why does the flag only have 1 head?

Like the Cedars of Lebanon, long, long since logged out of existence.

Early 1900s

They did, at least into Minnesota. This range map probably doesn't use data from as long ago as when they did.

Pure guess, but the praries are probably not a good habitat for them. Hard for them to hunt, and the buffalos could easily mess them up.

Yeah, this map is wrong. There are a handful of grizzlies in the Northern Cascades.

Hunters and hikers in northern WA are still advised to be aware they are rare, but still a possible encounter, in the Cascade foothills.

But yeah, they are certainly a lot more rare than they used to be.

It wasn't so arid in the Pleistocene but a pine forest(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0033589401922872). That's back when the glaciers were still around and height of hominid impact was small hunter gatherer groups with some sharp rocks at best.

There was a recent Baja grizzly up to the 1800s but this map is hard to interpret on time period because the population goes very far south and east into the great plains. It's likely pre westward expansion, but without being explicit it's hard to tell.

Holy whit what a read. The political pressure and bureaucratic nightmare of this all is really jarring.

Exactly. Is this map showing us that theyre moving north/west or is it showing us the area is shrinking. I cant really draw any conclusions

Good question. I assume that all of current falls under historic, but that could not be the case.

While grizzly bears are brown bears. Not all brown bears are grizzlies.

Historically, if you weren't talking about the bald eagle, the US tended to be symbolized by the bison (which we in the US call the "buffalo). It got pretty clobbered too, though.

They are more a jewel of Californian culture. I've never seen them associated with all of America.

Oh, we can't take all the credit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_brown_bear

Brown bears could once be found across most of Eurasia, compared to the more limited range today. General habitats included areas such as grassland, sparsely vegetated land, and wetlands.

Although included as of Least Concern on the 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (which refers to the global species, not to the Eurasian brown bear specifically), local populations, specifically those in the European Union, are becoming increasingly scarce.[16] As the IUCN itself adds: "Least Concern does not always mean that species are not at risk. There are declining species that are evaluated as Least Concern."

The brown bear has long been extinct in Britain (at least 1,500 years ago, possibly even 3,000 years ago),[17][18] Denmark (about 6,500 years ago),[19] the Netherlands (about 1,000 years ago, although later singles rarely wandered from Germany),[20] Belgium and Luxembourg, with more recent extinctions in Germany (in the year 1835, although singles wandering from Italy were recorded in 2006 and 2019),[21][22] Switzerland (in 1904, although a single was seen in 1923 and since 2005 there has been an increasing number of sightings of wanderers from Italy),[23][24] and Portugal (in 1843, although a wanderer from Spain was recorded in 2019).[25]

The largest brown bear population in Europe is in Russia, where it has now recovered from an all-time low caused by intensive hunting.

I know it seems scary, but their existence has little to no impact on outdoor recreation. They don't want to be around us anymore than we want to be around them.

All the times I've run into a grizzly hiking or backpacking, they either ignore me or leave. Conflicts are rare, and almost exclusively happen because of a surprise close encounter, or someone comes too close to a carcass a bear is camping out on.

The ones to worry about are the damn cow elk during calving season. Pure chaotic evils.

Source: I'm from the grizzly range of western Montana and lived in Yellowstone National Park for many years.

You like being in a sanitised artificial nature. It’s like someone who likes castles hanging out at Disneyland.

This list is probably not a complete accounting of all incidents, but it dates back to the 1780s, and has 88 cases where a brown bear killed a human.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_bear_attacks_in_North_America

Going the other direction:

https://www.fws.gov/species/grizzly-bear-ursus-arctos-horribilis

Prior to 1800, an estimated 50,000 grizzly bears were distributed in one large contiguous area throughout all or portions of 18 western States, including Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

Grizzly bears were reduced to close to 2% of their former range in the 48 contiguous states by the 1930s, with a corresponding decrease in population, approximately 125 years after first contact with European settlers.

The kill-to-death ratio is pretty favorable to humans.

Uhh... Yeah.

You have a wiiiiild imagination. Can you make a drawing?

like that?