GRIZZLY

©By Susan B. Eirich, Ph.D.

About 12,000 years ago, what is now the central and western United States teemed with giant short faced bears, saber-tooth tigers, woolly mammoths, four-ton ground sloths, mastodons, American camels and lions; 10,000 years ago there were none. Many paleontologists believe the "megafauna" were decimated by the Clovis people, efficient big-game hunters who migrated over the land bridge from Asia. More than 50 species were driven to extinction during what has been called the "Pleistocene Overkill." One of the few large mammals to survive was the grizzly bear.

During the settling of the west we have continued the exterminations. Agriculture and livestock grazing in the early part of the 20th century took over the prime feeding habitat of the grizzly, forcing them into marginal areas and consequent hunger, fostering bear/livestock/ human conflicts. As a result grizzly bears were subjected to predator control programs and were deliberately and often cruelly hunted until they were listed as threatened by the Endangered Species Act in 1975.

Once abundant from the Yukon through the Rockies down to Mexico, and east into the Central Plains, their population in the lower 48 states has plummeted from an estimated 100,000 to approximately 1000. They are barely holding on in isolated, circumscribed areas in Washington, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. Even relegated to these last outposts of remote wild land, they are unable to avoid humans. We build and hike and hunt in their only remaining refuges. They have no place left to retreat. And during a food shortage they are forced to come down to the watered valleys they once frequented in a desperate search for food - valleys that are now occupied by humans. Field researchers are gathering vital information about their needs and habits as they search for ways to preserve the great bears, and rethink ways for us to coexist."

Bears evolved from early forms of dogs some 25 million years ago, diverging from the canid line in the Miocene epoch. We have found fossils of intermediate forms between dogs and bears ­ dogs are still the bears' closest living relative. Today 8 species of bear survive, one of which is the brown bear, Ursus arctos, known locally as the grizzly.

Though classified as carnivores, most bears are primarily vegetarian. While dogs have retained teeth suited for piercing and tearing flesh from their common ancestor, bears have evolved the heavy crushing and grinding teeth typical of plant eaters. The hump and claws so characteristic of the grizzly have evolved to support their vegetarian habits; the long straight claws and large shoulder muscles attached at the hump, make them more efficient at digging out roots, bulbs, tubers and rodents.

Eating is a major interest in life for grizzlies. If close enough, you can hear them emitting deep grunts of satisfaction as they settle in to a particularly delectable meal, using each individual claw as delicately as we use our fingers, investigating the food, sniffing and getting ready to enjoy. Their days are filled with searching and grazing and digging ­ then resting in their daybeds to recover from their efforts. They have only 6 months in which to regain the weight they lost in hibernation, mate, and store enough fat for the next 6 months Without enough growth and strength males cannot compete to breed, and without enough fat females cannot nurture their young through hibernation. They may lose up to 40 percent of their body weight while hibernating and producing the rich, high fat milk their infants require.

From midsummer until fall, after the mating season, grizzlies go into a period of "hyperphagia" when, obsessed, they may forage almost around the clock with only short rest periods. They can eat 20,000 calories a day or 80-90 pounds of food, gaining 3-6 pounds of fat per day. Access to known, reliable, high quality food sources is crucial; they cannot afford the time to search. In a good food year there may be 20-50 percent cub mortality due to starvation and predation. In poor food years few cubs survive.

The grizzlies of Yellowstone eat ants, grubs, moths, insects, berries, clover, sweet cicely root, dandelions, spring beauty, horsetails, thistle, fireweed, huckleberry, biscuit root, yampa, whortleberry, strawberry, grasses, flowering plants, seeds, bulbs, sedges, tubers; rodents caches, small rodents, bison and elk carcasses, and elk calves, (less than 1/10th of 1% of the population). Because of their immense nutritional needs bears are highly discriminating and sophisticated in their choice of food, selecting those that give the highest amount of energy for volume available in any given ecosystem. In Yellowstone these are whitebark pine seeds, army cutworm moths, cutthroat trout, and winterkilled carcasses of buffalo, elk and moose.

