Humans and bears - Wild encounters

[brotherbear]

Grizzly Years by Doug Peacock.

I shook the snow off the tent flap and peered out. A four-inch blanket of snow covered everything. The morning was gray but at least I was not in a cloud. I could get some spectacular movie footage today. Moving off the edge of the knoll, I glassed the basin below. The big brown grizzly dug at his den again. The day before, winter seemed a long way off. Obviously the brown grizzly knew something I didn't.

The Black Grizzly worried me. He was the one animal up here who regarded me as a subordinate. All the other grizzlies treated me much as they did other, more dominant bears and ran away most of the time. A few, including the den-digging griz, showed neither fear nor aggression and stood their ground. The Black Grizzly, on the other hand, charged and ran off other bears. He hadn't charged me because I hadn't given him a chance. The big brown griz and the Black Grizzly seemed to be the two top animals in this group of thirty or so bears, and they had a pact. I'd seen them feed within 150 yards of each other as peacefully as cattle, though the brown bear deferred slightly to the Black Grizzly in leaving him the prime berry areas.

Happy Bear romped and waddled back into the trees. Likewise, the den-digging grizzly disappeared. The temperature had risen and the snow was rapidly melting, so they were probably bedded for the day. I spent midafternoon walking the ridge looking for bears, but did not find any. My original plan was to use up all of mt movie film, which could take four or five days, but with the Black Grizzly on the scene, the situation was more tense. Since he drove most of the other bears out of the other bears out of the mountains, there would not be many left to film. On the other hand this animal holds endless fascination for me: he is my Moby ---- of grizzly bears. Reply

[brotherbear]

Grizzly Years by Doug Peacock.

The Black Grizzly crossed the meadow with his usual distain for scents and worlds beyond his immediate one and started browsing his way up the side of the ridge. He climbed rapidly and was halfway up the ridge when it dawned on me that he was going to catch up to the grizzly family feeding just below me. I was going to be stuck there in the dark with a sow, her cub, and the Black Grizzly between me and my sleeping bag. I edged off to the side of the steep-sided ridge to get a better view. The Black Grizzly browsed a hundred feet or so below the sow; neither bear seemed aware of the other. I considered dropping off the back side of the ridge and trying to circle around the three bears, but I would never make it; the steep brush was nearly impenetrable.

Suddenly there was a roar; and I heard a huffing and the sound of animals running through the brush. The sow broke into the open a hundred feet in front of me and raced across the saddle. The tiny cub struggled with the brush, running at her heels. I could hear the intake and exhalation of each breath with each stride. They contoured along the rock outcrop below the ridge, oblivious of my presence, running for their lives before the Black Grizzly, who tore up the slope and burst over the ridge top. He galloped like a racehorse and moved just as fast. The sow and cub flew below the small cliff. The cub fell a couple of yards behind and I could make out a high-pitched coughing, a panicky sound as if the little bear knew it had but seconds left to live. The Black Grizzly gained ground until his jaws were but a yard from the cub's hindquarters.

At the last second the sow spun around on her heels, allowed the cub to slip under her as she braced for the crush of the huge grizzly with a chilling roar. The boar bellowed back, and they locked jaws. The Black Grizzly slashed with his teeth. The sow parried and warded off the attacking jaws of the bigger bear. The cub retreated to a rock thirty feet above and stood there bawling. The boar leapt forward and knocked the smaller bear off balance, forcing her to expose her vulnerable flank. The huge male lunged and seized the female by the neck. She yelped in pain, throwing her head against the bigger bear, and broke the grip of his jaws. The sow quickly recovered. She held her own.

I could see no blood, though both bears must have been wounded by then. They alternately slashed and parried, then stood nose to nose roaring amplified growls, the likes of which I had never heard in nature. The Black Grizzly slowed his attack. Abruptly he changed tactics and lunged once again for the throat of the sow. She leaned into the attack; they locked jaws and rose to their hind feet like circling wrestlers. They broke and dropped to all fours, roaring and bellowing into each other's snouts.

