The Museum of Hoaxes
Huge Grizzly
Posted By:

Aug 26, 2004
 I was hoping that someone might be able to prove/disprove this one. I have been forwarded an email with the following content:

The following (first two) pictures are of a guy who works for the US
> Forest Service in Alaska and his trophy bear.
> He was out deer hunting last week when a large grizzly bear charged
> him from about 50 yards away.The guy unloaded his 7mm Mag
> Semi-automatic rifle into the bear and it dropped a few feet from
> him.The big bear was still alive so he reloaded and shot it several
times in the head.
> The bear was just over one thousand six hundred pounds.It stood 12'6"
> high at the shoulder,14' to the top of his head.It's the largest
> grizzly bear ever recorded in the world.Of course,the Alaska Fish and
> Wildlife Commission did not let him keep it as a trophy,but the bear
> will be stuffed and mounted,and placed on display at the Anchorage
> airport.(to remind tourist's of the risks involved when in the wild).
> Based on the contents of the bears stomach,the Fish and Wildlife
> Commission established the bear had killed at least two humans in the
> past
> 72 hours.His last meal was the unlucky nature buff in the third
> picture below.The US Forest Service,backtracking from where the bear
> had originated,found the hiker's 38-caliber pistol emptied.Not far
> from the pistol was the remains of the hiker.The other body has not
> been found.Although the hiker fired six shots and managed to hit the
> grizzly with four shots (they ultimately found four 38 caliber slugs
> along with twelve 7mm slugs inside the bear's dead body) it only
> wounded the bear - and probably angered it.The bear killed the hiker
> an estimated two days prior to the bear's own death by the gun of the
Forest Service worker.
> Think about this - If you are an average size man,you would be level
> with the bear's belly button when he stood upright,the bear would look
> you in the eye when it walked on all fours! To give additional
> perspective,consider that this particular bear,standing on its hind
> legs,could walk up to an average single story house and look over the
> roof,or walk up to a two story house and look in the bedroom windows.

There are 3 J.Pegs attached that show some unlikely photos of this huge grizzly and his last meal
Category: ; Replies: 17

Comments
The Curator
in San Diego
 Member
Posted: Thu Aug 26, 2004 | 09:40 AM
I think you're referring to the famous Big Bear Photo:

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/photos/bigbear.html
Ron T
Posted: Thu Aug 26, 2004 | 10:39 AM
Although the bear was shot, according to the offical records, on Hinchinbrook Island, it is not that fantastic o a claim. Kodiak Island, further to the southwest, is famous for the size of its bears. This is because the average North American Grizzly Bear has a range of ten square miles or so. On Kodiak Island (and I am assuming similar conditions exist on Hinchinbrook), the average grizzly range is less than 1 square mile. This makes for tight competition, and since the bears to not use realtors or respect property laws, generally means that big bears get territory and little bears get killed. One thing that was clearly out of whack in the e-mail you posted was, for future reference, the "eaten hunter" part. Although anyone carrying a .38 is equipped to do nthing more than really piss one of these bears off, most people camping or hunting in bear country know that a .44 magnum is the weapon of choice for close personal combat. More significantly, grizzly bears don't, as a general rule, eat people. They kill them, maim them, tear them to shreds and otherwsie mangle them, but they do not eat them. That is why the advice when getting mauled by a grizzly is to play dead. Black bears, on the other hand, DO eat people--and that is why the advice when being attacked by a black bear is to fight back, and attack the nose and eyes where they are most vulnerable. Approach all stories of human-eating grizzlies with suspicion. I'm sure it has probably happened before, but it is not the rule. In case you're wondering, they teach you this stuff when you grow up in Alaska--along with lessons about hypothermia and the ever-popular, nightmare-inducing frostbite films (blackened toes and fingers, yum)
Byron Gurnee
Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2005 | 03:48 AM
Not that you care.....and that was a big bear but....those pictures have been floating around since 2001
Check out these sites......abunch of things .....the bear was ranked #150 not #1
It a Alaskan brown bear not a grizzly......And one thing that caught my eye a 7mm magnum semi automatic.....
Wow i would like to get a hold of that gun it would be rare..as far as i know they never made one....
Here is the low down on it......

