Kodiak bear
An average adult male measures in length, and stands tall at the shoulder. The largest recorded wild male weighed , and had a hind foot measurement of . A large male Kodiak bear stands up to tall at the shoulder, when it is standing on all four legs. When standing fully upright on its hind legs, a large male could reach a height of . The largest verified size for a captive Kodiak bear was for a specimen that lived at the Dakota Zoo in Bismarck, North Dakota. Nicknamed "Clyde," he weighed when he died in June 1987 at the age of 22. According to zoo director Terry Lincoln, Clyde probably weighed close to a year earlier. He still had a fat layer of when he died.
Kodiak bear
Professional interest in guided Kodiak bear hunts and a concern for unregulated resource use in frontier lands such as Alaska prompted the territorial government’s newly established Alaska Game Commission to abolish commercial bear hunting (selling the hides) on the archipelago in 1925. The impacts of the new regulations seemed to restore bear populations on the Kodiak islands. By the 1930s, ranchers on northeast Kodiak reported an increase in bear problems and demanded action. Bears were also seen as a threat to the expanding commercial salmon-fishing industry. To address the dilemma of conserving bears while protecting cattle, salmon, and people, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge by executive order in 1941. The refuge roughly encompasses the southwestern two-thirds of Kodiak Island, Uganik Island, the Red Peaks area on northwestern Afognak Island, and all of Ban Island.