The face-off stabilized as the Black Grizzly gave up trying to kill the sow. The last roars rumbled throughout the valley. Though a little shaken by the proximity of this battle, I managed to run a few feet of film.

The smaller of the two huge carnivores backed slowly up the hill, still growling with the hair on her neck straight up. The Black Grizzly roared again, his head slightly lowered, his ears flattened back. She inched away from him a few feet at a time and turned her head to the side - a sign she was done fighting. He read it and turned away almost regretfully. The battle was over. Reply

[GrizzlyClaws]

(02-03-2016, 07:18 PM)brotherbear Wrote:

(12-04-2015, 05:07 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: Those long face brownies remind me of the carnivorous Pleistocene Brown bears, and the modern dog face one is omnivorous.

Yes, it appears that a longer more narrow skull ( for a bear ) is better suited to feeding on a carcass as can be seen in the polar bear. 

Also more aggressive, all those aggressive brownies I've seen in pics are the ones with the long facial structure. Reply

[brotherbear]

In 1964, the Mexican Grizzly Bear, or "el oso plateado" (silver bear), was officially declared extinct due to hunting, in spite having been moved into protective status. By 1960, the bear who's habitat had ranged throughout Northern Mexico, into parts of Arizona and New Mexico, had been sequestered into a tiny area in the mountains North of Chihuahua. Ranchers were the biggest threat to the bears, actively seeking them out to keep the bears away from their cattle stock, trapping, shooting and poisoning them, so that by the 1930's, their numbers were already dwindling. In spite the fear of ranchers, the bears diet primarily consisted of fruits, plants and insects, only rarely consuming flesh.

https://www.facebook.com/extinctanimalsII?pnref=lhc Reply

[brotherbear]

Cowboys, Mountain Men, and Grizzly Bears by Matthew P. Mayo:

Lewis and Clark's men thought that eight lead balls would be enough to kill the big grizzly. They were nearly wrong.

"That bear is a brute," whispered Sergeant Ordway to one of the six men in the hunting party. They both watched the massive honey-colored beast as it snored, its back to them, utterly unaware of their presence. They had paused in their slow, low crawl toward the animal. Forty yards away from it, they were still undetected. A low-flying bee lazily circled the bear's head. An ear twitched once, twice, and still the bear's massive furred side rose and fell in the steady rhythm of a seemingly deep sleep.

Ordway agreed in silence with the bear's decision to take a nap. It was a cloudless day in May and the sun was unusually warm this late afternoon, a warmer day than they'd had in nearly a week.

Ordway raised himself from a crouch in the tall grass of the meadow. He saw movement off to his right. It was the other four men, all sharing glances with him. Following his lead, they stood, raised their rifles to their shoulders, and sighted on the bear. Two of the four stood at the ready, rifles poised, waiting. From their past experiences with the great brown bears, they knew that a following round of shots may well be needed.

The leader felt a pang of regret shortly before he and the other three designated first shooters opened fire on the unsuspecting beast. It was the only thing in the meadow engaged in an innocent pursuit and they were here to kill it. But duty and a hunter's curiosity overcame his moment of weak emotion.

Within seconds the four shots stuttered and boomed across the rolling grass plain. And quicker than any creature of its size had a right to react, the great brown brute rose as if scalded. A blood-chilling roar emanating from the beast froze them all in their tracks - for a brief moment. For that is all they had before the beast's massive claws pawed up great clumps of prairie grass and it lunged, open-mouthed, at the closest of them.

The two men who had held their fire now discharged their shots. Both found their mark. One was but a petty wound but the second broke the bear's shoulder. And for the span of a breath Ordway and his men thought the beast might go down. Each man hurriedly worked at reloading his weapon. But the bear recovered, and broke once again into a full gallop at them.

