Originally featured in Points West in Spring 2007
Grizzly Bear 104
In 1989, the National Audubon Society produced a documentary titled Grizzly and Man: Uneasy Truce, narrated by Robert Redford. One of the “stars” of the documentary was a 7-year-old mother grizzly bear identified as Number 104. This bear had been in close contact with campsites and human dwellings in and around Yellowstone National Park. A bear biologist predicted that, due to conflicts and potential danger, she would have to be euthanized soon. Others in the documentary expressed some hope that aversive training and harassment by humans and dogs might persuade Grizzly Bear 104 to stay away from humans and thus avoid conflicts and euthanasia.
Twelve years later, in the spring of 2001, Grizzly Bear 104 was struck by a vehicle and killed on the highway in the Shoshone National Forest, near the East Gate of Yellowstone National Park. Although she often had been seen and photographed near the East Entrance Gate, she had largely avoided conflicts with humans and death until that fateful spring morning.
Through the cooperation of the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Wyoming Game and Fish Department, Grizzly Bear 104 now resides in the Mountain Forest exhibit in the Draper Museum of Natural History where she helps us attract, engage, inform, and inspire visitors about the natural legacy of Yellowstone and the American West.
Grizzly bear 104. Scientific name: Ursus arctos. Taxidermist: James J. Marsico. DRA.305.4
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