All four of these major food sources are threatened. The whitebark pine goes through cycles of high and low production. During good years female bears in particular feast on the highly nutritious corn-sized kernels, putting on the fat so essential to successful reproduction. In poor years the death rate for females doubles and those females that do live give birth to fewer cubs. Because the pines grow at 8000 feet or more, their remote locations keep the bears away from people just at a time when the bears are foraging voraciously and tourists are out in force. In the years of few cones they must wander lower to find food. More people interaction means more bear stress and deaths, as bears are relocated or shot. But there will be more and more poor years. The whitebark pine is being devastated by an imported disease called blister rust, which is 99percent fatal and has no known cure. Only about 10 % of the pines of Yellowstone are currently infected, but the progress of the disease is inexorable.

A second major food, only recently discovered by biologists, is the army cutworm moth. Their larvae emerge as moths from the soil of the Great Plains, and migrate to the high elevation talus slopes on the eastern side of Yellowstone. They arrive in the late summer, hiding during the day and feeding on alpine flower nectar at night. The moths are a critical source of fat for bears, especially in those years when the pine crop fails. They will become even more important as blister rust continues its spread. The bears eat these moths by the thousands ­ they can consume 47 percent of their annual energy budget in just 30 days. One morning 51 bears were seen feeding on a talus slope in Yellowstone, turning over the rocks, eating steadily. In good moth years females will give birth to 3 cubs instead of the more typical two. Like the whitebark pine, the moths are found in remote locations, so when they are plentiful there are fewer bear deaths from human encounters. But in the Great Plains the larvae are seen as a nuisance and sprayed with pesticides in an attempt to eliminate their home ranges. If this is successful no moths will emerge from the ground to migrate to the Rockies. Those that do make it may be carrying toxins.

A third source of crucial fat and protein, the native cutthroat trout are under siege by the spread of whirling disease, caused by a deadly European parasite; and the historical introduction of lake trout to Yellowstone Lake. Available during late spring and early summer, the trout spawn in 36 streams feeding into Yellowstone Lake. Bears have been seen to eat 24 trout in 20 minutes. The lake trout are replacing the cutthroat, but are unavailable to bears because they live in deep water where they cannot fish them.

The fourth major food is winter-killed carrion, providing essential energy for bears when they first emerge from the den and little other food is available. But they will mostly feed on these carcasses in their high elevation winter ranges. Packed snowmobile trails give hoofed species the ability to leave the park interior, affecting the natural distribution of the herds and decreasing the availability of this food.

According to those who spent much time in the field, grizzlies are quite social and home oriented. When food is plentiful, they can be seen eating peacefully in large groups. Though they do not defend territories, grizzlies do have a strong sense of home. When we relocate them, they will overcome incredible physical barriers to return. Those that are relocated are often found in poor condition. We can surmise that their attachment to home is at least partly related to the importance of knowing where food sources are in their never-ending search for enough calories to survive the winter.

Because there is so little habitat left for grizzlies, and humans are everywhere, researchers are looking ways we can learn to share the same land. They are encouraged by documented instances of coexistence that are already occurring, without humans knowing it. Jeff Copeland of Idaho Fish and Game tells of a dense willow thicket lining a stream in Island Park, where grizzlies come to feed at cutthroat trout spawning time. Though the thicket is located in a heavily populated area, most people are unaware of the bear's presence. The only time conflicts arise is when a few bears, waiting for the trout to arrive, seek temporary sustenance to tide them over such as pet food and garbage.

In time of scarcity, bears driven to seek food where humans also live are usually shot, or trapped and relocated. Last year 18 starving grizzlies were shot in Canada at Rivers Inlet when they came to town looking for something to eat when no salmon came to the rivers to spawn. In British Columbia, officials admitted to killing nearly 2000 black bears and grizzlies that were forced to explore for food along valley bottoms that were now all inhabited by humans. Researcher Charlie Russell, who lives with wild grizzlies in the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia, asks "Could they have been fed something to tide them over without later causing problems? I think so." He has experimented successfully with supplementing the food of cubs he reintroduced to the wild. He points out that grizzlies naturally expect food sources to be intermittent and do not necessarily become habituated. He has also experimented with solar and wind powered electric fences in Russia ­ the bears respect them after only one touch of their nose to the wire. They protect entire towns built across traditional bear paths. In the United States they are being used successfully to protect beehives and sheep bedding grounds. Experiments are underway to develop a portable electric fence for backpackers.