Fiction
Ted is a Forest Service Ranger
The bear stood on his hind legs and then charged
Several people were killed by the bear
The firearm of choice was a .7mm, .9mm, or .500 Nitro
The bear weighed in at a whopping 1600 lbs and stood 12.5'
Alaska Department of Fish and Game seized the trophy because it was killed in Defense of Life or Property
The bear is a new world record
Fact

Ted is a member of the United States Air Force
All shots were from ten yards
Ted used a Remington .338 Win-Mag hand-loaded with 250 grain Nosler Partitions
Live weight was estimated between 1000-1200 lbs and squared 10.5' (10' nose to tail, 11' claw to claw)
The season for brown bear was open, and both hunters possessed brown bear tags
The bear was estimated to be in his early to mid twenties
Official Boone & Crockett score is 28 14/16 and would rank 150 based on the 11th Edition of N.A. Big Game records

The Actual article by Jim Urban about the hunter and bear - Check out these sites!!!!

http://www.blackbearheaven.com/world-record-grizzly-bear.htm

http://www.blackbearheaven.com/world-record-grizzly-bear2.htm

Check out the size of the skull as long as my elbow to finger tip in length.

http://www.blackbearheaven.com/world-record-grizzly-bear3.htm

Any way .....only a hunter would catch all that.....
Gary
Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2005 | 06:07 PM
Does anyone know if this is the real world record moose

http://www.mooseheaven.com/world-record-moose/world-record-moose.htm

gary
Nick
Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2005 | 05:55 PM
Byron,

Alaskan Brown bears (or Brown Bears) ARE Grizzly bears. They're the same thing.

And your super-rare/non-existant 7mm Mag Semi-Auto? You canpurchase one at your local Walmart, among other places:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=2685077&cat=418416&type=21&dept=4125&path=0%3A4125%3A4155%3A170080%3A170083%3A418416

Me? I prefer my Mauser K98k. But to each his own I guess.

Nick
Chigged Off
Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 | 12:59 PM
There is a stuffed bear from Kodiak in the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco that is pretty huge. I think most people just don't realize how big these bears can get.
Byron Gurnee
Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 | 03:49 PM
Ok is a Doberman Pinscher and a miniture pincher the same thing?????? A cat is a cat but there are some that you may call a siamese and some a calico. BUt although a cat they are not the same. Same as a brown bear and grizzly bear and Kodiak bear......A grizzly does not live on kodiak island ...kodiak bears dont live 100+ miles inland. There is a difference my friends.....size for one...brown bears are larger than grizzlies.....just like whitetail deer can be found to be little in georgia and larger in ohio or illinois. THUS the "Georgia Whitetail and the Ohio whitetail" are whitetail but are of a slightly different variety. If you want me to tell you about these I can ater... there are more than two different types of
whitetail also. YET whitetail deer.
LISTEN UP....
Ursus arctos BROWN BEAR GENERAL SPECIES
Ursus arctos horribilis Grizzly SUB SPECIES
Ursus arctos middendorffi Kodiak bear SUB SPECIES
Ursus arctos gyas Coastal Brown bear SUB SPECIES
Ursus arctos macfarlani another sub species of brown bear and there are many others around the world...not just in the north western area of north america.
Quote from website"This might end up to be a little embarassing for me, being a taxidermist you should probably know everything there is to know about animals. We have a major argument going on in our household on weather Browns and inland Grizzly's are the same species. I say Grizzly's are inland, Browns, Kodiaks all the same just different environments. I was told inland grizzly's, like the ones at Denali National Forests and the ones in Montana have different facial features. If they do I have never noticed and also shorter claws and other things, but in my opinion that could just be having to forage for food in differen terrains and under totally different conditions. The size I would think would be to the abundance of fish that the coastal Browns and Kodiaks have. Well, I know there is some one out there with the facts, like Bill in Texas? It's almost like the Rainbow/Steelehead or Caribou/Raindeer thing"
A brown bear becomes a grizzly when it travels up a river into the interior 100 miles+. Thats what the boone and crocket club says. Some grizzlies/brownbears in different parts of the world may have slightly different looks to them, like the grizlies of Italy or China for example, and slightly different latin names, but they are all basicly the same animal.

