $8,750 in livestock, all types included, belonging to association members.
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Post by brobear on Apr 26, 2017 4:15:31 GMT -5
Notorious Grizzly Bears - 1960 - Grizzly Bears of Montana. Other Montana Grizzlies. Montana, perhaps had more bona fide stock-killing grizzlies of note than any other western state. Some of them raided for a couple of years, some only a few months. Old Montana papers and Stockmen's Association records mention their escapades time after time. The most prominent, other than Two Toes, were Peg Leg and Old Roughhouse. Peg Leg, in his early life, lost his right forepaw in an encounter with a dead-fall trap. He was a cattle killer and ranged the foothills of the Rockies along the Teton River, a little northwest of Choteau, Montana. After a four-year killing spree, a Flathead Indian, Long Spear, killed him in 1911. Old Roughhouse was primarily a sheep killer, although he destroyed cattle several times. He roamed in the foothills and valleys between the Tobacco Root and Madison Ranges east of Virginia City in southwestern Montana. He gained his name by the way he crippled sheep in the flocks he invaded. He was killed by a sheepherder in 1901, after harassing flocks for three years. Before migrating to the valley, he killed sheep in the mountains northwest of Dillon, in Beaverhead County, seventy miles from the Tobacco Root Range.
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Post by brobear on Apr 26, 2017 11:39:36 GMT -5
Notorious Grizzly Bears - 1960 - Grizzly Bears of Wyoming. Bloody Paws 1889-1892. Among the outlaw grizzlies, Bloody Paws seems to hold the record for the number of domestic animals killed. During three years his accounted escapades totaled five hundred and seventy head of domestic animals destroyed, not to mention several head of wild game. The value of the stock, mostly sheep, charged to his destruction was estimated at $7,850. His boldness, and the fact that he caused the death of two hundred and sixty three "woolies" in a single raid, were the chief factors accounting for his notoriety. Sheep-men placed rewards totalling $375 on his head. ....Bloody Paws was estimated to have been twenty years old and to have weighed close to 1,000 pounds. All through life the grizzly was referred to, and thought to be, a male. Upon the bear's death, it was discovered to be a female. She was never seen or known to have been with cubs, and was undoubtedly barren.
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Post by brobear on Apr 26, 2017 12:53:45 GMT -5
Continued.... In addition to the famous Bloody Paws, three other Wyoming livestock-killing grizzlies had a price on their heads. Although much detail of their activities is lacking, a few accurate accounts were available. Southwest of the Bloody Paws domain lay the Owl Creek Mountains, with its eastern jut known as Blue Ridge. It is a short range and in 1893 was scarcely traveled. Small outlaw bands of Shoshone, Crow, and Arapaho Indians, together with some white rustler gangs, prowled the territory. In that district a light brown-colored grizzly appeared. A southern cowhand named him Old Rebel. For five years he roamed and killed cattle at will. He was intensely active in the region around the headwaters of the South Fork of Mud Creek. A reward of $275 induced a couple of discharged soldiers to hunt him down and collect the cash.
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Post by brobear on Apr 26, 2017 13:40:58 GMT -5
Continued.... East of the Teton National Forest, a brownish-buff marked grizzly, named The Butcher or Butch, spent the years between 1896 and 1900 raiding horses, cattle, and sheep belonging to outfits in the valley and foothills between the Gros Ventre Range and Wind River Mountains. The bear was hunted unsuccessfully many times by professional hunters. It slew $4500 worth of livestock. A $375 reward on the bear's head was never paid. The Bear disappeared in the fall of 1900 and was not seen again.
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Post by brobear on Apr 26, 2017 15:45:07 GMT -5
Bighorn Whitey was a giant, grayish, almost white grizzly. From 1904 to 1908, he raided livestock on a stretch of the Big Horn Mountains near the head of Buffalo Creek, northwest of Badwater, Wyoming. He was killed by a Birmington Railroad survey crew who shared the $200 reward given for his destruction.
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