Continuing public education is essential. The majority of bear/human conflicts occur on private lands. Starving bears have gone after pet food, bird seed and livestock feed as well as the more obvious bee hives, orchards, crops, gut piles and carcasses. Last year there were 33 grizzly deaths in the Yellowstone area alone, 23 of them caused in various ways by humans. According to Chris Servheen, Grizzly Bear Recovery Coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, "the most consistent theme is that most of the bear losses could have been avoided if people had acted according to recommended safety standards."

A stumbling block to coexistence is primal fear. In actuality, given the number of potential bear/people interactions, human injury is rare, and usually the result of surprise encounters, protection of cubs, defense of a food, or harassment. The consensus among researchers who have spent decades around grizzlies in the wild is that they are not generally aggressive ­ and despite hundreds of encounters over the years, they have never been attacked.

Steve French, Co-Founder of the Yellowstone Grizzly Foundation comments "the overwhelming impression is the incredible amount of tolerance they have for us ­ given a way out they prefer to take it." They are not unpredictable; they are very fundamental- I want to eat, rest, eat some more, I want to breed, I want to hibernate." He notes that grizzlies do not consider us a prey species, but theorizes that "fear is a good tool to try to stop reintroduction." He points out that bears very rarely attack humans- "your chances of being killed by lightening are greater. It has everything to do with psychology and perception rather than reality. The danger is overblown."

Veteran researchers say a key to safe human/bear interactions may be to consider the bear's perspective. In Russell's experience, talking calmly to the bear "can almost always diffuse aggressive posturing." He recorded the sounds a bear makes when startled, such as chuffing and popping of jaws, and concluded that these are sounds of anxiety. He suggests carrying pepper spray to give people the confidence to relax. "We believe most bears when they are surprised in close encounter are as alarmed by the experience as we are- they need reassurance that no ill is intended. We do not hesitate to look the bear in the eyes to give them further reassurance ­ the right kind of eye contact is useful for a bear trying to read a person's intentions." Dave Mattson, grizzly specialist with the United States Geographical Survey, observes "There is a fairly complex dialogue when you and a bear run into each other. If you are scared of the bear you are likely sending the wrong message at the wrong time- it might sound corny but if you find a solid center of confidence in yourself and peace, you will do the right thing."

There are occasional attacks that don't fit the typical categories. Grizzlies are highly intelligent - thus there is great individual variation in temperament. There may simply be a few bears that are unusually aggressive. Russell believes, based on his experience, that bears have long memories ­ not just for food, but for "emotional" events also. He theorizes that where the policy has been to use invasive study methods, such as pulling teeth, or bears are harassed to keep them away from people, a few bears may carry a grudge.

Reintroduction of the grizzly bear into the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho and Montana is mandated by federal law, but there is strong political and local sentiment against it. Servheen writes, "We know what is biologically necessary to protect the grizzly bear Š secur(ing) habitat with good quality food ­ then they can take care of themselves. But we are limited by public and political understanding and acceptance of necessary conservation actions. A primary fear is threat of federal regulatory action and further restriction on public lands. The primary factor determining the future of the grizzly is public support for actions necessary to secure habitats."

In view of threats to major food supplies, of global warming causing unexpected changes in plant and animal communities and weather patterns- in the face of such uncertainty more land is needed, not less. To circumscribe habitat for integral species like the grizzly before we know what we are doing is, if nothing else, simply foolish. For example, bears transfer vital nutrients from the ocean hundreds of miles inland to impoverished forest soils, as they eat prodigious amounts of salmon and deposit the "fish fertilizer." What other interdependencies are there we do not know of? And saving enough habitat for a large species like the grizzly creates a protective "umbrella" for countless other plants and animals until we do know what we are doing ­ and saves it for ourselves as well.

Changing our attitudes towards the grizzly will take a reorientation of generations of fear, vested interests and inflexible beliefs, but thanks to dedicated researchers we have ever better, more reality- based information. The image of a huge bear peacefully grazing on the white flowers of spring beauty, or turning over rocks looking for moths, is more accurate than the image of the grizzly as an aggressive predator. The possibility of coexistence and even mutual understanding- is being actively explored, with some remarkable successes to date.

The Clovis people were probably not aware of the impact of their actions. We do not have that excuse. As a nation we are in a position to decide the fate of the remaining grizzlies. We have exterminated them from 99 percent of their range and killed off 99 percent of the population. It is in our hands to decide the fate of the last 1 percent of the great bears. Are we willing to allow them the space to survive?

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