Many wildlife species are circumpoler in that they inhabit the entire arctic or subarctic. Polar bears, caribou, and many other species of animal have traveled at will around the polar ice caps for eons. When the land brige existed between Western North America and Eastern Asia, many species traveled to and fro along it.
Interior brown bears have much larger ranges, a less ample food supply and generally have to work harder to eat. Their size probably is not as a result of less food, but that a smaller engine requires less fuel. The interior bears have to expend a lot of energy to glean nutrition from their habitat. If they were larger beasts, the calorie burn rate would exceed the food supply available. Inefficiency in nature results in extinction, less food, smaller hunter, more endurance, sort of the difference between a marathon runner and chocolate chomping couch potato.
There is a continuum of difference between the larger coastal brown bears and the interior individuals that are generally called grizzly bears. Coastal brown bears have a greater amount of animal protein in their diet, achieve larger size, and have slight differences in coloration. At any point from the coast to the interior there is interbreeding between the populations (Jonkel 1987, p 456-473).
http://www.taxidermy.net/forums/IndustryArticles/01/e/0135F4154.html
http://www.bear.org/Grizzly/Grizzly_Brown_Bear_Facts.html
Byron Gurnee
Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2006 | 06:51 PM
A website from the guys with authority......
http://www.boone-crockett.org/bgRecords/records_boundaries.asp?area=bgRecords

The big brown bears are found on Kodiak and Afognak Islands, the Alaska Peninsula, and eastward and southeastward along the coast of Alaska. The smaller interior grizzly is found in the remaining parts of the continent. The boundary between the two was first defined as an imaginary line extending 75 miles inland from the coast of Alaska. Later this boundary was more precisely defined with the current definition as follows:

A line of separation between the larger growing coastal brown bear and the smaller interior grizzly has been developed such that west and south of this line (to and including Unimak Island) bear trophies are recorded as Alaska brown bear. North and east of this line, bear trophies are recorded as grizzly bear. The boundary line description is as follows: Starting at Pearse Canal and following the Canadian-Alaskan boundary northwesterly to Mt. St. Elias on the 141 degree meridian; thence north along the Canadian-Alaskan boundary to Mt. Natazhat; thence west northwest along the divide of the Wrangell Range to Mt. Jarvis at the western end of the Wrangell Range; thence north along the divide of the Mentasta Range to Mentasta Pass; thence in a general westerly direction along the divide of the Alaska Range to Houston Pass; thence westerly following the 62nd parallel of latitude to the Bering Sea.
Manuel Bitschnau
Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 | 06:18 AM
Dear Byron!

I have been searching all over the internet for Byron Gurnee. We lost contact a few years ago. Byron, I hope this is you. Manuel from Austria.
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Melissa
Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 | 10:18 PM
If the original story (7 mag rifle) weren't true, then why would he have had that caliber/grain bullet for hunting deer?
Jeff
Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 | 09:12 AM
Melissa,
Not sure if your still following this thread but if I were hunting deer in Grizzly country, I can assure you that I would be hunting with a caliber rifle that would enable me to take down a Grizzly just in case the situation occured. In this case however, the hunter was not only deer hunting but also had stated that he desired to take a Grizzly if possible. Although I feel a well placed 7mm shot would do the trick on most Grizzlies, I don't think I would want to test that theory at 10 yards with one that weighed 1200 pounds. You can always check out possible "eRumors" at http://www.snopes.com , great site
doug
Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 | 11:19 PM
ya 7mm semi-automatic rifle my ass, ok a magnum is a pistol and some of you may know the 7mm as the barely skin breaking james bond pocket handgun, and a semi-automatic rifle... ok semi-automatic rifle but... ok maybe i read this wrong maybe he was holding both a magnum AND a rifle... lets see the problems with that.
first, you need to pull back that pin on a hunting rifle between each shot so thats highly unlikly and if hes using an assault rifle hes gonna have to be able to reload it with no free hands.
secnd, if hes got a gun in each hand his aim is gonna be shit so hes dead in that sinerio.
and third a normal grizzly could close the gap between you and him(which was apparnelty 50 yards) before you could hit it with the four shots that apprently killed this giant grizzly.