"Run men! Run for the river!" Ordway's order was not necessary, as the brute, showing little sign of injury, was already bearing down on them. As it gained ground, the two men at the rear of the small group of hunters broke off toward the beached canoes, lunging at the nearest craft without pushing it into the water. The bear slowed not a whit, bawling and slavering and shaking its head as though a swarm of bees surrounded its face.

Ordway and the other three stumbled to a stop and crouched in a cluster of willow saplings to reload their rifles. After they finished tamping the balls down, they wasted no time in again drawing aim at the bear and shooting. In doing so they managed to keep the bear from a final lunge at the men in the canoe. They also managed to lure the bear's attention to themselves. Reply

[brotherbear]

Lewis and Clark continued...

But the speed with which the bear recovered and charged astonished them all. Their single shots spent, they threw aside their rifles and pouches and jumped straight off the shaggy rim of a twenty-foot embankment and into the swirling Missouri River below. They thrashed into the water, swimming toward the far shore in an attempt to put even more distance between them and the unstoppable beast they had angered. But it was almost all for naught. The lunging jaws, snarling, shaking head, and great rippling body of the savage creature did not break stride but burst straight after the second shooter, plunging off the same grass knob less than a man's-length behind the shrieking hunter.

A great and rending roar accompanied this impressive action, and the bear pitched forward into the water and lay still, waves pulsing outward from the now-sopping form of the great beast.

For long seconds, no one said anything, so astonished were they that the great bear's roaring and slavering had ceased. The men in the river snorted and wiped at their wet faces with their sleeves. They cautiously strode through the shallows to the bear, dark clouds in the water indicated its bleeding leaks. A rope was retrieved from a canoe and the bear was dragged ashore. All hands participated in the butchering. It was found that the bear took no less than eight lead balls, two in the lungs alone, before it had expired.

The last shot, fired from on shore by Sergeant Ordway, had blazed straight into the bear's head, stopping its rampage for all time. The men who'd scrambled off the embankment slapped Ordway's great buckskin clad shoulders and thanked him heartily. Reply

[brotherbear]

Cowboys, Mountain Men & Grizzly Bears by Matthew P. Mayo:

Now within one hundred yards, the Mullattoe knelt, aimed his rifle, and touched off a shot that caught the brute in the left shoulder. The bear rose and spun in the air, gnashing its teeth and whipping its head side to side. It dove for the nearest cover, the willow thicket just behind.

"Let him go, let him go! He's a dangerous varmint," said the shooter, already reloading his rifle. But Russell knew they had dealt the beast a life-threatening blow, and it would surely meet a hard end if they didn't finish the gruesome task. Russell was also fairly new to encounters with the great, brawling beasts about whom he had heard so much.

Together the two men walked the outer edges of the willow copse, rifles cocked and at the ready. With each step they heard a heavy snuffling rising in intensity, as if the breather had run a great distance. Then the noise stopped. The men traded glances quickly. The Mullattoe nodded, and Russell poked his rifle barrel into the willows, rapping it lightly against a stout shoot.

A low, rumbling growl rose just in front of them, less than a man's-length into the shadowed thicket. They had taken barely a step backward when a massive, earth-colored blur exploded from the trees and launched at them. The bear's flashing jaws were wide and set for grappling, and its large eyes seemed to glow from within.

The men were overwhelmed and ran as fast as their moccasin-shod feet would carry them, each in opposite directions and each secretly hoping the bear would choose the other to follow. Russell chanced a quick glance over his shoulder and saw the bear break off its pursuit of him and instead turn back after his friend.

The Mullattoe heard the brush crashing behind him. Stopping, he spun where he stood, steadied himself, and released another shot. But he was hurried and the ball whistled too high. The bawling beast, startled by the sound, and still showing no sign of injury from the shot it took in the shoulder earlier, spun back around and resumed its attack on Russell. The lean young mountain man, who still hadn't fired a shot at the beast, found himself hemmed in on all sides, trees on three and a kill-crazy bear on the last. He stood, petrified, facing the rampaging beast.

