Dreams of grizzlies drive searchers to crazy acts

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Originally published July 29, 2001

GREAT BURN WILDERNESS, Mont. -- It is a sunny morning in mid-July and grizzly search workers are erecting a trap to collect bear hair on a mountainside above Straight Creek, deep in the Great Burn wilderness study area.

Great Grizzly Search researcher Brian Huntington and partner Greg Price rely on their tracking skills, scanning towering piles of bear scat, measuring claw marks on the trees. Periodically, Huntington stops at a tree where a bear has scratched itself and painstakingly tweezes hairs from the bark.

"These are the first ones with silver tips I've seen. I mean, the first ones," he says, referring to the grizzly's trademark, light-tipped hair (though black bears have been known to sport tips, as well).

The main strategy is to erect a series of bear lures around suspected grizzly locations that can be used to collect hair samples, which then can be DNA tested to determine whether they came from black bears or grizzlies.

Carefully, Huntington and Price stretch a line of barbed wire around four trees to form a square, about shoulder-high for a bear. They make a pile of dead wood in the center to absorb the lure. They post warning signs on nearby trees: "CAUTION. Bears may be in the area. Turn around or pass through the area quickly."

Then, Huntington opens a plastic canister of a concoction that is sure to draw any grizzly within miles. It is a combination of cow's blood and fish guts, left to sit in 90-degree heat for three weeks. It releases an odor of overwhelming death and decay, and it is hard to imagine what kind of creature would be drawn to such a smell. Huntington pours the mixture on the wood, packs up, and moves away as fast and as far as he can.

All the way back to camp, in the darkening afternoon, the group is weighed down with the memory of it. Did the bear come out of the forest, looking for blood?

"What I love about this job is I'm continually going places I have no business being and would otherwise never consider going," Huntington said.

The Olympian Copyright 2001

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