1936] MAMMALS OF OREGON 323 



any kind of fish become numerous in shallow water, the bears wade 



in and catch them or feast on dead fish found along the shores. In 

 places they find crayfish so abundant that they apparently yield an 

 important food supply. At Paulina Lake, where crayfish are ex- 

 cessively abundant, Luther J. Goldman caught a bear by baiting 

 his trap with crayfish, but the bear pulled his foot out of the no. 4 

 trap. Bears are fond of meat whenever they can get it, but domestic 

 sheep and pigs are probably the only large animals they are able 

 to capture unless the animals are young, crippled, old, or sick. 



Economic status. Nature draws few hard and fast lines, and one 

 is often in doubt whether to class the bears as game, fur-bearing, or 

 predatory animals. They combine the characteristics of all three 

 categories. A series of full and interesting statements from the for- 

 est supervisors of Oregon in 1910 showed about an equal division in 

 favor of killing black and brown bears as predatory animals on one 

 hand and protecting them as game animals on the other. The recom- 

 mendation of the district forester in letter of June 13, 1910, was that 

 the Forest Service issue orders to its officers that no bears be killed 

 when the fur was not prime unless they were actually killing stock. 



The policy of the Biological Survey has been to kill bears only 

 when necessary to protect stock or other agricultural interests, and 

 the number thus killed is relatively small. In 1929 the Survey re- 

 ported 48 bears killed in the State for the protection of stock. The 

 Forest Service in their game census of the national forests in Oregon 

 for that year reported the number of black and brown bears esti- 

 mated on the Cascade National Forest as 350; Crater, 290; Des- 

 chutes, 200; Fremont, 50; Malheur, 140; Mount Hood, 400; Ochoco, 

 49; Santiam, 325; Siskiyou, 910; Siuslaw, 480; Umatilla, TOO; Ump- 

 qua, 500; Wallowa, 455; Whitman, 655; total, 5,504, of which 538 

 were reported killed by all hunters. The national forests do not 

 hold all of the bears of Oregon, but they do harbor the major por- 

 tion, probably about three-quarters of the total. 



Black bears are intelligent animals, naturally playful, and good- 

 natured, but temperamental and somewhat uncertain in disposition. 

 Tame bears that have lost their natural fear of man are often danger- 

 ous and should be avoided by those not familiar with their psychol- 

 ogy, for it should be remembered that they are quick and powerful 

 animals, well able to kill a person with a single bite of their powerful 

 jaws or a blow from their heavily armed paws. Their eyes are 

 small and their vision not very keen, but their senses of hearing and 

 smell are unusually quick and far-reaching. Few animals are more 

 difficult of capture without the use of traps or good hunting dogs 

 that will trail and tree them or delay them for the hunter. 



URSUS KLAMATHBNSIS MEKRIAM 

 KLAMATH GRIZZLY; LOK OF THE KLAMATH (C. H. M.) 



Ursus klamathensis Men-lam, Biol. Soc. Wash. Proc. 27 : 185, 1914. 



Type. From eastern end of Siskiyou Mountains, near Beswick, Calif. ; old 

 skull presented to the Biological Survey by Charles F. Edson in 1912. 



General characters. In size rather large, larger than idahoenste; but not 

 equaling calif ornicus ; skull high with broad flat frontal shield, long rostrum, 

 heavy canines and short wide upper molars; back upper molar narrowed to 



