Glancing across a beaver pond one day, I saw a big, grayish grizzly bear
walk out into the grassy opening. My presence was not suspected, and I
at once focused my field-glasses upon him. Here and there he went. As a
grasshopper leaped into the air, the bear--big, fat, awkward, lumbering
fellow that he was--leaped into the air after it. Striking the
grasshopper with a fore paw, he would knock it to the ground and then
pick it up with his teeth. Occasionally he advanced on all fours and
slapped his paw upon the grasshopper before it leaped into the air. Once
two grasshoppers flew up at the same instant. The bear stood still,
located the spot where each had alighted, and then paid his respects to
them in turn.
About this time another bear came into the opening within a hundred feet
of the scene of activity. He was dark-gray, almost black, in color, but
he too was a grizzly. After smelling here and there, the second bear dug
out something; I think it must have been a nestful of mice. A minute
later in the edge of the tall grass he found a bumblebee's nest. This
he ate in its entirety. Apparently two or three of the bees escaped, to
judge from the bear's rapid defense of his nose. Occasionally, as he
walked about, he ate a huge mouthful of grass, taking three or four
bites at a time.
Neither of these bears paid the slightest attention to the other. Though
each must have known, from both scent and sight, that the other was
near, they very successfully appeared to be oblivious of the fact. A
beaver pond is often a neutral feeding and swimming place.
"As hungry as a bear" is an expression of variable meaning. About one
third of the year a bear has an omnivorous appetite; for another four
months he lives on short rations; and during the remainder of the year
he goes on a food strike and hibernates.
A bear spends most of his waking hours making a living. He has simply a
devastating appetite, and as his taste runs to small stuff and dainties,
he is kept on the move.
[Illustration: MEXICAN GRIZZLIES
_Group in the Field Columbian Museum_]
If he denned high up the mountain-side his surroundings are likely to be
mostly snow-covered when he comes forth in the spring. Under such
conditions he travels miles down the mountains to feed on the early
plants already started on the low-lands. He may then slowly follow
spring and summer in their steady advance up the far-reaching slopes. To
a certain extent his movements are determined by the calendar. He feeds
upon the best the season affords. He knows when each article of diet is
in season and where in his home territory, or out of it, this abounds.
In berry time look for a bear in a berry-patch. Like an enthusiastic
fisherman he impatiently waits for the open season--spawning-time--and
is on hand early to start fishing.
Perhaps it would be well if we could think of the grizzly as being
largely vegetarian. He digs up roots; feeds on weeds, tender shoots of
shrubbery, fungi, mushrooms, berries, seeds, rose-hips, pine-nuts, and
acorns; and also eats bark like a rabbit and grass like a grass-eater.
The aspens were in bloom, laden with swollen buds and juicy catkins.
Many birds were feasting on the catkins; and, looking over into a
near-by aspen thicket, I saw a grizzly on a ledge also feeding eagerly.
Reaching for a limb, first with one fore paw and then the other, he bit
off a few inches and ate twigs, bark, and bloom. Occasionally he seized
the top of an aspen with both paws, bent it down, and bit it off. It was
similar to the fashion followed in eating wild plums and choke-cherries.
A bear will reach up and pull down the top of a plum tree, and, biting
it off, eat the small limbs, the bark, the leaves, and the fruit. A
grizzly browsing in a wild raspberry-patch will bite off the tops of the
vines together with the berries, the leaves, and the thorns. Sometimes
the twigs and terminal buds of the pine, the fir, and the spruce are
eaten.
One day I saw a grizzly approaching in a manner which indicated that he
knew exactly where he was going. On arriving at an alder clump by the
brook he at once began tearing off the bark and eating it. On another
occasion I watched a bear strip nearly all the bark within reach from a
young balsam fir. I have often seen places where bears had bitten and
torn chunks of bark from aspens and cottonwoods. Though they also tear
the bark from pine and spruce trees, I do not believe that this is eaten
as frequently as the bark of the broad-leaved trees.
During the first few weeks after coming out of the winter den much of
the grizzly's food is likely to be of the salad order--juicy young plant
stalks, watery shoots, tender bark, young grasses, buds, and leaves. In
late autumn, just before hibernating, his last courses are mostly roots
and nuts.
However, the normal grizzly is an omnivorous feeder, refusing only human
flesh. He will eat anything that is edible--meat (fresh, stale, or
carrion), wasps, yellow-jackets, grasshoppers, ants and their eggs,
bugs, and grubs. Of course he eats honey and the bees. He also captures
snakes, and many a rat and rabbit. He is a destroyer of many pests that
afflict man, and in the realm of economic biology he should be rated
high. I doubt if a dozen cats, hawks, or owls annually catch as many
mice as the average grizzly.
The food of a grizzly is largely determined by locality. Along the
streams of the northern Pacific Coast he lives chiefly upon fish, while
the grizzlies in the Bitter Root Mountains and British Columbia
generally feed upon roots and plants. Those in the Rocky Mountains of
Colorado and the Southwest have a mixed diet.
The spring-beauty, the dog-tooth violet, and the shooting-star, both
tops and roots, supply the grizzlies of some localities with much of
their food, while in other regions they rarely, and possibly never,
touch them, though they grow abundantly. The bears in the Bitter Root
Mountains eat the shooting-star freely, while the violet and the
spring-beauty are favored by the bears of the Selkirks. Yet, strange
though it is, the bears of both localities pay but little attention to
carcasses which they find. One of the plant roots which the bears of
British Columbia dig out in autumn until the ground is frozen, is a wild
pea, the hedysarum.
