Short-Faced-Bear encountered by settlers

What if the first European settlers encountered a surviving species of Short Faced-Bear, specialized on hunting buffalo and ruling the plains . How would it affect settlement of North America ?
 
From what I saw, but I can be wrong, he was more of a carrion-eater or an opportunistic predatory.
Which would probably make him as hunted by europeans that he probably was by natives, IMO. I don't see much significant changes into settlement pattern, except if it does have some "marketable" characteristics that european bears wouldn't have.

(A bit like american beavers presence, for pelt trade, was a factor, for exemple)
 

Driftless

Donor
From Lewis & Clark's Journals - an early encounter with a Grizzly Bear (for comparison)

On May 5, William Clark and George Droulliard killed an enormous grizzly bear, with some effort. Clark described it as a “verry large and a turrible looking animal, which we found verry hard to kill we Shot ten Balls into him before we killed him, & 5 of those Balls through his lights.” Lewis estimated the weight of the bear at 500-600 pounds, about twice the size of the average black bear. He noted that after the bear was shot, “he swam more than half the distance across the river to a sandbar & it was at least twenty minutes before he died
 
I dont think it would have a huge affect, muskets could probably handle them, the affects on native american culture would be much larger, I could see it became a holy animal for some tribes.
 
I dont think it would have a huge affect, muskets could probably handle them, the affects on native american culture would be much larger, I could see it became a holy animal for some tribes.

It would definitely be a spiritually important animal for North American tribes, and likely an animal of some awe or fear. I'd like to think short-faced bears would eat a decent amount of white settlers for their trouble ;)
 
I dont think it would have a huge affect, muskets could probably handle them, the affects on native american culture would be much larger, I could see it became a holy animal for some tribes.

The funny thing was that when I first read the title of this thread, I assumed that "Short-Faced-Bear" WAS a Native mythological figure because it was capitalized and was not proceeded by the word "the". It sounded more like the name of a person than the name of a species.

Now settlers encountering a mythological figure (specifically a mythological figure who is a personification of a bear, not one who is based on a historical person) is a little ASB, unless it happens in a dream, or in the context of a ceremony in which someone "takes on the spirit" of that mythological figure....

OK, i'll shut up now and let you get back to your discussion. I'm just procrastinating at work right now.
 

Driftless

Donor
A size comparison between a Grizzly, Brown and Short Faced Bears :eek:

070.jpg
 

mojojojo

Gone Fishin'
Not to hijack this thread,but here is a thought that occurred to me about short-faced bears.

I know that some have speculated that dire wolves were less intelligent than regular wolves because they had a smaller brain relative to their body size. How did short-faced bears compare to grizzlies in this regard?
 
There are a number of nasty predators in the Americas, Grizzly and Jaguar being the biggest and baddest. If the Short faced bear was still around then it would just make one more to be dealt with.
 
Given that they were wiped out (directly or indirectly) by the palæoindians, where Grizzlies and Black Bears weren't, I doubt that they'd pose any particular threat to whites if a small remnant survived somewhere.
 
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The short-faced bear was primarily a kleptoparasite, it didn't hunt its own food but rather just stole the kills made by smaller predators. Even if it hadn't died out because the larger prey animals had died off (like how the dire wolves died out leaving their smaller cousins the grey wolves to survive), once settlers got past the initial fear, they'd most likely start shooting it with bullets, arrows or spears (whatever they had available) from a distance.
 
The short-faced bear was primarily a kleptoparasite, it didn't hunt its own food but rather just stole the kills made by smaller predators. Even if it hadn't died out because the larger prey animals had died off (like how the dire wolves died out leaving their smaller cousins the grey wolves to survive), once settlers got past the initial fear, they'd most likely start shooting it with bullets, arrows or spears (whatever they had available) from a distance.

From what I saw, but I can be wrong, he was more of a carrion-eater or an opportunistic predatory.
Which would probably make him as hunted by europeans that he probably was by natives, IMO. I don't see much significant changes into settlement pattern, except if it does have some "marketable" characteristics that european bears wouldn't have.

(A bit like american beavers presence, for pelt trade, was a factor, for exemple)

Could I see your sources?

The short face bear didn't have the bone crushing adaption like the hyena or dire wolf. Plus it's build is lighter then that of a living bear. I'd imagine a carrion eater would be larger in order to chase off other predators. It looks more like a runner to me I guess.

Not that important though. There aren't many pure hunter or scavengers.
 
Could I see your sources?
Wiki and online specialized articles. Hence what I "saw" rather than know.

The short face bear didn't have the bone crushing adaption
I saw that he could have a jaw musculature able to, tough.

I'd imagine a carrion eater would be larger in order to chase off other predators.
Apparently the "lighter" depiction of the short-faced-bear may have been criticized, in favor of a more massive depiction, with the few males specimens supposing to have reached the metric ton for a relatively significant number, females being close to modern grizzlies.
 
There is a nice popular overview of Arctodus simus here (the site is rather good for Pleistocene fauna in general), which includes links to a number of scientific papers, the most recent of which, Figueirido et al, tends (on a quick scan) to come down in favour of the 'Short-faced Bear' not being particularly short-faced or long-legged for a bear of its size, and simply being a particularly large typical omnivorous bear with no special adaptations for hyper-carnivory or scavenging, though it does concede that a bear that large would be able to appropriate the kills of other carnivores, and suggests that in particular, Smilodon was only capable of dealing with the softer parts of its kills due to its specialised dentition, and A. simus would have been well able to finish off any leavings even in the unlikely event of it not dominating Smilodon ;)
 
There are a number of nasty predators in the Americas, Grizzly and Jaguar being the biggest and baddest. If the Short faced bear was still around then it would just make one more to be dealt with.

i doubt, that inaccurate 17th century muskets can do much to short-faced-bears.
 
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