The Historic Grizzly

[brotherbear]

Continued...
After the war, the Craigheads continued their studies. Frank found work as a professor in the Environmental Research Institute at the State University of New York. John joined the Montana Wildlife Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit at the University of Montana. While there, he bagan reading up on the grizzly, Montana's state animal and the symbol of all that was still wild and free in the West. John recalled: It was a short read. There was almost nothing scientific to study about the grizzly. Adolph Murie had studied grizzlies in Alaska, and there was a book by Enos Mills, but it was mostly behavioral stuff and nothing you'd call scientific. Enos Mills's book was so old that he had thirteen different classifications for the grizzly. 
Frank and I decided to study the grizzly scientifically. Our main goal was to analyze the grizzly's reproductive rate and all the science surrounding it, and the mortality rate to see exactly how the grizzly population was faring. If the mortality rate was higher than the reproductive rate, then the grizzly was in danger of vanishing, and vice versa. We put together a program and got the funding for it. We looked all over the West and finally chose Yellowstone because that was where the greatest concentration could be found in the lower states. We were also aware that the park had been feeding their grizzlies garbage behind their hotels, and we thought those bears would be much more visible and easy to gain scientific information on. I wasn't real happy to be studying bears that frequented dumps and would've preferred something in the heart of the wilderness. One thing we learned was that as soon as those bears left the dump, they acted like any wild grizzly.  Reply