Days Gone By

William A. Troyer, A happy hunter. Bear hunting is an important recreational sport on the refuge, Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska, 11 May 1957.

Source: US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Digital Library

Visitors feeding bears in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, ca. 1950s.

Bear chair and mule skull fiddle made by Seth Kinman and displayed at the World Columbian Exposition, November 1893.

Nat Farbman, Children watching as a bear cub rolls across the table, April 1957.

A girl playfully dangling a ribbon for a bear cub. Photograph by Nat Farbman, April 1957.

Wojtek (1942–1963) was a Syrian brown bear cub found in Iran and adopted by soldiers of the 22nd Artillery Supply Company of the Polish II Corps. To get him on a British transport ship when the unit sailed from Egypt to fight with the British 8th Army in the Italian campaign, he was officially drafted into the Polish Army as a private and was listed among the soldiers of the 22nd Artillery Supply Company of the Polish II Corps. During the Battle of Monte Cassino, Wojtek assisted his unit in transporting ammunition, never dropping a single crate. Following demobilization on November 15, 1947, Wojtek was given to the Edinburgh Zoo. There Wojtek spent the rest of his days, often visited by journalists and former Polish soldiers, some of whom would toss him cigarettes, which he then proceeded to smoke. Wojtek died in December 1963, at the age of 22.

Pictured: Wojtek with a Polish soldier, ca. 1945.

Michael Rougier, Young giant panda Chi Chi walking on a stone wall as a small crowd watches, Frankfurt, Germany, May 1958.

Marilyn Monroe

(via therurrjurr)

Poster of a bear toting bricks and balancing a building on his head. Photograph by Ralph Crane. East Berlin, Germany, December 1952.