Page 36 - Wyoming's Grizzly Harvest - The Story the State Wants to Bury with the Bears

Wyoming’s Grizzly Harvest these grizzlies, countless grizzly advocates were made among tourists who trailed to the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem from all corners of the planet for a chance to glimpse the Great Bear in one of the only two small parcels of the lower- 48 in which it can be viewed without mounting a backcountry expedition. No matter, now they can journey to see 760 stuffed in a Wyoming visitor’s center or a Game and Fish office among a sleuth of other stiff and snarling grizzlies that fell foul of the redshirted cavalry and were dropped at the taxidermist to have their skins stretched taught over molds, fangs bared in fake and silent roars. It was inevitable that when 760 fell under the jurisdiction of WGFD, and the bear was trapped on ranchland adjacent to the Aspens subdivision near Teton Village, his days would be numbered, though 760 was no stranger to the Aspens. It is doubtful that 760’s demise created much genuine angst among Grand Teton National Park’s “bear management” or rangers. 760, said one, was “a classic habituated roadside bear.” There is now one fewer grizzly for them to haze and consequently harass the public over in their performance of the hundred-yard curbside charade. In 2014, a visitor could not photograph a grizzly from their vehicle within a hundred yards in Grand Teton, but the park’s administrators have 36