thats bullshit this guy would be dead, obviously there is a giant plush teddy ber at the anchorage airport in alaska thats true but this story is... it just that bad i can''t continue
Chuck
Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 | 07:00 AM
Doug in Canada

It's clear you know nothing about guns. There are many magnum rifle cartridges. A little research on the web will prove my point.
Nate
Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2009 | 09:47 PM
@ Doug in Canada

Besides the fact that you are posting years too late, you are a huge douche for posting things you have no clue about. Here are some specific reasons why you are a tard.

1: A "magnum" is not a handgun. Their are many "magnum" handgun and rifle CARTRIDGES. Such as the 7mm Remington Magnum that the hoax is referring to. Lack of heavy bullets makes the round less than ideal, but it still has sufficient energy and a great sectional density. 7mag has killed plenty of big bears

2: The hoax never mentioned anything about a hand gun, you just cant read. But to correct the misinformation you shat all over the floor, James Bond typically carried a .25acp (6.35x16) Beretta or a .32acp (7.65x17) Walther. None of these are either 7mm or a "magnum". While not in any way a threat to a bear, I can assure you these "barely skin breaking" rounds have killed many people.

3: Their are a few varieties semi-auto hunting rifles. These are not "assault rifles".

4: I'm not aware of any modern hi-power rifle that requires you to "pull back that pin" between shots. Even bolt action rifles cock the firing pin for you when cycling the action.

5: While a bear can close 50 yards very, very quickly. Its not unreasonable to believe a person out hunting with a rifle in their hands, couldn't shoot said bear. While it would take a head shot to fully stop the charging bear, it is plausible.

In fact, the entire hoax is plausible. Probably because it is based on an ACTUAL event. The details just got stretched out and some dead hikers got thrown into the story. If you could read you would know this!!! Please think before you post. I don't want to have to keep following you around the internet, cleaning up after you.

YOU FAIL!
oyna
Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 | 01:50 AM
Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 | 10:19 PM
ya 7mm semi-automatic rifle my ass, ok a magnum is a pistol and some of you may know the 7mm as the barely skin breaking james bond pocket handgun, and a semi-automatic rifle... ok semi-automatic rifle but... ok maybe i read this wrong maybe he was holding both a magnum AND a rifle... lets see the problems with that.
first, you need to pull back that pin on a hunting rifle between each shot so thats highly unlikly and if hes using an assault rifle hes gonna have to be able to reload it with no free hands.
secnd, if hes got a gun in each hand his aim is gonna be shit so hes dead in that sinerio.
and third a normal grizzly could close the gap between you and him(which was apparnelty 50 yards) before you could hit it with the four shots that apprently killed this giant grizzly.

thats bullshit this guy would be dead, obviously there is a giant plush teddy ber at the anchorage airport in alaska thats true but this story is... it just that bad i can''t continue
oyunlar
Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 | 12:35 PM
A line of separation between the larger growing coastal brown bear and the smaller interior grizzly has been developed such that west and south of this line (to and including Unimak Island) bear trophies are recorded as Alaska brown bear. North and east of this line, bear trophies are recorded as grizzly bear. The boundary line description is as follows: Starting at Pearse Canal and following the Canadian-Alaskan boundary northwesterly to Mt. St. Elias on the 141 degree meridian; thence north along the Canadian-Alaskan boundary to Mt. Natazhat; thence west northwest along the divide of the Wrangell Range to Mt. Jarvis at the western end of the Wrangell Range; thence north along the divide of the Mentasta Range to Mentasta Pass; thence in a general westerly direction along the divide of the Alaska Range to Houston Pass; thence westerly following the 62nd parallel of latitude to the Bering Sea.
Rick_O
Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 | 03:57 PM
Nate
in Arizona
I know this blog is most likely dead however, reading the past post has lead me to share with you all some facts. First I

Note: This thread is located in the Old Forum of the Museum of Hoaxes.