The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1922-01-27
BEAR PLAYFUL
H0LD-UP MAN
Hruin Most Interesting Thing in
Yellowstone Park, Says Big
Game Hunter.
BOSS OF SUMMER TOURISTS
A Geyser Is Only a Geyser, but
Bear Is Humorist, Says Ed
mund HelIer-Big Game is
Increasing Rapidly.

New York-The bear as playful
hold-up man who rifles tourists auto
mobiles and breaks into hotels for
food is one of the uncertain quantities
of Yellowstone park, says Edmund
Heller the big game hunter who has
the park studying the wild life of
larger animals for the Roosevelt wild
life experiment station connected with
the school of forestry at Syracuse
university.
Mr. Heller likes bears. He has spent
hours watching and photographing
them during the past summer and
thilsks they are by far the most in
teresting things in the park more so
than the geysers and hot springs.
geyser is only geyser after you have
seen it few times, says Mr.. Heller,
but bear is a source of infinite humor
to those who study him.
Big game in the park is increas-
ing, With the exception of mountain
sheep and antelopes, he says. Much
of ms report will be devoted to
methods of preventing the graceful
sheep and antelope from disappearing
altogether from the Yellowstone. 1t
is not their natural habitat, for in
winter, unless restricted they would
move south into the Dakotas he says.
AS it is they stay in the park, many
freezing to death. On the other hand,
moose are increasing rapidly, and elk
are so numerous that they can be
heard buying all day long as they
charge across the bottoms. They num-
he frequently saw large herds with
bulls driving their cows and trumpet
ing defiance at the world Mule deer
are also increasing fast, and beavers
fill the streams, he says.
Increase in Tourists.
The greatest change in the Yellow
stone in the last few years, however, |
is in the greatly increased number |
of tourists, according to Mr.. Heller |
The automobile and the war are both |
largely responsible, although, oddly |
enough, most of the tourists are |
Westerners, to whom wild country is
no novelty. The park is filed with
camps at which automobile parties
may stop for the night under the
supervision of ranger to see that
they do not fire the woods.
The bears are a constant source OF
interest to these tourists. If cars are
left moment fat, black bear may
soon be found paving the seat and up
hOlstery to pieces in search of food.
The bears are fairly tame, because
they are never molested, but they are
wild enough to claw the tourist who
tries to drive them off with nothing
more than temper and stick.
"The rangers really have to protect
the bears from tourists" says Mr..
Heller, because the animals flock
around the hotels for food" Occa-
sionaly tourist gets tangled up with
one so badly that the bear has to be
shot. Now the bears have regular
eeding places where the waste from
he hotels is dumped. The tourist
watches from behind a screen with
ranger looking on with rifle to
protect both the tourist and the bears
'They come Looping in at regular
l0urs, often mother bear bringing
Ter cubs. She will put the cubs up
rec and tell them to stay there. II
hey come down while she is feeding,
he runs back and cuffs them into the
rec again, just like naughty children
,ears often go back after meal,
limb tree in full view Of people
nd go to sleep.
Bears Are Funny.
"They are funny things. They WALL
Ike man when they stand up. When
hey are in tree they often sit like
man, with legs dangling on each side
branch and clutching the trunk
4 front Of them. They often break
1to hotels. Big logs will BATTLE them