The Historic Grizzly

[brotherbear]

Continued...
Forensics proved wrong even that tongue-in-cheek hypothesis. The dead grizzly, a twenty-three-year-old female, had given birth; considering her age, she could have produced anywhere from two to twenty offspring. Where were they? And where were the adult males that had mated with her? 
Grizzly sightings continue in the San Juans. Peterson notes that in 1990 a female with three sub-adult cubs was observed from a distance of 80 yards with binoculars by local ranch foreman Dennis Schutz. "I've seen hundreds of bears," Schutz told Peterson, "and those were definitely grizzlies." Then in 1993 Peterson photographed a fresh bear dig in a remote subalpine bowl deep in the San Juans. ( Grizzlies commonly dig deep pits when digging for marmots. ) In 1995 a large adult bear bluff-charged a hiker in the same area. 
The Southwest was not the only region to go without any kind of organized response by wildlife agencies. In Southern Utah, instead of conserving a last foothold of the grizzly in the Paunsaugant area, state wildlife officials allowed sheep herders to flood the area. The usual sheep/bear problems ensued and the last of the grizzlies disappeared from the state. Reply