Beyond the bear, Russell glimpsed his friend frantically reloading his long gun. Hurry your task, man! Was all Russell could think. He raised his rifle, more out of reflex than intention.

The bear, within ten paces of Russell, rose on its hind legs, taller than a man, and pawed the air, its mouth thrown wide as it bellowed loud raw oaths. From the short distance Russell could smell the beast's foul breath as it roared out its hate. and just before it once again dropped to all fours and charged at the man, Russell pulled the trigger. His rifle barked flame. Out of pure accident the ball found its true make, coring the grizzly's heart where it stood.

But still the bear surged forward, howling its pain and rage and confusion, covering half the distance between it and Russell before it dropped to the ground as if sledged, but a few paces from the shaking trapper.

The Mullattoe ran up beside the bear, rifle aimed at its chest, his own lungs working like bellows. Rising smoke and the smell of burnt hair from the close-fired shot filled the little clearing. Reply

[brotherbear]

Cowboys, Mountain Men, and Grizzly Bears by Matthew P. Mayo;

Norris dozed fitfully and was snapped awake by a rustling and the unmistakable heavy chuffing of a bear busy eating. In the day's early light, Norris peered toward the elk carcasses. There was his bear - had to be. It seemed heavier than a horse and massive in every way possible. The great head itself was down, busy nosing at something, while the beast's haunches rippled with its rich fur. It pawed and dug, busily covering the elk with earth. Norris noted that the bear had dragged one carcass closer to the other so that they were nearly side-by-side.

He rose slowly to a knee and lifted the Winchester, which he had triple-checked to ensure it was fully loaded: fourteen rounds and a special explosive shell in the chute, ready to fly. If they didn't do the trick at this distance, nothing would. And my hunting days will be over, thought Norris.

He drew a crisp breath silently through his nostrils, then slowly let it out as he snuggled the stock to his cheek. Dead-on shot, he thought, and touched off the trigger. It caught the mighty bruin high on the shoulder. From the jolting impact, Norris knew it had done the necessary damage, probably severed the beast's spine. The bear dropped and Norris's suspicions were confirmed.

Then the bear bolted up as if jabbed with a bayonet and roared out his shock and pain. Before the bear could swing around Norris pumped four .44-caliber bullets into the same spot on the wounded animal. With each impact the animal staggered and dropped, then rose again. In its bawling, swinging rage, the big boar grizz finally fastened his eyes on Norris - and bolted straight at him.

The park superintendent felt his heart hammering at the walls of his chest and throat. He gritted his teeth and worked at thumbing in a second dynamite shell. The massive grizzly's charge was a flat-out run, its impossibly wide head held low, the maw bellowing, curved fangs glinting through bloody froth, front legs pawing the snowed earth, the great curving claws lashing and clicking with each stride.

At fifty yards and closing fast, Norris aimed at the bulk of the hurtling furred mass and pulled the trigger. The explosive bullet caught the bear in the throat and shattered the beast's lungs. The kingly creature's front legs crumpled and his maw drove forward, furrowing the snow, its back end piling in a heap. Still groaning and chuffing, the grizzly pushed himself upright yet again. And Norris fired once more, breaking the bear's neck with another shell. The bear collapsed and the shoulder hump wagged its last as the animal came to rest, yards from the man.

Taking no chances, Norris plied the still form with .44-shells without let-up until no more cracking reports came. The echo of his last shot eventually washed away over the surrounding hills, as jarring sounds will, and a shocked stillness clung to the lakeside scene. Reply

[brotherbear]

Man Meets Grizzly by Young and Beyers.

