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Grizzly Bears in Modern Times

As described in Chapter 2, the arrival of European immigrants to North American and their settling of the West dramatically reduced the range of grizzly bears. A few bears persisted in places as far south as California in the 1920s, but bears were eliminated from all but a few areas shortly thereafter. One of the strongholds of the grizzly bear was Yellowstone National Park, a place whose history with bears suggestively illustrates changing attitudes of Americans toward grizzly bears and the natural world over time. When Yellowstone was created in 1872 through an act of Congress, it preserved a large region of habitat from logging, agriculture, settlement, and other human activities that brought people in conflict with grizzlies. However, human interactions with grizzlies in the early decades of Yellowstone weren’t always in the bears’ best interest. By the early 1890s grizzly bears had joined black bears in scavenging garbage from open-pit dumps adjacent to lodging facilities and campgrounds, developing an association with humans and food. In 1916 the first documented human fatality occurred in the park. A grizzly bear killed a wagon driver and raided his load of oats and hay. In response, associates of the teamster baited a barrel filled with dynamite. When the bear came to the trap, the charge was detonated, blowing up the bear.

By the 1950s bears begging along the park’s roadsides, both grizzly bears and black bears, were a major tourist attraction in Yellowstone. Visitors hand-fed bears from their vehicles, sometimes getting clawed in the process. Bears damaged automobiles and camps. While most visitors viewed Yellowstone’s food-scavenging bears as a novelty, others saw them as a nuisance. Cartoon portrayals, circus acts, and other uses of bears for entertainment purposes during this time (and sometimes persisting into the present) often portrayed bears more along the lines of overgrown pets or cuddly characters than wild and potentially dangerous animals that are never truly tamed.

Recognizing the need for greater self-sufficiency in the grizzly bear population and charting a new management course to return bears to their natural mode of living, Yellowstone National Park enacted a series of management plans from the 1960s to the mid-1980s that closed dumps, vigorously enforced prohibitions on bear feeding, and created food storage regulations for campers. At first grizzly bears had a difficult time readjusting. However, conflicts and necessary removal of “problem bears” began to diminish as new generations of grizzlies, no longer dependent upon human food sources, were born. Although the specifics varied in different locations, a similar evolution of bear management and conservation also occurred in such locations as Glacier National Park, Canadian parks, and popular bear-viewing areas in Alaska.

In 1975 grizzly bears in the contiguous United States were designated a threatened species under the provisions of the Endangered Species Act. As such, grizzly bears are protected from hunting in the lower forty-eight states. Land-use practices in grizzly bear habitat must also conform to certain measures of conservation for bears.

In Alaska and Canada grizzly bears are protected in some areas, but can be hunted by humans in others. Grizzly bear hunting is closely regulated and monitored, with quotas intended to protect populations from decline due to overhunting. Although some advocacy groups believe grizzly bears should never be hunted, wildlife managers in Alaska and Canada believe that regulated hunting does not represent a significant risk to grizzly bear numbers.