The Grizzly, Our Greatest Wild Animal

by Enos A. Mills

The killing of wild life is not in my line. I am not a hunter. But in the hunting-industry the grizzly heads the list. The hunter will pay more for a shot at a grizzly than for a shot at any other, and often all other, big game. Hunters frequently spend from one thousand to many thousands of dollars in going after the grizzly. They will work harder and longer for a grizzly than for any other animal.

But the grizzly-hunting industry is coming to an end through decreasing numbers of grizzlies. A short time ago the “Saturday Evening Post” said: "The betting is a thousand to one that you will never kill a grizzly inside the United States. There are a few left but not many; and all are highly trained in suspiciousness and resourcefulness."

If the hunting of grizzlies is to continue, the grizzly must promptly have some protection. Mr. J. A. McGuire, editor of “Outdoor Life,” has been working for years to bring about legal protection and intelligent understanding of bears. At last it looks as though he would succeed. But much work is yet to be done before all States give bears proper protection, before bear natural histories are rewritten and bears are appreciated at their real, their high, worth. Writing as a hunter-naturalist, Mr. McGuire says:—

“When the grizzly bear shall have passed—and he is found in such lamentably small numbers now that his exit from our midst is but a question of years—there shall have disappeared from our mountains one of the sublimest specimens of animal life that exalts the western wilderness. As a sporting trophy, his hide stands at the top of the list of American wild animals—one which sportsmen from all over the world have come here to secure. Nowhere else in the world can the grizzly bear be found except in western North America, and we as sportsmen naturalists should see to it that his demise is not hastened and that his life shall be preserved to posterity.”

Shooting is not all there is to hunting. Hunters while hunting often take on a new lease of efficiency, even though they do not get the grizzly. Often, too, they make the intimate acquaintance of another hunter, or of a guide, and return with enlarged views into human nature; or they develop a new and worth-while outdoor interest. So that, considered solely for hunting purposes, the grizzly has both a commercial and a higher value.

Any one who sees a grizzly bear in his rugged mountain home or even in a National Park, which is a wilderness-land, will receive a lasting impression. It is the character of this animal that stands out. He is of heroic size and powerfully built, but he is at all times so dignified, and so wide-awake, that his individuality never fails to impress you. The splendid animal and the scene wherein he stood will often be recalled. Again and again you will wonder concerning him and his life, his neighbors, and his territory. The interest which you have received may lead you to revisit the wild, revivifying mountain-land in which he lives.

When the hunter ceased firing in the Yellowstone National Park, the grizzly bear was the first of the big wild animals to discover that it was safe to show himself. The wildest animal, extremely shy of being seen even at long range, he showed his superior intelligence, his strong character, in being the first to realize that times had changed and that man had ceased trying to kill the wild folks on sight. It took the other big animals a long time to learn that they were protected. Many of them relied on old experiences, and for years, on the approach of man, they ran for their lives.

National Parks are developing a friendly interest in grizzlies, and there is a growing appreciation of the grizzly’s true worth. But just at present this appreciation and this sentiment are not strong enough to protect the grizzly without the formal assistance of a grizzly-protection law.

During the past twenty-five years the grizzly population has enormously decreased. The grizzly is in danger of extermination. In California, where he was once numerous, he is now extinct. He has also gone from extensive areas in all the other Western States. In the areas where he still exists the population is in most places sparse.

It is doubtful if he is holding his own anywhere within the bounds of the United States, unless it be in Glacier National Park. The grizzly population of the Yellowstone National Park is variously estimated from fifty to one hundred. But each year numbers of cubs born inside the Park are trapped just outside of it, and old bears whose home is inside the Park are occasionally shot outside the boundary-line. It may be that the bears coming in from outside, a few of whom each year appear to move into the Park to live, may maintain the normal or possibly slightly increase the population; but this is doubtful. There are a few grizzlies in the Rocky Mountain National Park, perhaps a few in the Mount Rainier Park, and a number in four or five of the Canadian National Parks. Alaska is the grizzly country at present; but dozens of hunters are each year putting a check on its increase in grizzly population, except in the Mount McKinley National Park.