Part 7

The spring-beauty, the dog-tooth violet, and the shooting-star, both tops and roots, supply the grizzlies of some localities with much of their food, while in other regions they rarely, and possibly never, touch them, though they grow abundantly. The bears in the Bitter Root Mountains eat the shooting-star freely, while the violet and the spring-beauty are favored by the bears of the Selkirks. Yet, strange though it is, the bears of both localities pay but little attention to carcasses which they find. One of the plant roots which the bears of British Columbia dig out in autumn until the ground is frozen, is a wild pea, the hedysarum.

I frequently followed a grizzly whose home territory was close to my cabin in the Rocky Mountains. Apparently he liked everything. One day he spent hours digging out mice. On another he caught a rabbit. He ate a bumblebee's nest, and, with the nest, the grass, the bees, their young, their honey, and their stings. In a homesteader's garden he dug out and ate nearly one hundred pounds of potatoes and turnips. The homesteader thought that a hog had been in his garden. In places I too have thought that hogs had been rooting where bears had simply been digging for roots--places with dug and upturned earth often many square yards in extent. They dig out the roots of the wild parsnip, the shooting-star, and grass, the bulbs of lilies, and sometimes the roots of willow and alder.

I endeavored to find out the kind of food preferred by two young bears that I raised. A number of times I approached them with a plate upon which were cake, meat, and honey. In my pockets I generally had also either turnips or apples. When I appeared the bears usually stood on hind legs to see what I had. If they caught the scent of apples or turnips, they thrust paws or noses into my pockets, ignoring the dainties on the plate. Otherwise they grabbed whatever happened to be nearest them on the plate.

All grizzlies appear to be fond of fish. In many places they are most successful fishermen. I watched a grizzly standing in the riffles of an Idaho stream, partly concealed by a willow clump. In half an hour he knocked five large salmon ashore. With a single lightning-like stroke of a fore paw, the fish was flung out of the water and sent flying fifteen or twenty feet. Rarely did he miss. Each of the salmon weighed several pounds.

A grizzly in the Sawtooth region, trying to catch some fish, sprawled out on a low bank by the edge of a stream. Holding himself with one fore paw, he reached over with the other and felt along the bank beneath the water. He did this very much as a fat man might. More frequently the bear makes a stand in driftwood on the bank, or on a log that has fallen into the stream, or behind a willow clump. Sometimes he captures fish by wading up a brook and seizing with claws or teeth those that conceal themselves beneath banks and projecting roots.

A huge brown grizzly mother catching trout for her two fat cubs held my attention one day. The cubs waited on the grassy bank of a brook while the mother brought them trout after trout. She sometimes caught the fish by thrusting her nose into the water beneath the bank or by reaching in with her paws. Occasionally she knocked them out of the water as they endeavored to dash past her in the riffles. The cubs watched her every move; but they were not allowed to enter the water.

Sometimes the grizzly will collect and cover over an excess of carcasses or fish. By a little mountain lake at the headwaters of the Columbia I found a pile of stale salmon beneath a number of large logs and stones. The fish had been caught during spawning-time and stored for future consumption. A day or two later I returned, and tracks showed that the bear had come back and consumed the salmon.

The grizzly eagerly earns his own living; he is not a loafer. Much work is done in digging out a cony, a woodchuck, or some other small animal from a rock-slide. In two hours' time I have known him to move a mass of earth that must have weighed tons, leaving an excavation large enough for a private cellar. I have come upon numbers of holes from which a grizzly had removed literally tons of stone. In places these holes were five or six feet deep. Around the edges the stones were piled as though for a barricade. In some of them several soldiers could have found room and excellent shelter for ordinary defense.

When a large stone is encountered in his digging the grizzly grabs it with both fore paws, shakes and tears it loose from the earth, and hurls it aside. I have seen him toss huge stones over his shoulder and throw larger ones forward with one paw. Grizzlies show both skill and thought in nearly everything they do. They have strength, alert wits, and clever paws, and commonly work at high speed. Yet they appear deliberate in their actions and work in a painstaking, careful manner.

