Grizzly 399 (born 1996) is a grizzly bear inhabiting Grand Teton National Park and Bridger-Teton National Forest. She is followed by as many as 40 wildlife photographers, and millions of tourists come to the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem to see her and the other grizzly bears. Grizzly 399 is the most famous brown bear mother in the world, with her own Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts.
Background
Grizzly bears Ursus arctos horribilis are a subspecies of the North American brown bear species U. arctos. Several decades ago, grizzlies were assessed as being at risk of rapid extinction due to the rate at which the population was declining. Protection under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 has resulted in a population rebound: there are now approximately 2,000 grizzly bears in the contiguous United States, of which about half are estimated to live in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Grizzlies are stereotyped as ferocious, but the typical bear avoids contact with humans, living away from settlements and attacking only to protect themselves when startled by a human.
Grand Teton Wildlife Brigade
Created in 2007 in response to the magnitude of visitors coming to Grand Teton to view Grizzly 399 and her cubs, the Grand Teton Wildlife Brigade keeps the animals and the people apart and unharmed. In 2011, ranger Kate Wilmot, whose official title is "bear management specialist", said that this year things have become "completely chaotic". The real duty is managing the behavior of the people. This was partly due to social media increasing the popularity of the bears, and drawing more people to want to interact with them.
Wilmot directs 16 volunteers in the brigade throughout the summer until snowfall. If not for the brigaders, "wildlife watching would be a mess". The brigaders carry bear spray, but their primary role is to persuade tourists to respect the 100-yard viewing guideline established after incidents with Grizzly 610, 399's daughter.
Feeding the bears is illegal so the brigaders handle this issue too. It can cause bears to become habituated to people and aggressive. The brigaders remind tourists of their role in this part. Their success can be measured in the rarity of major incidents and bear removals. When bears become too habituated to human presence and aggressive in their pursuit of human food, or when a bear attacks a human, the "problem bear" is typically euthanized. Grizzly mothers are known for being aggressively protective of their progeny. In 2011, in Yellowstone National Park, a mother bear fatally mauled a hiker who got too close. Grizzly 610, 399's daughter, twice "charged" tourists who approached too closely. No injuries were reported.
Life
Grizzly 399 is a grizzly bear who resides on Federal land in a range of hundreds of miles throughout the Grand Teton National Park and the Bridger-Teton National Forest. She was born in a den in Pilgrim Creek, Wyoming, in the winter of 1996, and given a research number by the Yellowstone Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team.
When she reached age 21, she became older than is usual for a grizzly, as "more than 85 percent of them are killed because of some kind of human activity before they reach old age". She weighs almost . When standing upright on her hind legs, she is . Unlike the typical grizzly, she lives in close proximity to humans, although she is not particularly concerned with them; scientists have speculated that this was in response to a death of a cub in a more remote area, perhaps killed by a male grizzly. She has not killed a human despite at least two known close encounters, and so has avoided euthanasia.
Cubs
She has reared many successful progeny, including 22 cubs and grandcubs. In mid-May 2020 she was observed with four new cubs born the previous winter. She has taught her offspring habits to benefit from rather than be harmed by human proximity, such as loitering during the fall elk hunt to consume abandoned elk guts, and looking both ways before crossing roadways to avoid being struck by vehicles, a common cause of death among bears.
Despite this, at least three of her cubs have been killed due to human encounters, including Grizzly 399's only 2016 cub, nicknamed 'Snowy' because of his whitish-blonde face coloration. In June of that year, Snowy was struck and killed by a car in Grand Teton National Park, an incident investigated as a potential hit-and-run accident. In all, she has lost half of her descendants, due to encounters with people or male bears.