FAUNA OF THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS AND ALASKA PENINSULA 267 



The Indians of Iliamna village say that according to tradition a few- 

 black bears were formerly found in the mountains northeast from there, 

 but that in recent years none have been seen. As far as we could learn 

 they do not occur elsewhere in the region. Their westward limit on the 

 Pacific side of the peninsula is about coincident with that of the coniferous 

 trees, which cease a short distance east of Iliamna Bay. The westernmost 

 records of the black bear known to the writer are those of two killed at 

 Chinitna Bay in 1901 by the party of J. H. Kidder, of Boston, Mass. 



True (1886) mentions the skins of two young bears brought 

 in to Kakwok on April 30, 1882. Osgood suggested that these may 

 have been the young of the large brown bear. 



Nelson (1886) probably was confusing this species with the 

 brown bear when he stated that it occurred throughout the Alaska 

 Peninsula and Unimak Island, as well as on Kodiak. He also 

 refers to Veniaminof's statement that the black bear was found 

 on the "eastermost" of the Aleutians. There is no evidence that 

 the habitat of the black bear extends beyond the last timber at 

 the eastern end of Alaska Peninsula. 



Ursus arctos: Brown Bear 

 Ursus arctos gyas 



Aleut, Alaska Peninsula: Tunarokh and Chuchiuk (Wetmore) 



Tanghakh or Tanghaghikh (Geoghegan) 



For many years there has been much speculation about the 

 status of the large number of so-called Alaska brown bears, as 

 described years ago by C. Hart Merriam. In the first place, 

 early writers were inclined to consider all of the "brown bear" 

 forms on both continents, to be of one species. In 1954, Marcel 

 A. J. Couturier published a monograph, "L'Ours Brun," on the 

 brown bears and grizzlies of the world, putting them all into one 

 species, Ursus arctos L. In 1953, Robert Rausch adopted the one 

 species, Ursus arctos, for the grizzly and the brown bear. 



We find great individual variation in size and color in the same 

 locality. In his color movies of bears in the Mount McKinley 

 region, Adolph Murie shows a small, very light-colored male and a 

 large dark male, both near a rather large female. At the approach 

 of the large male the small, light-colored male arose on his hind 

 legs, looked over the large newcomer, then fled. Some grizzlies 

 in this region are nearly white, many are shades of brown, and, 

 in 1953, my brother and I skinned a large grizzly that had been 

 shot at a road camp. This animal was black, with a little brown 

 tipping to the hairs, which was not noticeable at a little distance. 



In his studies, Rausch also found much variation in the skulls 

 from a given locality. Without attempting to revise the whole 



