The Grizzly Bear Story
photo credit: Juan Giribet / VWPics via AP Images
In the past few letters, we have shared quite a bit about storytelling. Today, I am sharing one of our stories and lessons about the last wild grizzly bear in California. Parents, if you read this story to your child, please note that the bear dies. Depending upon your child’s sensitivity level, you may want to edit some details as you read it. Enjoy…
Length of Story: 10 minutes
Objectives (learning outcomes):
Listening skills
Knowledge about bears: behavior & lifecycle
Knowledge about the history of the California
Instructions:
Read the story below. Note to parents: in this story, the bear is killed. A parent may want to read it privately prior to reading it to the child and edit as necessary depending upon the child’s sensitivity.
The Last Grizzly Bear in California
Long ago, but not really so long ago—only about 135 years ago, in the late 1800s—a gorgeous little grizzly bear cub was born. Her name was Little Black Bear because she was quite dark, much darker than her lovely brown mother and sister, and she was small. At birth, she weighed only about 1 pound, while her sister was almost 2 pounds. Despite her size, Little Black Bear was strong and tenacious. She frolicked and played just like any other bear.
Now, although Little Black Bear was small and blackish, she wasn't a black bear like her cousins that lived in the mountains and climbed trees. No, Little Black Bear lived in the chaparral and canyons and she couldn’t even climb trees. Little Black Bear had a nice hump on her back full of muscle, making her arms strong- strong enough to pull out a tree rather than climb it. Her cousin, the black bear, does not have a hump. Little Black Bear had a beautiful little concave swoop between her forehead and the tip of her nose; her cousin black bear does not have a swoop—it's more like a straight ramp. Her ears were a tad smaller than her cousin black bear’s. Her rump or hindquarters were shorter than her front, making her back tilt downward, whereas her cousin black bear's back was pretty straight. Little Black Bear's claws were quite a bit longer than her cousins'; that’s because Little Black Bear liked to dig. She liked to eat a lot of the same things that a pocket gopher eats: tubers and roots. Those long claws came in handy for that type of thing. Occasionally, she would catch a pocket gopher too. Yum!
When Little Black Bear was born, she drank mama's milk, just like many of you, until she was strong and ready to eat solid foods, just like you. For Little Black Bear, that was summertime. She spent another whole year with her mama bear, and she didn’t even sleep during winter like her cousins in the snow. Nope, Southern California is just too beautiful and green in the winter. Why would anyone want to sleep through a time when there are miner's lettuce and chickweed?
When Little Black Bear was about 2 years old, she and Mama Bear had a talk. Little Black Bear wanted to leave and go out on her own. Mama Bear thought she was still too small, but Little Black Bear showed Mama how she could find food, defend herself, and why she was ready. Mama agreed, and Little Bear began her journey to find a home territory of her own.
She walked and walked and walked. The chaparral was thick in some areas, with rather poky buckwheat, sage, and thorny gooseberry, but her fur was thick too, and the pads on her paws were nice and thick too. She did have to stop every once in a while to pull out something pokey from her paw with her teeth, but nothing that ever slowed her down nor diminished her spirit. On and on she walked—back then, there were far fewer trails than there are now, but when she came across one, she often followed it for quite a while. Many of those trails were animal trails created by deer and coyotes, and some were well-established wide dirt trails created by humans and their vehicles or animals. Her mama often told her that when her great-great-grandma was a cub, there weren't many humans around. But every year, there were more and more humans and their animals around. Cattle and sheep roamed the meadows now, and the grasses they ate were different than the grasses that were there when great-grandma bear was a cub. Mama said the humans were good in some ways and bad in others. She said that the humans kept pigs and birds in cages, so it was easy to catch them when acorns were scarce, or when you had a craving for something other than roots and ants. They also had their very own beehives—super yummy honey! If you ever went foraging for food where the humans lived, you had to be careful because they had weapons that could really hurt you. The bears found that it was best to forage for food where humans lived only when it was dark and the humans were in their dens. So Little Black Bear was cautious as she explored. Mama also told her that way back when, there used to be thousands of grizzly bears around, and that you had to worry about finding a territory of your own, but now that wasn’t a problem, thanks to the humans and their weapons. Little Black Bear didn’t see another bear at all in her travels. She kept wandering, exploring, seeing what was over the next ridge. One day, she made it to the ocean. She had followed San Mateo Creek in the Santa Ana Mountains, near what is now Camp Pendleton. Oh my, what fun it was to run in the waves, bite and chomp at the sea spray, and chase the birds on the beach. She stayed there for months, sleeping on the hillsides at night and playing during the day. For food, she found a whale carcass, and it was quite delicious. When she had finished off the whale, she headed back inland, following Trabuco Creek, where she found steelhead trout along the way. Upward and inland she went, carefully avoiding the farmers and ranchers during the day, and taking a pigeon here and a bit of honey from a hive there during the night. Little Black Bear claimed a part of Trabuco Canyon as her home. There were a few ranches, farmers, and settlers there, but not nearly as many as closer to the beach. And so Little Black Bear lived many, many years in the canyon, digging up roots, eating berries, feasting on acorns in the fall, dining on ants, and occasionally eating an animal or two. There was a male grizzly bear in her territory too. His name was Old Whiteface because he had some white streaks on his face. Little Black Bear and Old Whiteface mated several times, and each time Little Black Bear's cub went off to seek adventure just as she had when she was two.