Man feels both fear and admiration for the grizzly. He has respected and even, in some instances, as was the case with the Indians, venerated the grizzly bear's prowess and courage. The white man has on the whole been more grudging in his admiration, especially when he has felt his person or livestock to be threatened. The Indian alone has given his homage gladly. For the Indians, it was a signal honor to kill a bear in combat, when only spears, bows and arrows, or the limited rifle they had acquired from white traders were used. Chiefs sometimes wore necklaces of grizzly claws as indisputable tokens of their bravery.

By common consent, the grizzly is known as an aristocrat among animals, as much the monarch of North America as the lion is of Africa and the tiger is of Asia. He is not only the most powerful of our wild animals but also the most intelligent ... Reply

[brotherbear]

In my own words, the most famous grizzly bear of all was Old Brin, Clubfoot, or Reelfoot. He was indeed a very real and a very large grizzly. However, as with such characters as Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, or Daniel Boone, the stories just keep getting told and the character just keeps growing bigger and stronger.

California Grizzly by Tracy I. Storer and Lloyd P. Tevis, Jr.

The most famous bear in the world was, is and will continue to be the gigantic Grizzly known variously on the Pacific Slope as "Old Brin," "Clubfoot," and "Reelfoot." He was first introduced to the public by a mining-camp editor named Townsend, who was nicknamed "Truthful James" in a spirit of playful irony. That was in the seventies. Old Brin was described as a bear of monstrous size, brindled coat, ferocious disposition and evil fame among the hunters of the Sierra. He had been caught in a steel trap and partly crippled by the loss of a toe and other mutilation of a front paw, and his clubfooted track was readily recognizable and served to identify him. Old Brin stood at least five feet high at the shoulder, weighed a ton or more and found no difficulty in carrying away a cow. He seemed to be impervious to bullets, and many hunters who took his trail never returned. A few who had met him and had the luck to escape furnished the formidable details of his description and spread his fame, with the able assistance of Truthful James and other veracious historians of the California and Nevada press.

For several years the clubfooted Grizzly ranged the Sierra Nevada from Lassen County to Mono, invulnerable, invincible, and mysterious, and every old hunter in the mountains had an awesome story to tell of the ferocity and uncanny craft of the beast and of his own miraculous escape from the jaws of the bear after shooting enough lead at him to start a smelter. Old Brin was a never-failing recourse of the country editor when the foreman was insistant for copy, and those who undertook to preserve the fame of his exploits in their files scrupulously respected the rights of his discoverer and never permitted any vain-glorious bear hunter to kill him. As one of the early guardians of this incomparable monster, I can bear witness that it was the unwritten law of the journalistic profession that no serious harm come to the clubfooted bear and he should invariably triumph over his enemies. It was also understood that a specially interesting episode in the career of Old Brin constituted a pre-emption claim to guardianship, and, if acknowledged by the preceding guardian, the claim could not be jumped as long as it was worked with reasonable diligence.

But a later breed of journalistic historians, having no reverence for the traditions of the craft - and no regard for the truth, sprang up, and the slaughter of the clubfooted grizzly began.

In my own words - So many outlandish tales were told of Old Brin and by numerous names, that the truth was long-ago lost. He has been killed and resurrected many times and in many locations. Never-the-less, there was indeed a living breathing club-footed grizzly who was quite large and quite powerful and was certainly notorious in the eyes of farmers, ranchers, and shepherds. Reply

[brotherbear]

Man Meets Grizzly by Young and Beyers.
This account describes perhaps the first meeting of white men and grizzly bears of which we have any record, nearly one hundred years before Lewis and Clark met the white bear on the Missouri River. The bears in this account were undoubtedly grizzlies, although they were not yet known by that name and in fact had no distinguishing name.
In his excellent book, reviewing the Diary of the Campaign of Governor Antonio de Valverde against the Ute and Comanche Indians in 1719, Alfred Barnaby Thomas gives us an interesting history of New Mexico and Colorado. Both the territory and the bears were new and strange to these explorers: we note the governor giving names to the various springs and campgrounds along the way.

