1936] MAMMALS OF OREGON 327 



It is to be hoped that there are a few left in the State today and that 

 when their wanderings are finished their bones and skins may be 

 immortalized in some good museum collection so that we may know 

 positively what species originally roamed over western Oregon. 



General habits. Grizzly bears in the early days of muzzle-loading 

 guns had' little fear of man and were justly considered dangerous 

 animals to encounter, but with the development of repeating and 

 high-power rifles and the filling up of the West with hardy pioneers, 

 these lordly animals have yielded to civilization and have all but 

 disappeared. 



Probably half of the recognized forms of grizzlies are extinct and 

 others are rapidly going. Moreover, their natures have changed 

 through persecution, and they are now the most wary and difficult 

 of our large game animals to hunt, using their keen senses and intel- 

 ligence for protection and escape rather than for aggression. Even 

 where a few are known to reside in the wildest parts of the country 

 they can rarely be found or seen unless caught by expert trappers. 



Hibernation. In early winter the grizzlies become very fat if the 

 food supply has been at all ample, and with the first snows usually 

 move upward into the higher mountain slopes to find winter dens 

 in caves or hollow spaces among the rocks or to some dense cover 

 where they can dig out a huge cavity under brush, logs, or stumps 

 for a winter nest. Here they sleep or remain in a deep torpor, some- 

 times from October to March, but apparently for varying times in 

 different localities according to climate. 



Breeding habits. The 2 to 4 young are born while the mother is in 

 her winter den, sometimes as early as January, but apparently more 

 often in February or March. They are not brought out until the 

 warm days of spring, sometimes not until April or May, when, the 

 size of house cats (Wright, 1909, p. %04) , they follow the mother as 

 she searches for food. They are said to nurse until late summer or 

 early fall and to remain under the care of the mother through the 

 winter and for the second summer. The mother then deserts them 

 and brings forth another family of young the following winter. 



Food habits. Grizzlies are as wholly omnivorous as are the black 

 bears, but apparently better hunters and more capable of capturing 

 game and livestock. Meat is undoubtedly their favorite food, and 

 it need not be freshly killed or fresh in any sense of the word. Any 

 old carcass will give them a meal. Fish, and especially salmon, are 

 eagerly sought and captured in the shallow streams or found dead 

 along the shores, but for most of the year green vegetation, roots, 

 bark, berries, or any fruit, nuts, grain, insects, or small animal life 

 which they can find in rotten logs, under stones, or in the ground 

 help to appease their appetites. In autumn they devote much time 

 and effort to digging out fat rodents, ground squirrels, woodchucks, 

 and such animals as go into hibernation earlier than they do. 



Economic status. Over most of their original range the grizzly 

 bears must of necessity disappear and give place to farms and live- 

 stock. Some individuals become habitual cattle killers and must be 

 hunted down to protect the livestock industry, but in some of the 

 very steep and rugged mountain areas where grazing is not possible 

 a -few might well be spared to keep alive one of our most interesting 

 forms of wildlife. Such areas, however, are few outside of national 



