Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 122, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1919 — Grizzly Bear Never Eats Human Flesh; Not Ferocious —Fights When Necessary [ARTICLE]

Grizzly Bear Never Eats Human Flesh; Not Ferocious —Fights When Necessary

The grizzly bear has been known to the white race a little more than a century. Lewis and Clark the first official accounts of him in 1805, and he \vas first discussed publicly in 1814 by Gov. De Witt Clinton in New York city. Guthrie's old geography says that he was named Ursus hor* ribilus by Naturalist George Ord in”' 1815. Fossil indicate that the grizzly is of Asiatic origin. He appears to have come into America about a million years ago over one of the prehistoric land bridges that united Alaska and Asia.. Bears and dogs are descendants from the same parent stock. The grizzly bear never eats human flesh, is not ferocious and fights only in self-defense. He leads an adventurous life, is a born explorer and ever has good wilderness manners—never makes attacks. The numerous cases in which the grizzly has been made a pet and companion of man, where he was thoughtfully, intelligently raised, show him to be a superior animal, dignified, intelligent, loyal and uniformly good-tempered. Not a grizzly exists in any. of the four national parks of California, and that animal, once so celebrated in that state, is extinct there. He is also extinct over the greater portion of the vast territory which he formerly occupied, and is verging on extermination.