In Death, Bart Leaves Legacy to His Brethren

HEBER CITY, Utah —  While Bart the Bear will probably be remembered for his roles in Hollywood productions with Anthony Hopkins, Darryl Hannah and Brad Pitt, it’s not his greatest legacy.

So says Bart’s trainer and owner for more than 23 years, Doug Seus. The more formidable monument the 1,600-pound Kodiak brown bear left was as founder of the Vital Ground Foundation, based in Park City.

Since the initial purchase of 240 acres of wilderness in Montana in 1990--done with money Bart earned on several films--Vital Ground has bought or preserved more than 200,000 acres of land or conservation easements, mostly in northwestern Montana, to protect the grizzlies’ natural habitat.

Seus and Vital Ground Executive Director Tina Quayle say the grizzly population in the Lower 48 states has been devastated in the past 150 years.

The Sierra Club estimates that 150 years ago, there were anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 grizzly bears in the Lower 48 states. Now they say that figure is around 1,000. Quayle says buying land or securing conservation easements is the best way to save the bears’ feeding and breeding grounds, which helps stabilize the grizzly population.

Although Seus acknowledges that the idea was his and his wife Lynn’s, he defers all of the credit to Bart, even calling the bear “the founder.”

“Bart personally spent a couple hundred thousand dollars and all kinds of time and energy,” Seus says. “He’s the founder. Without him there was no money, no means, no nothing.”

According to Quayle, Vital Ground just purchased its first piece of land outside the contiguous 48 states, on Kodiak Island in the Gulf of Alaska. She says finding the land to protect is not hard, it’s finding the money.

“Whenever we get the money, we spend it right way,” Quayle said.

Vital Ground’s board of directors includes the Seuses, actor Anthony Hopkins and John Craighead, a prominent bear ecologist known for pioneering satellite tracking of animals for research purposes.

Seus sees it as a duty, not philanthropy.

“When you have the means to do something like this and don’t act upon it, you’re missing the boat,” he said.

And so the cooperative continues. Doug trains the bears; they work in films or commercials and earn paychecks that feed themselves as well as Doug and Lynn. They also bring recognition to Vital Ground, which, in turn, buys the land for the preservation of the habitat that these grizzlies need to save their species.

“You can only take so much before it’s time to give back,” said Lynn.

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On the Net:

Vital Ground:

https://www.vitalground.org

The Nature Conservancy:

https://www.tnc.org