Little Black Bear was about 20 now, and she was getting a bit slower and weaker, and not much interested in mating or raising young. So Little Black Bear spent her time enjoying the wilds of Trabuco Canyon. There was one area of the canyon that she especially liked. A man by the name of Jim Smith lived there, and he planted some fig trees. Those figs were quite delicious. This man, Jim, had a fondness for talking quite loudly, and sometimes Little Black Bear would sit up in the hills above his home and just listen to that man. He said the most interesting words, sounds that Little Black Bear just didn’t hear other humans say. That man was also known as Cussin’ Jim, and he was so well-known for his particular kind of talk that the whole canyon was named after him - sarcastically they called the canyon Holy Jim Canyon. Little Black Bear enjoyed listening to his ‘sermons’, and she liked his figs, but she liked something even more about Holy Jim. Holy Jim kept bees! And that meant there was honey and bee larva! Little Black Bear liked honey and larva. And it seemed the older she got, the less she liked spending time foraging for food. She figured, why forage when you can spend the day resting, sunbathing (or sitting in the shade and creek on hot days), watching birds and squirrels frolic and play, and listen to Holy Jim ramble on? And then at night, sneak down to the hives and feast on sweet, sweet honey and lava. Well, that’s just what Little Black Bear did—often. And not just at Holy Jim’s hives. Oh no, she would go to many a farmer’s or settler’s hive and eat honey. It got to be so frequent that the settlers called her Honey Thief. Now, by this time, Old Whiteface was gone. All the other grizzly bears were gone too, most killed by hunters and farmers. So the only wild grizzly bear left (there were at least 2 more in zoos at this time) was Little Black Bear. Some of the farmers were a little fed up with Little Black Bear thieving their honey, and they were worried about their livestock and loved ones. They didn’t know that Little Black Bear was the very last wild grizzly bear in California. A few of those farmers got together and devised a plan to stop this honey thieving. This plan was led by Ed Atkinson and Andrew Joplin. On a Saturday night, they set up a modified mountain lion trap near a beehive that was secured to a railroad. Little Black Bear came down from the hills in search of food, and with her strong nose, she found that beehive. "Yum," she thought, but then her next thought was, "OWWWW!" For she had stepped into the trap. Oh, the pain was horrible! Oh, the pain was immense! She growled, but the pain wouldn’t stop. She grabbed and tore at the trap, but it wouldn’t come off. Then, knowing she was in danger, she ran. As fast as she could, she ran. In the morning, the farmers discovered that Little Black Bear had been there. Ed, Andrew, and a few of their friends gathered together to track her down. They brought their hunting dogs. For five miles, the dogs followed Little Black Bear's scent. They found her near the top of Saddleback Peak, under an oak tree. Little Black Bear was scared and hurt, but she was not going to go down without a fight. As the dogs leapt on her she fiercely flung them away one by one. When she had pushed the dogs far enough away and the hunters had a clear shot, they took it and that was how the last wild grizzly bear in California died. She was about 25 years old and 600 pounds.
That was in January of 1908. Three years later, in 1911, the last captive grizzly bear in California, named Monarch, died.
Nineteen eleven is the same year that the California flag with a picture of a grizzly bear, designed 65 years earlier, was officially adopted. The grizzly bear was chosen as a symbol of California because of it’s strength and unyielding resistance.
California’s state animal is the Grizzly Bear, yet there are no grizzly bears in California. There are many places with the “bear” or “oso” in the name. Can you think of some? Next time you come across one of those places, honor the memory of the majestic, strong and powerful Grizzly Bear who roamed the Southern California lowlands in the thousands not so long ago.
Language Arts Lesson
Length of Lesson: 30-45 minute lesson
Objective (learning outcomes):
The language arts lesson helps students develop:
Listening skills and
Comprehension skills
Writing skills: spelling and grammar
Knowledge about bears.
Knowledge about the history of California and the flag of California
Instructions:
Read the story provided.
Draw the border and write words from the story on the border taking care to form each letter correctly. For Grade one, the words may only be ‘bear’. For grades 4 and up, the words might be a longer title written in cursive.
Draw the California flag. Walk the students through the drawing the bear and flag step by step as they will need assistance. It is important for the teacher to practice (do a rough draft of) the drawing prior to teaching how to do the drawing.
Discuss the story. Ask each student to share one thing from the story.
Write a 1-5 sentence summary based on student input or use the sentence on the example. Emphasize spelling or grammar as appropriate for your child.
