i heard a guy down on kodiak shot a 14 foot bear has anyone else heard about this or know were i can find the pictures of it. thanks

i heard a guy down on kodiak shot a 14 foot bear has anyone else heard about this or know were i can find the pictures of it. thanks
14 feet? I'd be really suspicious of that report. Sounds like the "bear that never dies" is making the rounds again.

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

http://www.blackbearheaven.com/world-record-grizzly-bear2.htm
We have posted interviews with the hunter that killed the bear on Hinchinbrook here at Beartooth. I can't remember if it is here in the Alaska Hunting section or in the "My Neck of the Woods" section. A quick search should turn up the interviews.

i guss it was in the fairbanks daily news miner a couple weeks ago but i never saw it i will check the archives and see what i can turn up.

This is a rumor going around about a record grizzly (not brown bear) taken south of Unalakleet by Aniak Air Guides. Skull measurement is supposedly a little over 27". That's a monster grizzly, but nowhere near the 14' size.

Just for my personal edification, I thought that the grizzly was a brown bear? Is this incorrect?
This is a rumor going around about a record grizzly (not brown bear) taken south of Unalakleet by Aniak Air Guides. Skull measurement is supposedly a little over 27". That's a monster grizzly, but nowhere near the 14' size.

Brownies and grizzlies are two different subspecies. Both are in the Ursus Arctos family and genus, but are classified differently from there. The brown bear belongs to the middendorfi and the grizzly to horribilis.

The real difference between them is location. The brown bears live along the coast in Alaska and Canada where they feed for months on protein rich salmon runs. The grizzlies are found in the interior and don't get quite the protein the brownies do. The browns reach a much larger size because of this extra protein to their diets. While the trophy size most look for in the interior grizzly is about a 20" skull or one that squares about 7'. For the brownies along the coast, most are looking for a bear with a skull of about 27"-28" or larger and one that squares 9'+. 10' used to the be the goal, and those bears are still out there, but the number of bear hunters in pursuit of those are ever increasing, making a 10' something to write home about.

Middendorfi was originally assigned to the great bears of Kodiak Island, but both Boone & Crockett and Safari Club International don't differeniate between the other coastal brownies and the ones found on Kodiak. Some scientists still do however.

Alot of people refer to the Brown Brown as the Coastal Grizzly (myself included), but that really isn't a correct term. It does convey the message that the brown bear is different than the black bear other than color to someone that isn't familiar with bears.