I frequently followed a grizzly whose home territory was close to my
cabin in the Rocky Mountains. Apparently he liked everything. One day he
spent hours digging out mice. On another he caught a rabbit. He ate a
bumblebee's nest, and, with the nest, the grass, the bees, their young,
their honey, and their stings. In a homesteader's garden he dug out and
ate nearly one hundred pounds of potatoes and turnips. The homesteader
thought that a hog had been in his garden. In places I too have thought
that hogs had been rooting where bears had simply been digging for
roots--places with dug and upturned earth often many square yards in
extent. They dig out the roots of the wild parsnip, the shooting-star,
and grass, the bulbs of lilies, and sometimes the roots of willow and
alder.
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.
When a large stone is encountered in his digging the grizzly grabs it
with both fore paws, shakes and tears it loose from the earth, and hurls
it aside. I have seen him toss huge stones over his shoulder and throw
larger ones forward with one paw. Grizzlies show both skill and thought
in nearly everything they do. They have strength, alert wits, and clever
paws, and commonly work at high speed. Yet they appear deliberate in
their actions and work in a painstaking, careful manner.
A grizzly I followed one day paused in a grassy space to dig out mice.
In reaching them he discovered a chipmunk's burrow. By the time he had
secured all the mice and chipmunks he had torn up several square yards
of sod. The place had the appearance of having been rooted up by hogs.
In this fresh earth the surrounding trees sowed triumphant seeds, and
here a cluster of spruces grew where grass had long held sway.
A grizzly seems never too busy or too hungry to stop and look around.
"Safety First" appears to be more on his mind than eating. I have seen a
grizzly pause from his earth-digging after roots to stop, look, and
listen, and I have watched one stop his more than eager digging after
marmots to scent the air in his scout for an enemy. And then again I
have repeatedly seen him look up from his feast of smelly sirloin to
make certain that he was not surprised by man.
While I was watching a flock of mountain sheep feeding down a slope just
above the timber-line, a grizzly appeared on the scene. He came slowly
upward from the woods. Unless the sheep or the bear changed course there
must be a meeting. But the sheep continued to feed downward and the
grizzly to walk up. Suddenly the bear stopped and began digging--digging
evidently for a chipmunk. A stream of earth was sent flying behind him.
Occasionally, too, a huge stone was sent hurtling back. This activity
roused the curiosity of the sheep, and they approached within perhaps
ten or twelve feet. They were lined up and eagerly watching the grizzly
when he became aware of their presence. Disliking their close approach,
he leaped at them with a terrific "Woof!" The sheep scattered wildly but
ran only a few yards. Again uniting, they fed quietly away, and the
grizzly returned to his digging.
In only exceptional cases has the grizzly been a killer of big game. In
his search for food he digs out small mammals and kills rabbits and
beaver. He is not likely to attempt anything as large as wild sheep, but
when a grizzly forms the habit of killing big animals he is likely to
make this serve as his entire food-supply. Thus a cattle-killing grizzly
is likely to give his chief attention to the killing of cattle, or
incidentally to that of sheep, deer, or elk. In the days of the buffalo
the great herds frequently were trailed by one or more grizzlies. These,
however, probably obtained most of their meat from carcasses left behind
by storms, drowning, or other means of death.
The misfortunes of other animals often provide a feast for the grizzly.
In going over an area just swept by a forest fire I saw two grizzlies
feasting, and there were feasts for numerous others. One was wading in
an abandoned beaver pond and feasting on the dead trout that floated on
the surface. Two black bears, despite terrible threats from the grizzly,
claimed all the fish that came within reach of the shore, but discreetly
kept out of the pond. During the second day's exploration of the burn a
bear came upon me while I was eating from a fire-killed, roasted deer.
When I moved on, the waiting grizzly walked up to dine.
A grizzly knows the location of every beaver pond in his territory. It
is one of his favorite loafing and feeding places. Often he rolls and
swims about in the water, enjoying himself immensely. Here he sometimes
finds a stale fish or a dead bird brought down by the stream. Sometimes
he eats a huge salad of pond-lilies.
But when beaver are gathering the harvest, especially if it is gathered
at some distance from the water, he lies in wait and overhauls them. He
is ready, too, to seize upon any of these unfortunate fellows who is
accidentally killed or injured in gnawing down a tree. Many a time I
have seen the fresh tracks of a mother and her cubs on the muddy shore
of a beaver pond, and sometimes the tracks of both black bears and
grizzlies.
In the course of miles of daily wandering the grizzly may occasionally
come upon a wounded animal or a carcass. If his find be large, he may
lie close until it is consumed; or he may make a cache of it, returning
again and again until it is eaten. Grizzlies will bury an elk in the
earth or cover the carcass of a cow with numbers of logs. Nothing is
more common than for them to cover a carcass with refuse consisting of
twigs, fallen leaves, grass, and trash. They will cover a quantity of
fish with stones and logs.
A few grizzlies become cattle-killers; many grizzlies eat cattle they
did not kill. On the live-stock ranges in the mountains of the West
cattle die from many causes. They succumb to disease and to accidents.
Winds proclaim carcass news and a feast to flesh-eaters near and far.
Bears have amazingly keen noses and often are the first to enjoy the
feast.
A grizzly I was following caught the scent of a carcass that was more
than a mile away. He stopped and sniffed, then changed his course and
set off for the carcass. The carcass was being watched. As the grizzly
was the first animal to arrive after the kill, the owner of the cow
concluded that he was guilty of the killing, and accordingly proceeded
to kill him and to condemn all bears as cattle-killers. Yet this cow had
died from feeding too freely upon poisonous larkspur.
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.