Night of the Grizzlies

by Jack Olsen

  The wolverine, perhaps even more rare than the mountain lion, carries its heavy weight of legend about Glacier Park and sometimes is seen high-tailing it toward the nearest patch of deep woods. It is said that the wolverine can follow a trapline and remove all the kills and bait without getting caught, that it sometimes will attack and kill moose and elk, and that it will stand up to any animal in the forest, including the bear and the mountain lion. In point of fact, none of these claims can be documented; there are so few wolverines to be observed that folklore has moved in to take the place of science. One can be certain only that the wolverine packs 25 to 35 pounds on a rugged, ursiform body, that it is a close relative of the skunk, and that it prefers to mind its own business. Like most members of the weasel family, the wolverine is a powerful hunter, but it certainly is not the moose killer of Western legend.

  The largest of all carnivores in the continental United States, indeed a subspecies of the largest of the world’s terrestrial carnivores, also is to be found within the confines of Glacier Park, although it is doubtful that the species will survive many more decades of nearness to man. The observer may prowl the backcountry of the park for weeks without spotting a specimen of Ursus arctos horribilis, but then suddenly a broad expanse of silver and brown will stir into motion in the bushes ahead, rise to its full height of seven or eight feet, shake its great shaggy head from side to side, and disappear into the forest at a speed that belies its quarter ton of sinew and fur and muscle. Then the observer will find that his heart is pounding with mingled fear and pride, and he will rush back to the lodge or the camp or the cabin to tell everyone that he has seen with his own eyes, in its own natural setting and on its own terms, the grandest animal of the North American continent, an animal whose qualities of courage, independence, and intelligence overshadow the bald eagle as a symbol of America.

  The bear is called grizzly because his silvery white-tipped fur looked, to the early explorers who named him, like the gray in an old man’s hair. Webster still defines “grizzled” as “sprinkled or streaked with gray,” although the word seldom is used nowadays. The grizzly is grizzled, to be sure, but there are wide variations from bear to bear and observer to observer. A grizzly standing in dark shadow in the deep woods may show no silver whatever; seconds later, backlighted by the clear blue sky, he may look as though he has been frosted in a subzero blizzard.

  Grizzlies also vary in their underlying color, and the big bear comes in every conceivable shade of black, brown, and white and all possible combinations, from pure white through cream, buff, burnt umber, sienna, chocolate, charcoal gray, charcoal black, midnight black, and gradations in between. To make matters of identification more confusing, some grizzlies have fur of two or even three different shades, or swatches down the back or across the shoulders, or varying colors on their faces and ears and jowls, and all grizzlies change color slightly through the year. Thus it comes as no surprise to naturalists when six people look at the same grizzly and offer six different descriptions.

  All will agree, however, that Ursus arctos horribilis large, powerfully built, extremely wide across the head, and possessed of a hump above the shoulders that makes him unmistakably a grizzly and not a black bear, Ursus americana, the only other bear species common to the continental United States. As the grizzly moves along a trail, its heavy head swings from side to side, the better to sniff the wind and examine the surroundings through its extremely poor eyes. With its hump and its short back legs, the grizzly looks like an animal trudging uphill. But if something should arouse it, such as the most insignificant whiff of man smell, the illusion of ponderousness is immediately dispelled, and the grizzly is sprinting away and out of sight with a speed that eternally confuses those who think of all large bears as slow and ungainly. The grizzly’s speed is somewhere between the speeds of man and horse. Based on estimates made by those few who have been able to clock the animal over measured distances, the big bear would beat the world’s fastest humans by 30 or 35 yards in the 100 yard dash, and by a third to a half mile in the mile run. In forest terms, this means that a grizzly on a ridge 300 yards away can be at one’s side in twenty seconds if he chooses to be. Fortunately, not one grizzly in 10,000 chooses to be.

  Anatomically, the grizzly is a magnificently designed machine with heavy, powerful muscles, thick bones of dense cellular structure, and a collection of joints that are loose and flexible, similar in principle to the universal joints of an automobile, enabling the animal to function from almost any position. The teeth are canine and the molars large, equipping the grizzly for both cutting and grinding, and the jaws are powered by two massive muscles that make the side of the bear’s head seem to jut out and enable him to crunch through almost anything softer than steel. The muscles of his forelegs are similarly oversized, and there are numerous cases on record of grizzlies fracturing the skulls of bull elk and full-grown horses with a single swipe. As if the front paws were not lethal enough already, they are equipped with curving claws from four to six inches long, useful for the digging that grizzlies enjoy and the fighting that they usually try to avoid. All four feet are plantigrade, like man’s, with rudimentary heels and balls and nails in the form of the razor-sharp claws.

