What year was the last brown bear recorded to have been killed?
The largest mammal to live in the highest altitudes are the alpine ibex, which have been sighted as high as 3,000 m (9,843 ft). The ibex live in caves and descend to eat the succulent alpine grasses. Classified as antelopes, chamois are smaller than ibex and found throughout the Alps, living above the tree line and are common in the entire alpine range. Areas of the eastern Alps are still home to brown bears. In Switzerland the canton of Bern was named for the bears but the last bear is recorded as having been killed in 1792 above Kleine Scheidegg by three hunters from Grindelwald.
The US Congress was urged to create the exemption by proponents of a conservation plan on San Bruno Mountain, California that was drafted in the early 1980s and is the first HCP in the nation. In the conference report on the 1982 amendments, Congress specified that it intended the San Bruno plan to act "as a model" for future conservation plans developed under the incidental take exemption provision and that "the adequacy of similar conservation plans should be measured against the San Bruno plan". Congress further noted that the San Bruno plan was based on "an independent exhaustive biological study" and protected at least 87% of the habitat of the listed butterflies that led to the development of the HCP.