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"The legs of this bear are somewhat longer than those of the black, as are it's tallons and tusks in comparably larger and longer....it's color is yellowish brown, the eyes small black and piercing."
--Meriwether Lewis on the grizzly bear.
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Lewis and Clark heard rumors of the grizzly long before they first caught a glimpse of silver-tipped fur. Native Americans told stories of the bear's strength and resilience, and the explorers saw for themselves the massive tracks. By the time the Corps of Discovery had passed through what is now eastern Montana in the summer of 1805, the bears were no longer a mystery. They had encountered them swimming across rivers, running across the plains, and feeding on drowned bison. Grizzlies, it seemed, were everywhere.
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Much has changed for the grizzly since more than 100,000 roamed from east of the Mississippi to the California coast in the time of Lewis and Clark. Today, about 1,000 remain in the Lower 48-1 percent of former numbers in
1 to 2 percent of their former range. There are five isolated groups in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Washington. These small numbers, coupled with diminishing habitat, resulted in the bear's 1975 listing as "threatened" on the endangered species list.
The grizzly bear's ferocious reputation contributed to its rapid decline. As settlers moved into the river valleys and meadows where the bears once thrived, they shot and poisoned grizzlies and other predators to make way for livestock and farms. They also got rid of them in less direct ways, by carving up and developing prime habitat separating populations from one another.
Now even the bear's last wild refuges are at risk. Logging, rural sprawl, energy development, and uncontrolled dirt-bike and snowmobile use destroy key habitat and increases the killing of bears. In Yellowstone, food sources within bears' existing habitat are threatened; whitebark pines, cutthroat trout, salmon, army cutworm moths, bison, and elk all face possible decline due to climate change, non-native species, habitat loss, and other human factors. Roads are a particular problem, slicing remaining forests into smaller and smaller pieces and bringing more and more humans into bear habitat.
The federal government is considering removing the grizzly from the endangered species list. This would put the burden of managing grizzlies on Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, states that have historically had close ties with the timber, agriculture, and mining industries and little tolerance for large predators. Among other changes, these states are likely to reestablish a legal hunt. While the grizzly still roams Yellowstone and other areas in the Northern Rockies, the bear would be extinct in the Lower 48 without ESA protection.
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