Grizzly bears are kings of the wilderness: beautiful, powerful, sometimes fearsome, but also vulnerable. Grizzly bears once occurred from the Mississippi River west to the Pacific Ocean, and from northern Mexico up to the northern coast of Alaska. Eating lots of foods—plants, roots, berries, pine nuts, insects, fish (especially salmon), rodents, and occasionally large animals like elk and moose—they are able to live in different habitats including forests, grassland, and mountains.

But human developments and activities like livestock grazing, mining, and hunting caused their demise from 98 percent of their historic range in the continental United States and reduced grizzly populations in Canada as well. In 1975, grizzly bear populations in the western U.S. were listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Recently, the grizzly population in and around Yellowstone National Park was de-listed thanks to many conservation measures that allowed this emblematic group of bears to recover.