Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1890-08-01
TRAPPING 4 GRIZZL y

! ~
be extinct. The rapid removal Of the
grizzly from the face of the earth is not
| being achieved by the unerring rifle of the
daring hunter, notwithstanding hair raising
newspaper stories Of terrific combats with
| the monarch Of the mountains. The dead
| ly work can be traced directly, in nine cases
out of ten, TO the surreptitious strychnine
Of the deplorably practical rancher and the
| gentle but vengeful sheep herder
A grizzly wanders down from his mount.
ain lair 10 a cattle range, kills steer and
eats portion of the beef The stockman
finds the carcass and knowing that the
bear will return for another meal, makes
an incision in the flesh and introduces a
heavy dose of strychnne. The next night
the bear comes back to his prey, eats an
other hearty meal without noticing the sea
soning, and shufies off toward his lair in
the chaparral. He stops at the first spring
TO drink and then queer feeling comes
over him. He is seized with convusions that
rack his tough frame from head TO heel,
but his marvellous vitality ressts the &C
ton Of the poison for time and after a
brief struggle in the course Of which he
tears up the ground and smashes dense
thickets as a man tramples reeds, he recov.
ers temporarily and rushes madly into some
deep dark gorge where the final fit stretches
him out stiff and cold. An gnoble death
for such a noble brute
The proprietor of the San Francisco Ex-
aminer, desiring TO preserve a specimen of
the grizzly, whose figure was borne by the
original flag of the state Of California and
is represented on the seal of the state, in
| trusted to me, in May, 1889, the task Of cap
turing a bear, and in the fall Of that year
| returned to San Francisco with a splen-
did Coast range grizzly, the only full grown
specimen now in captivity.
Information gathered on previous hunt
| ing trips led me TO select as a field of oper-
ations that part Of the Coast range running
through Ventura and the northern part of
Los Angeles counties, and early in June
the first permanent camp Of the expedition
was made in the heavy timber ON Mount
Pinos, about 300 feet above sea level.
During the summer months about - 600
sheep driven up from the dry plains Of
| Kern, Craze ON Mount Pinos, and afford
| high living TO all the bears in that part Of
the country The grizzlies that live in the
rugged ranges within radius Of thirty
miles seem to know when the mutton sea
son opens on the big mountain, and most of
them go up there to spend the summer va
cation and grow fat They walk into the
sheep camps usually at night, select their
mutton and eat their fill, and very seldom
are they disturbed at their meals They
| pay no attention to the dogs, which usually
have discretion enough To bark at a respect
| ful distance, and the herders commonly
climb trees, being paid 10 herd sheep and
not to fight bears.
In one of the cafions on the south side of
the mountain where | had found the tracks
of a huge bear that was raiding the sheep
camps, | built strong log cabin trap
twelve feet long, four feet wide, and five
feet high, inside measurement The side
logs were eighteen inches and the roof logs
twelve inches thick, all securely fastened
with stout oak pins. The cabin rested up
on a floor of heavy logs and three of the
corners were buttressed by standing trees
which happened to grow in advantageous
arrangement. In its general features this
trap was type of the traps built ON this
expedition The door was made of four
inch plank, weighed two hundred pounds
and was held in place when raised by
rope running over pulley and attached to
a trigger projecting through the roof A
pole lever was substituted for the rope in
the other traps.
Only three grizzlies came to Mount Pinos
while we were there and they would not
20 near the trap, although it was baited
temptingly with mutton, venison and hon
ey and the carcass of a sheep was dragged
daily from the trap and back again
by circuitous route over the mountain.
One of the bears called upon us one night
in a sociable way and drove all of our
horses out of camp, but he ignored the com
Portable cabin erected for his special accom-
mediation. 1t was evident that the griz-
zles preferred to select and kill their own
mutton. Then the herders began putting
out strychnine and although none of the
bears died they became sick and suspicious
and retreated TO the toughest gorges on
the north side of the mountain, where the
danger of following them was aggravated
by the presence of spring guns set by an
unsportsmaulike sheepman.
soon discovered that my hired guide,
fearing that | would break camp and 20
somewhere else to build traps, had concoct-
ed an ingenious scheme TO encourage me 10
remain. He had whitfield out of bark a
very good model of the sole of bears foot,
with which he made bogus tracks in the vi
cinity of the trap. AS these tracks came
from nowhere and led nowhither but seem
ed to have fallen from the sky, my suspi-
cions were aroused and when found the
model hidden in some brush, discharged
the ingenious hired man, left Mount Pinos
and resumed the hunt for trappable griz-
lilies in other places, accompanied only by
De Moss Bowers of Ventura, a young man
who joined the expedition for the fun of it.
During the next three months we found
the trails of many bears, saw some grizzlies
face to face and built several traps in the
mountains, leaving them in charge of
mountain men as we moved along. We
suffered many disappointments, most of
them due to the cattleman's reprehensible
habit of prowling about in the brush with
his unerring bottle of strychnine. One
trap baited with two live squealing pigs
would have caught large grizzly one dark
night but the inevitable poison was in his
path, and he got such big dose that he
turned up his toes in the middle of the
trail 1t was with mitigated grief that we
saw the poisoner's two dogs come down
from the mountain the next day, drink at
the spring, look greatly surprised for mo.
ment and tumble over as stiff as crowbars,
They also had found the strychnine.
Two months were consumed in frutless
efforts to capture the big bear that had
lived for maRy years ON the Liebra peak
and destroyed hundreds of cattle The
audacity of this bear and the extent of his
depredations had established his reputation
as'mucho diablo, 'and the Mexican who had
charge of the Rancho Castac was inspired
with such respect for the old grizzly that
nothing could induce him to go foot upon
the mountain. The grizzly's den was a
rocky hollow covered with manzanita brush,
near the top of the highest and most rug
ged ridge of the mountain, and from this
almost inaccessible retreat he made regular
marauding raids down through the timber
belt to the grazing lands. a green flat
near Castac lake was strewn with the whit
ened bones of cattle that had been killed
by the bear, and in an hours tramp over
any part of the mountain one would be
certain 10 find the remains of from two tc
half dozen of his victims.
We hired axemen to chop down oak tree.
thirty inches in diameter and build enor
mously strong traps for that bear, and we
used hundreds of pounds of honey to en-
tice him into them. Day after day l went
up into the chaparral and among the rocks
10 follow his trail and study his movements
and every day | could find the fresh i'm
prints of his feet. Frequently the trai
was so fresh that great caution was neces
sary TO avoid coming upon the grizzly sud
denly in the dense brush
Sometimes in the middle of the night W,
heard a steer below in terror, and the next
day found the carcass of the animal partly
eaten by the bear, In every instance tn,
animals neck had been broken by a blow
from the grizzly's paw, In his midnight
J forays the bear often passed the camp al
no great distance, and twice he attacked
and slightly wounded our horses which
were running at large Had they beer
tethered he would have killed them.
One night the bear killed steer within
one hundred and fifty yards of an unfn
ished trap and the next day Bowers rod
out 10 Germans store, ten miles away, Il
get some nails, while | worked on the trap
We expected 10 complete the work tina
night and drag the carcass down 10 tn