  The grizzly’s hearing is about equal to man’s, his eyes markedly inferior, his nose one of the sharpest in the animal kingdom. Woodsmen used to say, “The pine needle fell. The eagle saw it. The deer heard it. The bear smelled it.” Indeed, if the grizzly does not smell something, he remains doubtful that it is there, even if the something is as big as a house. Because he stands alone at the top of the North American peck order, the grizzly is not in the least reluctant to approach anything that moves until he gets close enough to make a positive identification, either with his inferior eyes or his superior nose. Sometimes this approach is made at top speed, and many a hiker in places like Glacier Park has had the wits scared out of him by a grizzly that seemed to be charging down the wind at him but at the last second whirled about and ran upwind twice as fast. Some park officials attribute at least half of all reported grizzly “attacks” to the phenomenon of the bear’s poor eyesight and limitless curiosity, which sometimes cause him to get closer than he himself intends to get. In almost every case, the grizzly will depart at high speed the instant he recognizes his one natural enemy on Earth: man. This does not keep the unsuspecting human from climbing trees first and asking questions afterward. Not frequently, but often enough to keep the hiker honest, a grizzly will keep right on going and bowl his victim over. This is part of the animal’s vast reservoir of unpredictability, an unpredictability that is the quintessential nature of the beast. Former Sports Illustrated editor-conservationist Andre Laguerre had a saying to the effect that no statement about wildlife is more than 60 percent true; in the case of the grizzly bear, one is tempted to lop off an additional 10 or 20 percent. For example, it has been recorded for decades that grizzlies cannot climb trees, this inability having something to do with the tremendous weight they must pull up with muscles made for other uses. But every four or five years, someone reports a case of a grizzly high in a tree, chasing another animal or looking for some greenery to stuff in his stomach. One such report of a tree-climbing grizzly came from Jasper, Alberta, Canada, and the observer may be reckoned to have known what he was talking about: The bear, enraged about something or other, was coming up the tree after him. It reached him, pulled him down, and knocked him silly.

  If there is such a thing as a creature of habit and unpredictability, it is Ursus horribilis. In some of the wilder parts of their habitat, grizzlies frequent trails used by other bears, and the result is a peculiar sort of path with a high crown a few inches Wide in the middle and two deep ruts alongside, where the heavy claws of hundreds of bears have scraped away the dirt. There are grizzly paths where individual steps have been worn into the ground by habit-bound bears literally following in the footsteps of others. Another bear habit is the scratching of long slashes in trees, and one can tell when a g
rizzly is around by the exceptional height of the marking.

  Female grizzlies keep their cubs with them for two years or more, and during that time they evidence no interest in matters of sex. When at last the female is ready to accept a mate and begin another family, she puts the male grizzly through an absolute hell of frenzied anticipation. For days, she will allow him to follow her around, but she will not permit him to lay a paw on her in passion. The two bears will play together, sleep alongside each other, hunt as a pair, and stuff their stomachs together, but until the female is good and ready, they will not unite in physical matrimony. Each time the randy male comes too close, the sow lopes away, and the fatigued suitor must follow her and await his chance or go and seek another mate who will only treat him the same. When the great event takes place, after days and days of frustration and miles and miles of travel, it lasts for twenty or thirty minutes, and then the two big furry lovers scurry toward different points of the compass as though they can no longer stand the sight of each other.

  The cubs are born in hibernation in the dead of winter and, at birth, are blind, helpless and small. But after a few months of constant suckling of the mother, the young bears come out of hibernation weighing as much as 25 pounds, glossy of coat and ready for instant mischief. Up to a point, the mother grizzly will play happily with her cubs, sometimes for hours at a time. She will cuff them about gently, sitting on her rump and beckoning them to come on in and mix it up, and she will suffer their scratchings and clawings almost to the point of drawn blood before calling off the fun. Hikers have seen mother bears and their cubs lying in seep pools and swamps against the summer heat or splashing one another with water in a brook. Others have seen bear families enjoying snowslides and snow fights just before hibernating together for another year. The mother grizzly seems possessed of an almost infinite amount of patience and love for her cubs, and she will fight to the death for them. It is only when the young bears are willfully disobedient, especially in the training courses given by the mother on such important subjects as berry hunting, squirrel digging, and man avoiding, that she will insist on absolute obedience, reaching out to smack a feckless cub with the same paw that can brain a Percheron.

  Except for their offspring, the grizzlies of North America appear to live for their stomachs. Wrote Canadian Andy Russell, in his fascinating book Grizdy Country (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. 1967):

  The grizzly joins man, the hog, and the common rat in being the four outstanding omnivores on Earth. Like them, he will eat almost anything when hungry and a great variety of things most of the time. It would be much easier to list the things the grizzly does not eat than those he does... Most of the time the grizzly follows his nose through life; wandering from one smell to another, always seeking, nearly always hungry, but as carefree and happy as an animal can get. He makes use of his natural endowments to the fullest, fitting his way to conditions as they are found. Probably a grizzly bear’s idea of pure heaven is a mountain slope glistening with the blue-black shine of huckleberries hanging thickly on the bushes, the brilliant glow of buffalo berries, or the luscious smell of acres of wild raspberries, strawberries, and saskatoons. For the grizzly, life is a glorious saga of nip and crunch and lick and swallow, and it matters little what is being nipped and crunched and licked and swallowed. The same grizzly that will devour 40 pounds of maggoty venison that has been lying in the sun for a week will stop by the nearest anthill for a nightcap on his way home, probably for the tangy taste of the formic acid that abounds in the ants’ bodies. Grizzlies will watch pine squirrels bury hundreds of nuts from white pine cones, then spend days digging up the industrious workers’ winter storage. There is no other way for the bears to get the tasty nuts; they grow at the very tops of the trees, far past the reach even of the lighter black bears, and if it were not for the squirrels, the grizzlies would never know this delicacy.

