MURDER

R.I.P.  SCARFACE

Old Man Murdered

yellowstone icon: gone

Washington Post Video

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.. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has confirmed that the male grizzly bear shot in late November 2015 was the bear known to researchers as No. 211. No. 211 was killed in the Little Trail Creek drainage north of Gardiner, Montana on the Gallatin National Forest, an event under investigation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Courtesy Billings Gazette

.. No. 211 was recognizable because of distinctive scars on the right side of his face likely the result of typical fights with other male grizzlies for females during mating season or to claim deer and elk carcasses.
.. No. 211 was known to many photographers and wildlife watchers. For this reason, his life was often documented in the media.
.. He was captured, collared and released by biologists 17 times, making him “one of the most studied bears,” in the region.
.. By last fall, those scientists were warning that Scarface might not make it through the winter: He’d dropped from a peak of 600 pounds to 338 pounds. At 25 years old, he was elderly.
.. Scarface was first captured in 1993, when he was a “sub-adult” bear weighing 150 pounds.
.. At his peak, Scarface tipped the scales at about 600 pounds, according to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. But he’d grown emaciated in recent years. Less than 5 percent of male grizzlies live to the age of 25.
.. Scarface owed much of his fame to the scuffles with other bears — over females, carcasses and dominance — that had made his face so recognizable, and that had so destroyed his right ear that it flopped over. Photographers, in particular, have sung his praises — and, in recent days, angrily mourned his loss.

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FROM JOHN  --  LINK TO PHOTO STORY