The Historic Grizzly

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Continued...
James Capen "Grizzly" Adams, William Wright, and Teddy Roosevelt loved bears. Problem is, they mostly loved them dead. Wright and Adams killed bears by the score - some blacks, but mostly grizzlies. Roosevelt accounted for several grizzlies even though he was terrifically busy commanding the Rough Riders in battle during the Spanish-American War and later leading the nation as its president. These men killed bears for monetary gain; they killed bears for sport; they killed bears for trophy rugs; and they sometimes they killed bears just to kill them. 
And yet, much of the credit for the existence of the grizzly in the lower states today must go to Adams, Wright, and Roosevelt. Their penned exploits, while admittedly brutal and at times bordering on the sadistic, most assuredly influenced many young men in succeeding generations to look beyond the killing of the grizzly and to seek instead the value and worth of the great bear as one of the most majestic, powerful creatures on the face of the earth - sentiments almost unheard of in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Reply