A Glimpse Into the Inner World of The Grizzly Bear

Living with wild animals at Earthfire gives a different set of facts from seeing them in the wild or seeing them in a zoo. We would like to share some of that perspective, to be added to the more typical view of, in this case, bears.

Journal entry. We moved Teton Totem, a grizzly bear, to a new, larger enclosure. Bears don’t like change. Change makes them nervous. To help him adjust to the unfamiliar surroundings we put in his old wooden den box. He immediately began inspecting his new quarters, padding counterclockwise around the entire perimeter of the enclosure, nose to the ground, sniffing and touching lightly. When he finished his rounds at ground level he stood up to his full height. He walked around the perimeter on his hind legs to examine it at mid-height, patting the sides with his sensitive tactile pads. Having completed this round, he paused and glanced up. He looked at his den box, padded over, and leaning into it with his considerable weight pushed it against the edge. Clambering up on it as a stepladder, he carefully scrutinized the upper perimeter within his reach. He clambered back down, pushed the box over a few feet, climbed up again and inspected the next section. He systematically went around the top perimeter counterclockwise, using his den/ladder to explore every inch. Finished, he paused and looked up at the roof. He pushed the box to the center, climbed up, and investigated further. He was using a tool logically, methodically. A pretty significant intelligence.

After checking out everything to his satisfaction, he glanced over at the heavy metal plates separating him from his new neighbors, the black bear brothers Major Bear and Huckleberry Bear. He retrieved his hard plastic bowling ball. Balancing it in his racquet-sized paw, he began playing a grizzly version of handball. He slammed the ball against the metal plates again and again with terrific force. The thundering crashes reverberated throughout the ranch. Major Bear and Huckleberry Bear were not pleased.

Journal entry. Teton Totem was ecstatic in grizzly bear terms. The weather had turned cold and we had just brought him piles of sweet smelling hay to line his den. His eyes held a look for intense excitement. Ever so carefully, like someone handling a precious cargo, he reached out and pulled in the piles. For the next few hours an 850 pound bear delicately, slowly, deliberately, meticulously, arranged and rearranged his bed, gathering, filling in, circling, inspecting, making sure everything was just so.

Several hours later, satisfied, he settled back, having pulled a huge pile under his considerable bulk. He was covered with hay, surrounded by hay, luxuriating in hay. He had arranged his play log just the way he wanted it, piled hay on top of it, and laid his head on the soft pillow he had created. He was reclining on his back, his legs propped up on his bowling ball, bottoms of his back feet almost touching the roof of his den.
A pretty significant capacity for pleasure.

At least 54 Yellowstone grizzlies died last year that we know about. Removed from the gene pool. Thirty–seven of them were human-caused deaths by shooting. Individual beings removed from this earth. Hopefully all the hunters involved knew what they were doing; knew what kind of intelligence and vitality they were extinguishing and had a good reason. If we kill, it is important to know just what we are killing. A predator, yes. It is also not “just a bear”, but an individual we have decided to remove from this earth. And a very high intelligence, an enormous vitality and a strong, unique personality.

From a purely biological point of view, Yellowstone is already mostly a genetic island for grizzlies, with a bear population under threat by inbreeding, and now even more by the whitebark pine tree deaths, whose seeds are a major food source for the great bears. For those who say we have enough bears for a sustainable population, I fear we are in for a sudden surprise…..one that could have been foretold and predicted.

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.

From an ethical point of view, they were once abundant from the Yukon through the Rockies down to Mexico, and east into the Central Plains. Because of human actions, their population in the lower 48 states has plummeted from an estimated 100,000 to approximately 1000. They are 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. Then we shoot many of those that are left- in many westerners opinions, still too many.

The age old issues, played out again, under ever more desperate circumstances - the tragedy of the commons. Individual rights. The rights of animals. Human dominion over the beasts. Except we have more education, more biological understanding of what is at stake, more philosophical ethical bases to make a different decision this time. Maybe.