Big cat and Bear tale

[brotherbear]

Yellowstone Bears in the Wild by James C. Halfpenny.

Size and Sensibility - Size counts.
My bear is bigger than your bear! Perhaps size is the most common topic for bear watchers. It is certainly a cause for bragging rights. Of course, bear size depends on where you are and who is telling the story. Famed naturalist Adolph Murie long ago noted that the biggest bears were always furthest away from any scales. In the Yellowstone area, bears are always biggest at the K-Bar Saloon in Gardiner.
Many people wonder if half-ton grizzlies roam the GYE. Paul Schullery noted historian and above all ursophile, reported in 'The Bears of Yellowstone' that on July 9, 1870, Bart Henderson shot a large grizzly near Cooke City. According to Bart's story, "We was attacked by an old boar bear. We soon killed him. He proved to be the largestever killed in the mountains, weighing 960 pounds." Paul notes that we do not know how, or really if, the bear was weighed.
I am only going to consider bears that were actually weighed or had their weights carefully estimated by chest girth measurements - no stories, no tales, no matter how good.
The heaviest Yellowstone grizzly "with documentation" that I know of was killed in 1916 near Old Faithful by Arthur Young for an exhibit in the California Academy of Science in San Francisco. When weighed in sections, the animal totaled 916 pounds. Dr. Saxton Pope, who also shot at the bear, estimated that 10 percent of the bear's live weight may have been lost as blood and waste during processing. If true, the bear weighed about 1,000 pounds. The bear was shot in May and reportedly had no fat left over after hibernation. How accurate were the scales in 1916? It should be noted that this bear was probably feeding at a garbage dump.
Then there is the legend of the Thousand Pound Bear named "Bruno" ( grizzly number 14 ), studied by the Craighead brothers. The heaviest recorded weight for Bruno was 890 pounds when live-trapped on September 5. Since the brothers figured he would put on additional weight before hibernation, Bruno was nicknamed the Thousand Pound Bear, even though he wasn't.
The Craigheads also trapped Fidel ( grizzly number 206 ), which weighed 800 pounds, No. 115 which weighed 660 pounds, No. 13 which weighed 645 pounds, and Ingemar ( No 12 ) which weighed 620 pounds. All were males. They also reported the average weight of grizzly bears contending for top leadership at the Trout Creek garbage dump was 575 pounds. All weights were taken in June or July. ( In some accounts referring to the Craighead research there are reports of a 1,120 pound ( or 500 kg ) grizzly bear. I have not been able to find such a bear in any of their scientific articles. Reply