Once I was running down a Wyoming mountainside, leaping fallen fire-killed timber, when suddenly I surprised a grizzly by landing within a few feet of him. He leaped up and struck at me with sufficient force to have almost cut me in two had the blow landed. Then he instantly fled. This, however, was not ferocity. Plainly he thought himself attacked and struck in self-defense.
There are many naturalists and frontiersmen who affirm from first-hand experience that the grizzly is not ferocious, and following are given a number of quotations from a few of these men.
John Muir, who spent about forty years in the wilderness home of the grizzly bear, from 1868 to 1912, usually camped alone and never carried firearms. He has repeatedly called attention in his books to the wilderness as a place of safety, and has mentioned that grizzly bears are masters in attending to their own affairs; also that bears have effectively suggested to wilderness visitors to do likewise. In "Our National Parks" Muir says:--
"In my first interview with a Sierra bear we were frightened and embarrassed, both of us, but the bear's behavior was better than mine.... After studying his appearance as he stood at rest, I rushed forward to frighten him, that I might study his gait in running. But, contrary to all I had heard about the shyness of bears, he did not run at all; and when I stopped short within a few steps of him, as he held his ground in a fighting attitude, my mistake was monstrously plain. I was put on my good behavior, and never afterwards forgot the right manners of the wilderness."
"There are bears in the woods, but not in such numbers nor of such unspeakable ferocity as town-dwellers imagine, nor do bears spend their lives in going about the country like the devil, seeking whom they may devour. Oregon bears, like most others, have no liking for man either as meat or as society; and while some may be curious at times to see what manner of creature he is, most of them have learned to shun people as deadly enemies."
Mr. William H. Wright spent most of his time from 1883 to 1908 as a hunter of wild animals, and especially as a hunter of the grizzly. In addition to being an observer of exceptional care while hunting and trapping, he spent some years in photographing grizzlies. He first studied them in order to hunt them successfully; then laid aside his rifle and hunted them to study them. From full acquaintance with the grizzly Mr. Wright declares that he is not ferocious. He offers the following comment concerning his curiosity--a trait which early explorers mistook for ferocity:--