The Historic Grizzly

[brotherbear]

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.  Reply