The EXPEDITION having set out from Santa Fe, crossed the river and went along its meadows for four leagues over level ground; his lordship gave the name of the place San Francisco. It is a cheerful spot with a beautiful view and excellent springs. On the left there is a range of mountains and on the right a very extensive plain. On this road today many deer and prairie chickens which moved about in flocks were caught to such an extent that nowhere else were more caught because of their abundance in this region. The governor hunted deer and chicken. On this day a mountain lion and a wildcat were killed. At about sunset some Indians came in running from a bear, which plunged into the middle of the camp, throwing the people into confusion. With great shouting and uproar, they killed him with many spear thrusts and arrows. His strength and size were so formidable that the governor was impelled to go with the chaplain to view it.

They camped at a spring the governor named Nuestra Senora de Dolores. On the sixth of the present month of October, the senor governor and all his camp left this spring of Nuestra Senora de Dolores and marched over level land and through many good pastures because it was grassy. On the road to the left was a summit sloping to the east, heavily wooded with pines. Having traveled some six leagues, they arrived at a spring which had considerable water. There the camp was put up and the governor called it Nuestra Senora del Carmen. On this day before the halt a bear was met. It was larger than the preceding ones, for its size and height were probably greater than of a donkey. One of the soldiers went out and put a spear into him up to the middle of the shaft. The brute turning around seized the lance, and grasped the horse by the hocks. At the same time another soldier went to the rescue and gave the bear another spear thrust. The bear, seizing the horse by the tail, held him down and clawing viciously, tore a piece of flesh off the rump. Having tied the bear up finally, they finished killing him. The soldiers who were bringing up the rear guard of the cavalry met a female and two cubs which they also killed. Reply

[brotherbear]

Man Meets Grizzly by Young and Beyers.
Suddenly Clark was stunned by that awful roar once more, and he knew that the bear was in the same draw, on the farther side but very near. He knew now that he was committed to action. He set his gun and stepped boldly toward the willows where he estimated the bear to be. Almost at once he discerned a patch of gray or brown in the willows about ten yards away and fired a shot at it, the bullet twanging in the still air of early morning.
Instantly a huge shaggy back reared up above the willows, looking at least fifteen feet high, to Clark's dazzled eye's. Though bears were no strangers to him, never had he seen anything to equal this giant. The bear turned slowly, snuffled the air for the scent of his enemy, and Clark nearly froze with consternation. The night's terrible outburst was now clearly explained: on the bear's left forearm hung the big trap, its steel teeth buried in flesh; and wrapped around that arm was the heavy eleven foot chain. The bear's mouth was horribly bloodied from his efforts to bite through the chain and trap. In his agony and rage Old Ephraim looked unbelievably fearful.
He saw Clark and, still upright, crashed ruinously toward him through the willows and bushes. Clark somehow steadied himself enough to pull the trigger. The bear dropped down at once but, shaking froth from his muzzle, continued forward with lurching but powerful strides. Again and again Clark fired. Each time the bullet found the target, for the bear fell to the ground; yet each time Old Ephraim struggled to his feet and, implacably and seemingly indestructibly, narrowed the gap between himself and the man. Six times Clark shot for the heart; unbelievably , the bear fell six times, only to pull himself up and plunge forward again.
When the bear was less than two yards away, Clark turned and ran up the side of the hollow, pulling himself through the scrub growth, heading for the aspens above. Close at his heels followed the relentless bear, on all fours but hindered by the injured arm dragging the trap and chain. Clark had not traveled more than fifteen yards when he heard a familiar yet strange noise. It was Jenny, barking wildly. Clark risked a quick glance behind him and saw Old Ephraim, perhaps ten yards downslope, with Jenny, who had been silent and afraid until this moment but was now nipping recklessly at the bear's hind legs, with restored courage. The bear had paused and was striking at the dog. This distraction, however brief, detained the bear long enough for Clark to steady his gun against a tree, draw a fine bead behind the bear's ear, and fire the seventh and last shell. Old Ephraim sagged to the ground and did not rise again.

