“A happy hunter. Bear hunting is an important recreational sport on the refuge”. Close view of man with huge bear head strapped to his back.

The Kodiak bear (Ursus arctos middendorffi) occupies the islands of the Kodiak Archipelago in South-Western Alaska. It is the largest subspecies of brown bear.

The most recent occurrence of a fatal bear attack on a person on the Kodiak archipelago was in 1999.

A 1957 photograph in the collection of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.