Grizzly Attack in Yellowstone

My wife and I were concerned to hear about the recent fatal grizzly attack in Yellowstone--very much because our daughter works and lives in prime grizzly bear country (she works for the Montana Conservation Corps in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, just south of Glacier National Park).

I have read estimates that there are about 1000 to 1500 grizzly bears in the contiguous lower 48 United States and they can be found in the wild in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Washington (some claim they exist in Colorado, too). Maybe 750 of these bear are in the Northern Continental Divide area (which would include Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex). I believe Glacier is about a million acres in size and the Bob Complex about 1.5 million acres. So maybe there are 750 grizzlies in those 2.5 million acres; that would be about 4000 square miles. If my rough calculations are anywhere in the ballpark, that sounds like about 5 square miles per grizzly bear. In other words, your chances of encountering a grizzly in Glacier or the Bob Marshall are slim indeed--but not impossible. My daughter saw a grizzly near Strawberry Creek in the Bob Marshall, where she and her crew were doing trail maintenance for the Montana Conservation Corps. She viewed the sighting of this bear as a privilege indeed.

Do you need to be afraid of grizzlies? Hell yea! Grizzlies are huge bears (those in Alaska who feed on salmon become gigantic). But even in Montana, they are big enough, with females around 300 pounds and males much larger. They have very long claws and powerful legs; they can outrun any human; they can outswim humans; and they can climb trees (though probably not with the facility of black bears). If you want to read about how unstoppable grizzlies are, read the journals of Lewis and Clark (see Stephen Ambrose's book Undaunted Courage). As Meriwether Lewis found out, a gun is no guarantee for your safety in the face of an angry grizzly.

The scientific name for a grizzly bear is ursus arctos horribilis. The term "grizzly" actually means "grey-colored." The grizzly is actually a subspecies of brown bear that often has a grey tinge to the thick fur. I, with my grey beard, could actually be called "Grizzly Bob."

I have translated the term "Grizzly Bear" into Irish-Gaelic as Béar Mór Uafásach (you could also call it something like Béar Bricliath—the second word here implies half-grizzled, gray-colored). The other Irish expression means bear + big + terrible, that is, "big terrible bear." The big terrible bear is a big wonderful bear, and a characteristic sign of a healthy wilderness. It is good luck to spot a grizzly--at least most of the time!