Part 6

Though the problem of getting a living makes up most of the grizzly's daily programme, he knows the wisdom of taking time off and having a change from the routine of life. The ability to concentrate in eager play is probably one of the best evidences of the grizzly's unusual brain-power. It is good to know that, although most of the time he lives alone and takes things seriously, he also has the power to relax and to build and restore himself in play. This may help to give contentment to solitary life in home territory.

When well fed, the grizzly sometimes strolls over his estate and pauses to watch the antics of other wild life. He will stand in a stream to see the ways of water-ouzels. The sliding of otter at play appears to interest him, and I have discovered otter-slides by following his tracks to them. Once, when I was enjoying the play of a number of beaver racing and splashing in a pond, a grizzly watched them for a time from the edge of the woods, then came out on the dam and sat down where he could better see them. Though a solitary and self-contained baron, he has many entertaining interests.

There are times at home, or abroad, when the grizzly is not deeply interested in anything, when time hangs a little heavy on his hands, or on his mind. Sometimes at home he doesn't quite know what to do with himself. He isn't hungry, he can't think of any place where he cares to go, he isn't interested in swimming, he doesn't even want to play. He doesn't care to lie down and sleep. He starts off languidly, stops, moves on, rears up, takes a bite out of the bark of a tree; but he doesn't care for the bark to eat and doesn't even look up to see how high he has bitten.

The grizzly is a descendant of a long line of wanderers and may occasionally explore surrounding territory for sheer adventure. If much harassed by settlers, he will move to a permanent home in lands far distant. It would be comparatively easy for a grizzly to become acquainted with four or five thousand miles of territory. He travels rapidly, has endurance, and in a single night could cover a hundred miles or more.

Some bears get the idea of territorial expansion and go forth to seize a part of a neighbor's hunting-ground. Thus one bear may be annoyed by another who makes too frequent raids into his domain, and feel called upon to defend his territory against the invader. When past prime a bear is sometimes driven forth into an unfriendly world by a young, vigorous conqueror.

On one occasion I tracked a grizzly for sixty miles from the margin of its home range. It traveled along a line that indicated it had a definite place in mind to which it was going. It explored a cañon region, and, a day or two later, as tracks in the snow showed, went back to its old range along the trail it had followed in leaving it.

Going one autumn from Estes Park to North Park, Colorado, I came upon a grizzly's track in the upper end of Forest Cañon. For several miles it had followed an old wild-life trail. It crossed the Continental Divide, then the No-Summer Mountains. From its trail I judged that it, too, knew where it was going.

Had these bears gone to explore, to see the opportunities of a new region? Or had they returned to old territory which they knew, perhaps to obtain some particular kind of food, or just to have an outing? If seeking new domains, it is possible that they would explore a number of localities before selecting one.

In a few localities bears migrate in the spring and return home in the fall. In these migrations the grizzly breaks his solitary custom and travels in company. Most likely the bears happen to be on the same route at the same time, and, like Pullman passengers, travel together without speaking.

I saw eight grizzly bears one November traveling single file northward from Middle Park. Back-tracking, I found that they had come from the mountainous empire around the southern end of this park. They crossed over into North Park in almost a straight line. Were they, I wondered, heading for a new home, or was this an annual foraging affair? The topography of the country traveled had some bearing on the common route taken, but why were they traveling together? I heard of a number of bears traveling together in northern New Mexico.

On one occasion a hunter on No-Wood Creek in the Big Horns saw seven old grizzlies and two cubs together in the autumn. They were back-tracked to the Yellowstone Park. The garbage-dumps in the Park are frequented by neighboring bears and by numbers from outside the bounds of the Park.

As bears age, their teeth become broken and badly worn away. With difficulty they manage to live. They are often handicapped through loss of toes and by other injuries received in accidents and fights, and through a weakening of faculties due to age. Their normal life appears to be from thirty-five to fifty years.

In the mountains of the north of Yellowstone Park I came upon an extremely old, hard-looking bear. I sat for some time within forty feet of him, watching him rip an old log to pieces to get the ants and white grubs. I was so close that I could see his tongue as it busily licked to right and left. His red-looking eyes stared strangely. I think that he must have been nearly blind, and also that he had nearly lost his ability to scent. When I moved a little closer, he stopped eating, rose up, sniffed the air queerly as though endeavoring to catch scent of me, then listened and looked. He was not at all sure of my presence, though looking in my direction. Two or three days later this old bear was killed. Many of his teeth were gone, and others were badly worn away. His claws were extremely blunt. His head and hide showed many scars--marks of fights and marks from numerous bullets.

One February, when I was spending a few days with a prospector, he brought home the interesting news that he had found a dead grizzly bear. The bear evidently had died while hibernating. He was found curled up in his den and frozen solid. He was old, in poor condition, and his insides were swarming with vermin. I once found a fat young grizzly, apparently healthy, who had the appearance of having frozen to death while hibernating. The time was about the middle of January. The winter to date had been extremely cold, and but little snow had fallen.

