Exhibit item:
[Cornelius Johnson with the Grizzly He Killed near Sunland, California], 1916
C. Hart Merriam Pictorial Collection

One of the last grizzlies killed in Southern California, the so-called Sunland Grizzly, shot while tasting grapes in Cornelius Johnson's vineyard in 1916, was later revealed to be an escapee from the Los Angeles Griffith Park Zoo and not a California native.

Quotation:
JIM SLEEPER
A Grizzly Introduction to the Santa Ana Mountains, 1976

"Well, Jimmie, I'll tell you. They might've got that wrong in the papers. But I'll tell you one thing for certain. Every bear story gets about 400 pounds heavier in the telling."

Quotation:
ALLEN KELLY
Bears I Have Met and Others, 1903

"He and three others went into the mountains with guns loaded for bear, which was an error of judgment - they should have been loaded for the teller of bear tales. An expedition properly outfitted to hunt bear liars rather than bear lairs could load a four-horse wagon with game in the San Grabriel Canyon."