According to former game warden John Duncan Hart, the last grizzly bear in Mesa County was shot by a man named Sills on the Uncompahgre sometime around 1912. The bear was known as Big-foot Mary. A Daily Sentinel article from October 22, 1925 reports the incident differently. A hunter named Ed Gill shot Big Foot Mary in October of 1925, and did so in the Dominguez area. According to the Sentinel article, Mary weighed 905 pounds and had a footprint of 18 inches. She was pursued by Gill and his companions for three days until she was, reportedly, shot at close range. For 25 years, cattle ranchers and aligned government interests had tried to kill her because of her attacks on cattle, but she had proved elusive prior to her death.