I have known of other grizzlies who met strange deaths, but, considering the fairly numerous grizzly population at the time when I was wandering the wilds, the number of bodies found is surprisingly small. One of these grizzlies had perished in a forest fire, another in a desert flood, one was killed at the foot of a cliff by a falling stone, and another was crushed in a snow-slide. Just how or where most old grizzlies come to an end, or what becomes of their bones, I have never been able to learn. It may be that many of them die in the winter dens, which cave in and bury the remains. In closing his adventurous career the grizzly appears to conceal the trail to his last resting-place.

Making a Bear Living

Glancing across a beaver pond one day, I saw a big, grayish grizzly bear walk out into the grassy opening. My presence was not suspected, and I at once focused my field-glasses upon him. Here and there he went. As a grasshopper leaped into the air, the bear--big, fat, awkward, lumbering fellow that he was--leaped into the air after it. Striking the grasshopper with a fore paw, he would knock it to the ground and then pick it up with his teeth. Occasionally he advanced on all fours and slapped his paw upon the grasshopper before it leaped into the air. Once two grasshoppers flew up at the same instant. The bear stood still, located the spot where each had alighted, and then paid his respects to them in turn.

About this time another bear came into the opening within a hundred feet of the scene of activity. He was dark-gray, almost black, in color, but he too was a grizzly. After smelling here and there, the second bear dug out something; I think it must have been a nestful of mice. A minute later in the edge of the tall grass he found a bumblebee's nest. This he ate in its entirety. Apparently two or three of the bees escaped, to judge from the bear's rapid defense of his nose. Occasionally, as he walked about, he ate a huge mouthful of grass, taking three or four bites at a time.

Neither of these bears paid the slightest attention to the other. Though each must have known, from both scent and sight, that the other was near, they very successfully appeared to be oblivious of the fact. A beaver pond is often a neutral feeding and swimming place.

"As hungry as a bear" is an expression of variable meaning. About one third of the year a bear has an omnivorous appetite; for another four months he lives on short rations; and during the remainder of the year he goes on a food strike and hibernates.

A bear spends most of his waking hours making a living. He has simply a devastating appetite, and as his taste runs to small stuff and dainties, he is kept on the move.

If he denned high up the mountain-side his surroundings are likely to be mostly snow-covered when he comes forth in the spring. Under such conditions he travels miles down the mountains to feed on the early plants already started on the low-lands. He may then slowly follow spring and summer in their steady advance up the far-reaching slopes. To a certain extent his movements are determined by the calendar. He feeds upon the best the season affords. He knows when each article of diet is in season and where in his home territory, or out of it, this abounds. In berry time look for a bear in a berry-patch. Like an enthusiastic fisherman he impatiently waits for the open season--spawning-time--and is on hand early to start fishing.

Perhaps it would be well if we could think of the grizzly as being largely vegetarian. He digs up roots; feeds on weeds, tender shoots of shrubbery, fungi, mushrooms, berries, seeds, rose-hips, pine-nuts, and acorns; and also eats bark like a rabbit and grass like a grass-eater.

The aspens were in bloom, laden with swollen buds and juicy catkins. Many birds were feasting on the catkins; and, looking over into a near-by aspen thicket, I saw a grizzly on a ledge also feeding eagerly. Reaching for a limb, first with one fore paw and then the other, he bit off a few inches and ate twigs, bark, and bloom. Occasionally he seized the top of an aspen with both paws, bent it down, and bit it off. It was similar to the fashion followed in eating wild plums and choke-cherries. A bear will reach up and pull down the top of a plum tree, and, biting it off, eat the small limbs, the bark, the leaves, and the fruit. A grizzly browsing in a wild raspberry-patch will bite off the tops of the vines together with the berries, the leaves, and the thorns. Sometimes the twigs and terminal buds of the pine, the fir, and the spruce are eaten.

One day I saw a grizzly approaching in a manner which indicated that he knew exactly where he was going. On arriving at an alder clump by the brook he at once began tearing off the bark and eating it. On another occasion I watched a bear strip nearly all the bark within reach from a young balsam fir. I have often seen places where bears had bitten and torn chunks of bark from aspens and cottonwoods. Though they also tear the bark from pine and spruce trees, I do not believe that this is eaten as frequently as the bark of the broad-leaved trees.

During the first few weeks after coming out of the winter den much of the grizzly's food is likely to be of the salad order--juicy young plant stalks, watery shoots, tender bark, young grasses, buds, and leaves. In late autumn, just before hibernating, his last courses are mostly roots and nuts.

However, the normal grizzly is an omnivorous feeder, refusing only human flesh. He will eat anything that is edible--meat (fresh, stale, or carrion), wasps, yellow-jackets, grasshoppers, ants and their eggs, bugs, and grubs. Of course he eats honey and the bees. He also captures snakes, and many a rat and rabbit. He is a destroyer of many pests that afflict man, and in the realm of economic biology he should be rated high. I doubt if a dozen cats, hawks, or owls annually catch as many mice as the average grizzly.

The food of a grizzly is largely determined by locality. Along the streams of the northern Pacific Coast he lives chiefly upon fish, while the grizzlies in the Bitter Root Mountains and British Columbia generally feed upon roots and plants. Those in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and the Southwest have a mixed diet.