In addition to providing homes for grizzly bears and wolves which cannot be rehabilitate to the wild, the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone, Montana provides a number of displays which provide scientific information about these animals.
The Discovery center points out that bears—both grizzlies and black bears—don’t typically die of natural causes, such as starvation or old age. According to one display:
“They are usually killed by people—either directly or indirectly when people’s activities and developments expand into their habitats.”
Another display indicates:
“Although the grizzly inspires fear and can pose real danger to people, human beings are powerful natural enemies of this bear. Through killing this animal and competing for the use of its habitat, humans have eliminated the grizzly from most of its original range.”
The grizzly bear had disappeared from Texas by 1890; from Utah by 1923; from Oregon in 1931; and from Arizona and New Mexico between 1933 and 1935. By 1940, the grizzly populations in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming were threatened. When the European invasion of California started, there were an estimated 10,000 grizzlies in the area and by 1922 the state’s last grizzly had been killed.
With regard to the bears in Yellowstone National Park, one display indicates:
“The unfavorable effects of the bears’ unnatural dies and contact with people had become clear, and during the 1960s and 1970s, the Park Service bear-proofed garbage cans and took serious measures to discourage tourists from feeding roadside bears. Many people disobeyed the rules, however, and the Park Service found it very difficult to monitor the activities of so many people.”
Shown above is grizzly bear scat. According to the display:
“The size of bear scat is not a reliable way to tell if it came from a grizzly or black bear. The size is related to the age of the bear and the kind and amount of food it has eaten.”
The bears at the center are working bears: they test supposedly “bear-proof” containers. The results of some of their “work” are shown above. According to the display:
“Products are placed in the bear habitat and baited with especially enticing foods such as fish, meat, molasses or fruit jam. Bears then must attempt to get into the container for at least 90 minutes for it to be considered tested.”
Uinta Ground Squirrel: