Bear in Mind: The California Grizzly

by Susan Snyder (Editor)

A uniquely compelling natural history of the extinct California Grizzly bear with 150 color and b&w images from the Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley.

Hardcover

First published October 15, 2003

About the author

Susan Snyder worked as a teacher, illustrator, and Japanese language interpreter before becoming head of public service at The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, where she has spent twenty years exploring the library’s stacks, attics, and moats.

Reviews

[Monica Fletcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything about this book is elegant. It is so well researched. It is a tribute to a top predator that has been extirpated from its home state of California, left only now as a symbol on the state flag. The only reason I didn't give this five stars is the subject is so sad, so if you are strong and committed to the California Grizzly in spirit you will be very well rewarded. Fine piece of history writing.

[Carl · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book on this subject that I've read.

[David Corleto-Bales · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful but sad book, chronicling the recorded history of the iconic California grizzly bear. In 1602, when first sighted by a priest aboard a Spanish ship off of what would become Monterrey, until the last reported tracks in the 1920s, the sad story of the great animal is written here, with great prints, paintings and photos from the Bancroft Library at the University of California and excerpts of interviews with Native Americans, trappers, priests, hunters, ranchers, miners, cowboys and settlers. Most, unfortunately, are "bear tales" where the bear ultimately turns up dead. California had probably 10,000 to 20,000 grizzly bears when the Spanish started their mission system in 1769, and most were gone: shot, strangled, poisoned, etc., by the 1870s. Some stalwarts lingered into the twentieth century. Odd that a state could be so proud of an animal when it's gone, as it was previously viewed as vermin.

[Sylvia Seymour · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartbreaking and riveting, by turns.