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Show of disturbance in his band. He seized his rifle, not recalling he had but one shell in it, and went out. The bear was there all right. He shot it. It went down, only to rise and charge as he approached It mauled him and went away. Then it returned and mauled him some more as he tried to get back to camp. But Broad-hur- st Smith was tough stuff. He survived. When I saw him later, the only signs of the struggle were scars on his bald head where the scalp had been refitted to his skull. Sheepmen and sheepherders. like Smith, threaten the grizzly. Full knowing about the likely presence of bears there, they insist on grazing their bands on the rich uplands, the sweet mountain meadows. Bears do kill and eat sheep, as well as bigger domestic animals sometimes, and the temptation of the herder is to shoot first and claim protection afterward. They are not the only threats to the existence of the species. Man's encroachment on his habitat is more important. The habitat becomes more and .more restricted, and clamorous with machinery. A female grizzly needs 30 square miles to move around in. a male more than that. The reproductive rate is low six cubs in the lifetime of a healthy mother. Here. Dr. Jonkel hopes, nature may answer by raising the rate. A further danger, perhaps just as great, is the poacher. He covets claws, later to be fashioned into jewelry. He covets the gallbladder. It is reported that, dried and ground, it commands fancy prices on the Far Eastern market as an aphrodisiac. Collectors want the hides. Legal hunting, at least in Montana, is a minor concern. The state sets an annual bear-dealimit of 25 from all causes, such as illness, natural death or accident. Hunters with legal permits kill perhaps 10 a year of that number. Even so, grizzlies are being killed every day, openly and secretly. The bear has been designated as a threatened but not endangered species, and he does have more friends than enemies. Among these friends are the Audubon Society and wilderness groups. Montana legislators recently learned about public sentiment in regard to the bear. The question arose as to what should be the official Montana animal, the grizzly or the elk. It appeared that the State Legislature might designate the elk. But then hundreds of schoolchildren showed up last spring to demand that the bear be chosen. The legislators had no choice. And it is just this sort of action that is the key to the grizzly's survival. With enough money and enough enforcing legislation the grizzly might endure indefinitely in the open, but only the people can make it happen. Despite all these efforts on behalf of the bear, men w ho are not so optimistic predict that he will be gone from the lower 48 states in the next 35 years. If they are right, there will have disap . th A.B. Guthrie Jr. is the Pulitzer Prizewinning author of a panel of books about Americas West , including the recently published "Fair Land. Fair Land," which completes the story of characters introduced in The Big Sky." PARADE MAGAZINE JULY 24, 1983 PAGE 11 13 peared from our wilds the grandest animal Americans have known. And old men. their eyes lost in the past, will be saying, I remember ..." U |
