Page 6 - Wyoming's Grizzly Harvest - The Story the State Wants to Bury with the Bears

Wyoming’s Grizzly Harvest “Grizzly bears, we call them our brothers. There used to be a lot of them in the Wolf Mountains on the reservation and in the Bighorns, but they killed them all. The white man did that. After killing all these grizzlies, in Crow Country they only survived in Yellowstone. The Crows have always got along with the grizzly bear in a special way. The Crows have grizzly bear songs. We have grizzly bear dances. We name our kids with grizzly bear names. Grizzly bears play an important part in the culture of the Crow Indian. It’s not grizzly bears that are problematic it’s man. The way he reacts and the way he treats grizzly bears and other animals. So I repeat, we have to control man himself and keep grizzly bears alive. The government needs to keep protecting them.” Dr. Joseph Medicine Crow (1913–2016) 6