A grizzly I followed one day paused in a grassy space to dig out mice. In reaching them he discovered a chipmunk's burrow. By the time he had secured all the mice and chipmunks he had torn up several square yards of sod. The place had the appearance of having been rooted up by hogs. In this fresh earth the surrounding trees sowed triumphant seeds, and here a cluster of spruces grew where grass had long held sway.

A grizzly seems never too busy or too hungry to stop and look around. "Safety First" appears to be more on his mind than eating. I have seen a grizzly pause from his earth-digging after roots to stop, look, and listen, and I have watched one stop his more than eager digging after marmots to scent the air in his scout for an enemy. And then again I have repeatedly seen him look up from his feast of smelly sirloin to make certain that he was not surprised by man.

While I was watching a flock of mountain sheep feeding down a slope just above the timber-line, a grizzly appeared on the scene. He came slowly upward from the woods. Unless the sheep or the bear changed course there must be a meeting. But the sheep continued to feed downward and the grizzly to walk up. Suddenly the bear stopped and began digging--digging evidently for a chipmunk. A stream of earth was sent flying behind him. Occasionally, too, a huge stone was sent hurtling back. This activity roused the curiosity of the sheep, and they approached within perhaps ten or twelve feet. They were lined up and eagerly watching the grizzly when he became aware of their presence. Disliking their close approach, he leaped at them with a terrific "Woof!" The sheep scattered wildly but ran only a few yards. Again uniting, they fed quietly away, and the grizzly returned to his digging.

In only exceptional cases has the grizzly been a killer of big game. In his search for food he digs out small mammals and kills rabbits and beaver. He is not likely to attempt anything as large as wild sheep, but when a grizzly forms the habit of killing big animals he is likely to make this serve as his entire food-supply. Thus a cattle-killing grizzly is likely to give his chief attention to the killing of cattle, or incidentally to that of sheep, deer, or elk. In the days of the buffalo the great herds frequently were trailed by one or more grizzlies. These, however, probably obtained most of their meat from carcasses left behind by storms, drowning, or other means of death.

The misfortunes of other animals often provide a feast for the grizzly. In going over an area just swept by a forest fire I saw two grizzlies feasting, and there were feasts for numerous others. One was wading in an abandoned beaver pond and feasting on the dead trout that floated on the surface. Two black bears, despite terrible threats from the grizzly, claimed all the fish that came within reach of the shore, but discreetly kept out of the pond. During the second day's exploration of the burn a bear came upon me while I was eating from a fire-killed, roasted deer. When I moved on, the waiting grizzly walked up to dine.

A grizzly knows the location of every beaver pond in his territory. It is one of his favorite loafing and feeding places. Often he rolls and swims about in the water, enjoying himself immensely. Here he sometimes finds a stale fish or a dead bird brought down by the stream. Sometimes he eats a huge salad of pond-lilies.

But when beaver are gathering the harvest, especially if it is gathered at some distance from the water, he lies in wait and overhauls them. He is ready, too, to seize upon any of these unfortunate fellows who is accidentally killed or injured in gnawing down a tree. Many a time I have seen the fresh tracks of a mother and her cubs on the muddy shore of a beaver pond, and sometimes the tracks of both black bears and grizzlies.

In the course of miles of daily wandering the grizzly may occasionally come upon a wounded animal or a carcass. If his find be large, he may lie close until it is consumed; or he may make a cache of it, returning again and again until it is eaten. Grizzlies will bury an elk in the earth or cover the carcass of a cow with numbers of logs. Nothing is more common than for them to cover a carcass with refuse consisting of twigs, fallen leaves, grass, and trash. They will cover a quantity of fish with stones and logs.

