Yellow Stone Grizzly Bear

Greater Yellow Stone Grizzly Bear

(these aren't your everyday black bears)
Luke Marshall

Ursus arctos horribilis

Appearance: Grizzly bears are very strong and large animals. Their size and weight depend largely on food supply, as well as climate conditions. Adult bears can stand up to four feet tall at the shoulders and can weigh up to 800 pounds. They are very heavy but also surprisingly fast, they can run up to 35 miles per hour.

Habitat:

The Yellow Stone Grizzly bear is a very solitary animal and will only be with other bears if it is a mother or is mating. Adult males feed on 80 percent meat and 20 percent vegetation, and females feed on 60 percent meat and 40 percent vegetation. Most of their diet consists of fish, such as the Cutthroat Trout, and because they are very opportunistic feeders they will feed on almost anything but their favorite vegetation is the Whitebark Pine nut.

courtesy of  History.com

Geographic and Population Changes:

Grizzlies traditionally ranged far and wide over all of North America; however, since humans have been pushing farther and farther into their habitat they are now confined to national parks and very remote portions of the US as well as Canada. Bears are very opportunistic animals and adapt very well but because they will attack humans they often have to be put down if they become too accustomed to human food. In addition to this they are often hunted for sport because they are so infamous.

Cause of Listing and Main Threats:

The Grizzly Bear was originally listed because it was observed that the national numbers of Grizzlies was declining at an alarming rate. They have few enemies other than other bears and humans. They are illegally hunted by both the landowners seeing the bears as a threat to their livestock, and poachers interested in their hides, teeth, claws and internal organs for the Asian medical market. Due to their shrinking habitat there is much more interference from other bears. This comes in the form of an increased amount of cubs have been killed because of adult males as well as increased competition for a smaller amount of food.

Main points of the recovery plan:

The Grizzly bear was originally listed in 1975 under the Endangered Species Act. It was briefly delisted and then under a revised recovery plan was listed again in 1993 as Threatened. Since the grizzly bear is only listed as threatened all actions are listed in importance as 3's, which means that they are actions only to secure the full recovery of the species.  The majority of these actions are only surveys to make sure that the populations of the bears themselves as well as their food sources are still intact. These main food sources in the Greater Yellow Stone area include Cutthroat Trout, Whitebark Pine, and Cutworm Moths. In addition to these surveys, also listed in priority is site limitation and livestock monitoring. The first means that sites where human contact would occur has to be minimized as bears are very intelligent and if they find a food source and it has to do with humans it will probably not end well for the bear. The second is along the same lines but it has to do with making sure that livestock is well out of the way of bear territory.

You can help save these magnificent animals too! Do your part by abiding by all camping rules and try to make as little of a trace as possible. To see how else you can help go to http://www.defenders.org/grizzly-bear/