92 WILD ANIMALS OF GLACIER NATIONAL PARK. 



Out over the Plains they spend most of their time digging out 

 the burrows of the fliclvertail, or Richardson ground squirrel, and 

 feasting upon the fat occupants. While thus engaged in doing 

 the greatest possible service to the ranchmen they are killed on 

 every possible occasion, because their big burrows on the prairie 

 are a menace to horse and rider. They are also trapped to some 

 extent for their fur, which in this northern climate becomes very 

 long and is in considerable denumd for clothing. JMeanwhile the 

 ground squirrels, in unchecked abundance, destroy the crops and 

 forage until the country becomes sufficiently populous and prosper- 

 ous for tbem to be systematically destroyed by artificial means. In 

 autumn badgers become very fat, and before the ground is frozen too 

 far down they dig deep buiTows, in which they barricade themselves 

 for a long winter's hibernation. 



Family URSID^: Bears. 



Black Bear; Cinnamon. Bear: Vrsus americanus Pallas. — Black 

 .and brown bears are found over practically all of Glacier Park, 

 and at various seasons range from the lowest levels to above timber- 

 line. During July and August of 1917 they were most abundant 

 in the valley bottoms, where the many ripening berries had attracted 

 them. Their tracks and signs were seen along the trails and roads 

 at St. Mary Lake, in the Swiftcurrent, Belly River, and Waterton 

 Valleys, at the lower ends of Gunsight and Ellen Wilson Lakes, and 

 about Granite Park. During the last week in August bears were 

 especially common about Lake McDonald, and they are said to 

 be numerous throughout the valley of the North Fork of Flathead 

 River. They are not restricted to any life zone, as their search for 

 food throughout the season carries them back and forth from above 

 timberline to the lowest valleys and even out along the streams into 

 the Plains country. In a single night a bear may pass through all 

 of the zones on one slope of the mountains and over the top and 

 down the other side without making an unusually long journey. 

 Often their tracks will be found following a trail for miles until they 

 branch oif on some other trail that will be followed in turn for many 

 more miles. 



An old brown liear with two cubs was seen between Belly River 

 and Waterton Lake on August 11, and a small black bear came to 

 our camp one night in the Waterton Valley and carried off a ham 

 from one of the pack sacks. At Lake McDonald late in August 

 an old bear and two large cubs were feeding at the garbage pile 

 back of Lewis's Hotel, but another bear that claimed some of the 

 garbage caused the mother much anxiety for the safety of her cubs, 

 and she kept chasing him away. Every time she charged the other 