Old Ephraim was nine feet and eleven inches long, nose to tail. They found that two of Clark's bullets had actually pierced the heart, and Clark learned by experience what he had heard old-timers claim: an enraged grizzly is much more difficult to kill than an unexcited one. So powerful was Old Ephraim that only the final lucky shot in the brain felled him for good. The men buried the remains, a singular honor for a bear, perhaps. Reply

[brotherbear]

It is not surprising that early natives both feared and revered the great grizzly. Some saw a grizzly kill as a badge of courage; historian George Bird Grinnell wrote, "the death of a bear gives the warrior greater reknown than the scalp of a human enemy." Others held the bear in such awe that it was taboo to even mention his name. The Blackfeet called it "The Unmentionable One" or "The Real Bear" ( nitakyaio ). They called the black bear merely "Bear" ( kyaio ), denoting its lesser status.
Explorers Meriwether Lewis and John Clark wrote an entry in their expedition journal for April 29, 1805, reporting that "Indians who go in quest of him ( the grizzly ) paint themselves and perform all the superstitious rites customary when they make war on a neighboring nation."

From The Grizzly Almanac by Robert H. Busch. Reply

[brotherbear]

When the last grizzly bear has been dead a thousand years or more, perhaps the stories that will survive about these mighty animals will put them in a category of an incarnate demigod of the past. There is a great deal that recommends the grizzly to the fabric of a lasting legend, and the symptoms of such an investiture are already evident. By thousands of campfires and other places where outdoorsmen get together, since the first of our frontier adventurers encountered these pugnacious creatures on the plains and in the mountains of the Far West, men have told glowing stories about the grizzly - stories that have all the raw glamour of their subject and so easily rise to the height of an epic. The bravest, toughest, and most distinguished of these men have spoken with the greatest of pride about their conquests of the grizzly - Lewis and Clark, Zebulon Pike, Kit Carson, Stonewall Jackson, General Custer, Theodore Roosevelt, and many more. Not one has held him lightly; and most have honestly respected him in their hearts - just as the old-time Indian considered it an accomplishment of greater bravery and distinction to have killed a grizzly than to have taken the scalp of any human enemy. One can cast aside all the yarns of the neophytes and the fabrications of imaginative journalists who never really knew the grizzly; and one can fully discount all the honest doubts and theories; and still Old Ephraim stands realistically in all the impressive admiration which might be expected of the largest and most powerful of all carnivorous creatures on earth today. - The Beast that walks like Man by Harold McCracken. Reply

[brotherbear]

The Beast That Walks Like Man by Harold McCracken.
Returning to his home in the Sierras in the fall, Adams set out to capture a full-grown grizzly. A large and heavy log trap was built, and finally a monster bear walked into it: "the largest specimen of grizzly , perhaps, that was ever taken alive." The giant bear almost tore the trap apart, and Adams was compelled to stand by night and day for more than a week, using an iron bar and firebrands to keep him from escaping. It was nearly two months before the grizzly could be transferred into a movable cage and transported back to the camp. Adams named this one "Samson" and estimated his weight at over fifteen hundred pounds.

"I have looked on death in many forms, and trust that I can meet it whenever it comes, with stout heart and steady nerves," are the words with which James Capen Adams closed his personal story just prior to leaving San Francisco as an ill and badly scarred old man. "If I could choose, I would wish, since it was my destiny to become a mountaineer and grizzly bear hunter of California, to finish my career in the Sierra Nevada. There would I fain lay down with Lady, Ben, and Rambler at my side; there, surely, I could find rest through the long future, among the eternal rocks and evergreen pines."

Surely James Capen Adams fulfilled an extraordinary career and was certainly the most unusual bear hunter who ever lived. Reply