NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 149 



BARREN-GROUND BEAR 



URSUS RICHARDSONI Swainson 



Ursus richardsoni Swainson, Animals in Menageries, p. 54, 1838 (shore of the Arctic 

 Ocean, on west side of Bathurst Inlet near mouth of Hood River, Mackenzie, 

 Canada). 



FIGS.: Merriam, 1896, pi. 4, fig. 6; pi. 5, fig. 5; pi. 6, fig. 3 (skull). 



This grizzly is believed to range over the barren-grounds 

 from west of Hudson Bay to the Mackenzie River, and north- 

 ward to the shores of the Arctic Ocean. The color varies from 

 yellowish to grizzly brown. Size rather small for a grizzly, 

 and the skull distinguished by its broadly spreading zygomata 

 and the sagittal crest, which runs far forward and divides 

 dichotomously with a branch running to each postorbital 

 process so far anteriorly that the two ridges are nearly trans- 

 verse. Dr. Merriam (1918) regards the animal from the mouth 

 of the Mackenzie as a related but distinct species, which he has 

 called Ursus russelli, and in his paper he gives a series of 

 cranial measurements of the two. 



Preble (1908) has summarized various bits of information 

 concerning this little-known type of grizzly. Apparently the 

 first white man to come in contact with it was Samuel Hearne, 

 who in his famous journey (1770-1772) to the mouth of the 

 Coppermine River saw a skin of an enormous grizzled bear 

 at the Eskimo tents there. Franklin also observed it several 

 times along the Arctic coast from near Fort Enterprise to 

 Bathurst Inlet and mentions seeing a female with three cubs. 

 The stomach of a bear killed at Bathurst Inlet contained the 

 remains of a seal, a marmot, roots, berries, and grass. In 

 another case a bear had been feeding on a caribou. Bell met 

 with the species in 1900 "quite often" along the west and north 

 shores of Great Bear Lake. 



As to its present status, Dr. R. M. Anderson (1939b) writes: 

 "A few grizzlies of the Barren Ground group, a typical form 

 being Ursus richardsoni, ranging eastward in the Arctic Zone 

 as far as Bathurst Inlet, and perhaps a little beyond, have 

 until the past few years escaped hunting by the Eskimos, who 

 formerly kept off the bear's range in summer. As these inter- 

 esting bears do not have the shelter of mountains, it is feared 

 that with the recent spread of trapping operations and mining 

 developments in the Far North, and particularly the extension 



