Animals
Extinct ‘hypercarnivorous’ California grizzly bears were actually mostly vegetarian before Europeans showed up
(Image credit: Bildagentur-online/Contributor via Getty Images)
This dietary shift was iNFLated in contemporary accounts, which encouraged widespread persecution of California grizzly bears and eventually led to their extinction, according to the study.
Newspapers also wildly exaggerated the size of California grizzlies. When the researchers measured skulls and teeth from natural history collections, they found the extinct bears weren’t any larger than grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis) that live in North America today and the average one probably weighed around 440 pounds (200 kg).
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Historical overestimates could be due to hunters targeting the biggest bears. “The bears reported in newspaper clippings were often killed as trophies, as part of publicity stunts, or even sold for meat,” the researchers wrote in the study. “Therefore, there were both monetary and reputational incentives to both capture the largest animals possible and to exaggerate the size and aggressiveness of captured animals.”
The researchers highlighted the sad story of Monarch, a California grizzly bear captured north of Pasadena in 1889 as part of a publishing stunt. Convinced that grizzlies were voracious meat-eaters, zookeepers fed Monarch a rich diet of raw beef, apples and biscuits, which caused the bear to become obese and develop osteoarthritis. “When Monarch died he weighed 1,127 lbs (511.2 kg), more than twice the size of the average California grizzly in our sample,” the researchers wrote.
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