  The long, sharp claws on a grizzly’s forefeet are perfectly suited to the job of digging, and except for the berries that he strips from bushes and crams into his mouth at a breakneck pace, the big animal gets most of his food by using his paws as pick and shovel. When glacier lilies begin to appear, grizzlies cannot be far behind. As the flowers burst into bloom higher and higher on the mountainsides, the animals follow the harvest like braceros. In their compulsion to get the succulent glacier lily bulbs, sometimes they manage to convert solid swatches of real estate into disaster areas. When they come to a patch of grass, they will graze on it like cattle, and when they come to the burrow of a Columbia ground squirrel or a gopher, they will flail away at the earth with such unabashed enterprise that they will sometimes dig themselves almost out of sight, expending far more energy than ever could be regained from the insignificant food value in the victim. Grizzlies are disproportionately fond of marmot, the so-called whistle pig that weighs up to a dozen pounds and builds its home in cracks in solid rock or under stones so huge that not even the most powerful grizzly could budge them. Nevertheless, grizzlies persist in trying to eat up every marmot in sight, sometimes spending hours on their labors and enlarging great cavities in the side of the mountain, while the marmots sit securely inside their impenetrable strongholds, whistling merrily and picking their teeth. A visitor to Glacier Park swears that he watched through binoculars as a grizzly dug for a marmot for two hours. Every now and then, the bear would stop to inspect the point of attack and scratch his ear, for all the world like a puzzled demolition engineer working out a special problem. At the end of the time, a new cave had been added to the rocky talus, and a very weary bear was trudging away, looking back over his shoulder in some sort of ursine embarrassment, perhaps to see if any other animal were watching. Grizzlies do things like that. Outdoorsmen have told of stumbling on grizzlies in the deep woods, to the great surprise of both man and beast, and watching as the frightened animals ran several hundred yards before turning around and beginning a charge right back toward the scene of the encounter. Twenty or thirty yards away, they will pull up in a cloud of dust and then march imperiously away. “There is only one conclusion I can draw from that,” said the victim of one such strange encounter, “and that is that the grizzly has pride. He wanted to run away... and stay away, but first he wanted me to know that he wasn’t afraid to come charging back. He was embarrassed at the way he ran the first time!”

  Years ago, there were few such anthropocentric attempts to understand the mighty bear that stalked the Western plains by the hundreds of thousands. The early settlers were oriented toward hunger and pain and vicissitude, but most of all they were oriented toward menace, and the first interpretation of the huge bears with the long, canine teeth and the massive curving claws was that they were a threat to life. When it was discovered that each such “threat” also produced several hundred pounds of edible meat, the grizzly’s fate was sealed. The subsequent history of the great bear can be told in a word: attrition. Grizzlies were shot, strangled, poisoned, trapped, and generally harassed all across the old range that extended west from the Mississippi River and south into Mexico and north as far as Alaska. In the High Sierras of California, home of a tawny subspecies called Ursus magister, farmers and ranchers distributed poison with utter disregard for all forms of animal life and killed off the last golden bear in 1922. The state that had presided over the annihilation of this grizzly subspecies selected an official state animal: Ursus magister. The University of California still calls its athletic teams the Golden Bears; they are the only such bears in the world.

  One by one, the conservationists of other Western states reported the extirpation of the grizzly within their state borders, and when the West was finally and irrevocably won and hundreds of thousands of Americans rolled across the United States to take up their homes and homesteads in the grizzly’s old domain, the big bear was visited with the ultimate punishment: the destruction of the forests in which he could hide, the plowing of the plains on which he grazed, the stringing of thousands of miles of barbed wire, and the pervading, unpleasant
stink of man, who only smells good to himself and his fellow man, and not always then. The grizzly of the plains, as was his custom, backed into the final square miles of American wilderness, avoiding a fight. He is holed up there today, his numbers reduced to less than 1,000, perhaps as few as 500, his range restricted more or less to a few states: Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, with eight or ten individuals in the Cascade Mountains of Washington and perhaps two or three more in Colorado. (There are some 25,000 to 35,000 grizzlies of varying subspecies in Canada and Alaska, but they may be considered permanent exiles or foreigners; those grizzlies that fled northward from the continental United States will never return, and the native grizzlies of Canada and Alaska are slowly disappearing as the bulldozer and the road grader continue their implacable march northward.}

  The tragic flight of the grizzly, the species’ gallant battle merely to remain alive as an American species, has not gone unnoticed, and a mystique has grown stronger since Ursus horribilis has been placed on the endangered list and the future is uncertain. There is a protectivism about the grizzly, and humans-who might have gleefully hunted the noble animal some 75 years ago-now go about bemoaning the fact that certain states still permit his slaughter. There has developed a mixed sense of admiration and solicitude and pride about the grizzly; he is seen as the prime example of America’s maverick own, something that did not come over in a ship, something unmistakably native to the land.