How the culture wars came for grizzly bears

THE UNIVERSITYof MontanaUS is used to the idea of grizzly bears. This towering predator is the college mascot, and the campus in Missoula is plastered with grizzly memorabilia. Purple paw prints (lethal claws included) are painted on the pavements. Banners on lampposts tell students to “Rise and roar”. Students can frequent Grizzly Grocery, Grizzly Espresso and—if they are of age—Grizzly Liquor. But recently communities around the university have been confronted with something a bit beyond college spirit: actual grizzly bears.This spring one such bear lumbered down from the Rattlesnake mountain range and into a forested exurb of Missoula. “We saw the tracks,” says Chris Servheen, a biologist who led the grizzly-bear recovery effort for the Fish and Wildlife Service until 2016. Mr Servheen drives your correspondent in his truck along the route that the bear took. “He walked right through here,” he says. Pine trees and larches line the foothills. Water rushes in a creek nearby. “They’re here,” he adds. “They’re right up in the mountains.”