A few grizzlies become cattle-killers; many grizzlies eat cattle they did not kill. On the live-stock ranges in the mountains of the West cattle die from many causes. They succumb to disease and to accidents. Winds proclaim carcass news and a feast to flesh-eaters near and far. Bears have amazingly keen noses and often are the first to enjoy the feast.

A grizzly I was following caught the scent of a carcass that was more than a mile away. He stopped and sniffed, then changed his course and set off for the carcass. The carcass was being watched. As the grizzly was the first animal to arrive after the kill, the owner of the cow concluded that he was guilty of the killing, and accordingly proceeded to kill him and to condemn all bears as cattle-killers. Yet this cow had died from feeding too freely upon poisonous larkspur.

I was once trailing a grizzly through the snow, when he came upon the trail of a mountain lion, which he followed. Farther along the lion killed a horse. When the grizzly came upon the scene, he drove the lion off. The following day, while having a second feast off the horse, he was discovered by a rancher, who at once procured dogs and pursued and killed the "famous horse-killing grizzly."

I have not heard of an authentic instance of a grizzly's eating human flesh. Numbers of hunters have been killed by grizzlies, but their bodies were not eaten; they were not killed for food. Many persons have lost their lives from storms, accidents, and starvation; yet their bodies have lain for days and weeks in territory frequented by grizzlies without being eaten by them. A prospector, his horse, and his burro were killed by a falling tree. Grizzlies devoured the bodies of the animals, but that of the prospector was not disturbed. Human flesh appears to be the only thing a grizzly does not eat.

The Long Winter Sleep

When the food of the grizzly bear becomes scarce, he goes to bed and sleeps until a reasonable supply is available, even though he waits five months for it. He feasts on the fullness of the land during the summer and wraps himself in a thick blanket of fat. When winter comes on, he digs a hole and crawls in. This layer of fat is a non-conductor of cold and in due time is drawn on for food.

One autumn day I visited the Hallett Glacier with a professor from the University of Chicago. After exploring one of the upper crevasses, we stood looking down the steep slope of the glacier. New snow had fallen a few days before, and a soft, slushy coating still overlaid the ice. The professor challenged me to coast down the steep, snow-lubricated ice-slope. We seated ourselves on this soft, slippery snow, and he gave the word "Go." Just as we slid away, we saw at the bottom of the slope, where we were soon to be, a huge grizzly bear. I wish you might have seen our efforts as we tried to change our minds on that steep slope! The grizzly was busily eating grasshoppers, but he heard us coming and fled at a racing gallop, giving an excellent exhibition of his clumsy hind legs reaching out flat-footed.

Each autumn numbers of insects and sometimes bushels of grasshoppers either are blown upon the ice and snow or else approach it too closely and fall from having their wings chilled. Evidently the grizzlies long ago learned of this food-supply, for the ice-fields are regularly visited by them during the autumn. Along the timber-line the grizzly feeds freely upon the last of autumn's berries and the last green plants. Many a grizzly goes to the heights to put on fat for his long winter's sleep.

Bear food becomes scarce as winter approaches. Fruit, berries, grass, and weeds are out of season; most birds and insects are gone. The bear feeds on what remains--small animals which he digs out, a stray stranded fish, now and then a dead bird or animal carcass, the red fruit of the rose, and the nuts, bark, and roots of trees and plants. I do not believe the grizzly eats a special or a purgative food during the few days preceding his denning up, although he may do so.

On the few occasions when I have been able to keep track of a bear during the four or five days immediately preceding his retirement, he did not eat a single thing. I have examined a number of grizzlies that were killed while hibernating, and in every instance the stomach and intestines were empty. These facts lead me to conclude that bears rest and fast for a few days before going permanently to the winter den.

The bear generally prepares his winter quarters in advance of the time needed. He may occasionally sleep in his den before taking possession of it for the winter. But this is exceptional. In two cases that I know of he lay outside the den, though near it; and a number of other times he kept away from the den until he entered it for the long sleep. After the den is completely ready, the grizzly continues his usual search for food. Generally this requires long excursions and he may wander miles from the den.