Backstory: On the trail of an icon

It seems clear from the start this is not going to be a simple hands-in-the-pocket hike in the woods. At least not for me. As we unload our backpacks on an aluminum-gray day, an elk hunter warns us of a grizzly bear lurking in the willows up the trail. It is feeding on a carcass and, as everyone in the group knows, a grizzly dining on elk meat doesn't like uninvited guests. The bear had lunged at a hunter on horseback earlier this morning.

It's no surprise that we're in the company of bears. I'm tagging along with Shannon Podruzny, an ecologist who studies grizzlies, and her team of researchers. They're heading into the woods to unlock more of the mysteries of one of the most fascinating and fearsome animals on earth. The idea is to study the grizzly's habitat, its diet and daybeds, but not to encounter the big bruins: The researchers don't like to disrupt the bears, nor, for that matter, their own actuarial tables.

The rules of the woods, however, don't always conform to human planning, and before long I'm taking out my pepper spray, the only protection these researchers carry, from its velcro holster. I do this as another hunter, just up the trail, warns us a second time of the grizzly in the willows. He tells of a hunter mauled last year: The bear was on him so fast he didn't have time to raise his gun. Bravely, I walk closer to Ms. Podruzny.

I'm interested in joining the bearologists to find out more about the science of the Yellowstone grizzly, arguably the most studied bear in the world. Podruzny's crew is part of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team (IGBST), a collection of scientists from state and federal agencies that for more than 30 years has been probing grizzly culture - everything from the bruin's habits to its haute woods cuisine. They survey the bears from the skies, shoot electrical currents through their bodies to measure fat content, and study their feces in CSI detail. They've probed the mercury content of bear fur, plumbed the genetics of the cutworm moth (a grizzly can eat 20,000 of them a day), and catalogued the decline of the white bark pine, whose seeds are a major food source.

"It is a species that there has been a lot of money spent on," says Charles Schwartz, who oversees the IGBST. "Wilderness isn't wilderness without grizzlies."

I was also interested in shadowing some bearologists because the clues they're unearthing may now be more important than ever. In a controversial move, the Bush administration announced it is taking steps to remove grizzlies in the greater Yellowstone area from the Endangered Species List. The US Fish and Wildlife Service, the lead agency drafting a delisting proposal, believes the population has recovered to the point that it no longer needs to be classified as "threatened." The plan is open for public comment, after which a final decision will be made.

Few dispute the success of the grizzly turnaround. In the 1970s, 200 roamed the lodgepole pine of greater Yellowstone; an estimated 600 do now. "We've got bears in places we haven't seen bears for decades," says Tom France of the National Wildlife Federation, which considers the grizzly recovery an über example of Endangered Species Act success. The revival is considered all the more impressive because the grizzly is so difficult to manage. Its reproduction rate is slow, and its aggressive nature - and fencing-saber claws - create problems that, say, a snail darter wouldn't. "People don't fear an increase in bald eagles," says Chris Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the US Fish and Wildlife Service. "They certainly fear an increase in grizzlies."

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