To appreciate the importance of this animal one must remember that hog ranches are common in northwestern California. The Country there is peculiarly adapted to hog raising, and the industry would be attractive and highly profitable were it not for the existence of the hog bear. The mountain slopes are covered with scrubby and creeping oaks, which bear prodigious crops of sweet and very nutritious acorns. These naturally ripen earliest upon the lower slopes, where the young hogs begin to feed. As the acorns higher up the slopes begin to ripen, the hogs ascend the mountain, each week finding them a few hundred feet higher and many pounds fatter. About Christmas time the last of the acorns are reached on the upper slopes, and the hogs have by that time become so fat that their legs scarcely reach the ground, and the slightest jar is all that the hog bear gets in his destructive work. He "mooches" along the base of the mountain before the rancher has time to rustle his pork, and finding hogs so plentiful and so helplessly fat he takes just one bite out of the back of each, leaving the porker squealing with agony and the rancher swearing with rage. While examining timber on a tributary of the Klamath River, California, Mr. Eugene S. Bruce, of the Forest Services, captured a cub hog bear, which he presented to the National Zoo in Washington. Its development will be watched with Interest and its disposition studied by members of the Biological Survey.
In the tradition of American tall tales and folklore, not all of the narrations are complete fabrications. Instead they are highly embellished stories elaborated on personal experiences. In the narrative of Hyampom Hog Bear, a hog bear cub is found in Klamath River, California and taken by Eugene S. Bruce to the National Zoo in Washington D.C. This account is also recorded in The Land We Live In, The Book of Conservation by Overton W. Price in this version Bruce did in fact catch a cub with his bare hands while trekking through the California mountains; the accompanying image stating underneath, "It [the bear] is now in the Washington Zoo."[4] Albeit the animal pictured is presumably not a hog bear. Likewise, in the sketch of the snoligoster Inman F. Eldredge (1883–1963), a Gifford Pinchot Medalawardee, who while pursuing an escaped fugitive in the everglades, encounters the dreadful swamp-wyrm which afterward devours the criminal. An episode which is doubtlessly a fanciful idealization of Eldredge's background as a timber cruiser in Southern Florida.[5]Other persons referenced in Fearsome Creatures are John P. Wentling (1878-19XX; who was professor of forestry at both the Pennsylvania State Forest Academy and University of Minnesota),[6] A. B. Patterson (Forest Service), Big Ole Kittleson, Gus Demo, Bill Murphy, and John Gray.
In the tradition of American tall tales and folklore, not all of the narrations are complete fabrications. Instea
Mr. Eugene S. Bruce and his bear.
d they are highly embellished stories elaborated on personal experiences. In the narrative of Hyampom Hog Bear, a hog bear cub is found in Klamath River, California and taken by Eugene S. Bruce to the National Zoo in Washington D.C. This account is also recorded in The Land We Live In, The Book of Conservation by Overton W. Price in this version Bruce did in fact catch a cub with his bare hands while trekking through the California mountains; the accompanying image stating underneath, "It [the bear] is now in the Washington Zoo."[4] Albeit the animal pictured is presumably not a hog bear. Likewise, in the sketch of the snoligoster Inman F. Eldredge (1883–1963), a Gifford Pinchot Medal awardee, who while pursuing an escaped fugitive in the everglades, encounters the dreadful swamp-wyrm which afterward devours the criminal. An episode which is doubtlessly a fanciful idealization of Eldredge's background as a timber cruiser in Southern Florida.[5] Other persons referenced in Fearsome Creatures are John P. Wentling (1878-19XX; who was professor of forestry at both the Pennsylvania State Forest Academy and University of Minnesota),[6] A. B. Patterson (Forest Service), Big Ole Kittleson, Gus Demo, Bill Murphy, and John Gray.