The grizzly bear is vanishing so rapidly that without protection he is likely to become extinct. If there is good reason—and there is—for the protection of deer, elk, and the bighorn, there is every good reason why we should protect the grizzly. He is a destroyer of pests, he helps sustain a hunting-industry, he encourages many individuals to take mental relaxation and healthful exercise in the outdoors, he carries more popular and sustained interest than any other animal, and, in most respects, he is the greatest wild animal in the world. It will benefit the human race to perpetuate the grizzly, and to do this will require a few years of legal protection.
A close season for a period of years is needed. If there is an open season this should be restricted to two or three States, and it should be short. The number taken should be limited to one per person, unless a mother grizzly with cubs be killed, in which case the cubs also may be captured. The use of steel trap, deadfall, poison, spring gun, and dogs should be prohibited and the sale of hides forbidden.
Most big game has had some protection for years; the grizzly has had none. He is not a bad fellow, there is no just claim against him, but he has paid the penalty of being misunderstood. He has been classed as a menace and relentlessly pursued as though a dangerous criminal. Men follow him the year round, with guns, dogs, horses, traps, and poison. He is even trailed to the hibernating-den and slaughtered without any chance for his life.
Fear of bears and prejudice against them is all too often taught and developed in childhood. Mothers and nurses hush children by telling them, “Bears will get you if you’re not good.” People, however, are now learning that bears are not ferocious, that they do not eat human flesh, and that in the wilds the grizzly flees from man as though from a pestilence.
Mr. Pocock, in “A Man in the Open,” with quaint, satirical philosophy goes to the bottom of the grizzly question. He says:—
"The coarse treatment grizzlies gets from hunters makes them sort of bashful with any stranger. Ye see, b’ars yearns to man, same as the heathen does to their fool gods, whereas bullets, pizen, and deadfalls is sort of discouraging. Their sentiments gets mixed, they acts confused and naturally if they’re shot at they’ll get hostile, same as you and me. They is misunderstood and that’s how nobody has a kind word for grizzlies."
Grizzlies are walking mouse-traps. They are, like birds, destroyers of pests, and give us services of economic value. They are useful for what they eat; their food is made up in part of mice, rats, rabbits, ants, grasshoppers, and stray carcasses, and the remainder may be considered of little or no value to man.
A grizzly came down into a rancher’s meadow in southern Colorado and “rooted it up like a hog.” The owner was up in arms and one morning killed the invader. Curious as to what the grizzly could have been eating, he sent for a local butcher. His “insides” showed, among other things, the remains of thirty-four mice, one rat, and one rabbit.
Rarely does a grizzly kill cattle. This killing, when done, is by one grizzly. Perhaps ninety-nine out of every hundred grizzlies never kill any stock or big game. Then, too, when a grizzly kills cattle he usually makes a business of it, and if one should get the habit he could be specially disposed of. Protection to the grizzly would not be at the expense of live stock or big game.
During rambles in the mountains through the years I have investigated more than fourteen cases in which the grizzly was charged with killing cattle. In a number of instances there was not a trace of a grizzly near the carcass. There were traces of other animals, but the guilty one could not be determined. There were eleven carcasses that had been visited by grizzlies; six of these animals had been killed by lions, one by poisonous plants, one by wolves, two by stones that rolled from a land-slip. In the eleventh case neither the carcass nor its surroundings gave any conclusive evidence for determining the cause of the cow’s death. The carcass had been fed upon by coyotes, wolves, lions, and both black and grizzly bears. But what killed the cow? It might have been lightning or disease, a wolf or a lion, or possibly a hunter. Many hunters are not up on natural history and shoot at the first object that moves. The only evidence against the grizzly was entirely circumstantial; he had eaten a part of the carcass.