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