The Grizzly, Our Greatest Wild Animal — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Grizzly, Our Greatest Wild Animal
John Stuart Mill · en
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.