America’s most beloved bear is dead. Here’s why Grizzly 399 mattered.
The oldest known grizzly mother in history, the 28-year-old bear was often photographed with her cubs in Grand Teton National Park before she was killed by a car in October.
Bozeman, Montana — The grizzly bear named 399, likely the most famous bear in the world, was killed by a vehicle on Tuesday south of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, a sad coda to the life of a truly remarkable wild animal, experts say.
At 28 years old, 399 was the oldest known grizzly bear mother in history, birthing at least 18 cubs. She had a yearling cub, Spirit, with her when she died, according to the National Park Service, but its whereabouts—and chances for survival—are unknown.
Not only was 399 a prolific mother, she was a famous sight in and around Grand Teton National Park, attracting a solid fan base of photographers who came to see her ambling around the park with her cub—or, in 2023, her quadruplets.
“I had never encountered an animal like her, and never will again. She was that special,” said nature photographer Thomas D. Mangelsen from the front deck of his rustic log cabin home near Moose, Wyoming, only a few miles from where he first caught a fleeting glimpse of her almost 20 years ago.
Scientists have speculated 399 chose to raise her young around busy park roads and highways to keep them safer from aggressive male bears, though that also put the family at risk of getting hit by a vehicle. Such wildlife collisions are common in the region, and one of her cubs was previously killed by a vehicle, according to the NPS. (Read how trains are killing grizzly bears in the Northern Rockies.)
Yet her visibility to the public has also inspired countless visitors to learn more about grizzlies and embrace their conservation, Chip Jenkins, superintendent of Grand Teton National Park, said in a statement.
“She changed the way the federal government and state agencies deal with bears, and the way she magnetized public attention put them on notice that a massive number of people care about bears. That kind of overwhelming sentiment didn’t exist before,” says Sue Cedarholm, a Jackson Hole wildlife photographer.
A symbol of restraint
Born in 1996, 399 was part of a wave of bear recolonization pushing out from nearby Yellowstone National Park into wildlands where grizzlies had been largely eradicated for half a century. (Read how grizzlies bears are rebounding in the West.)
In 2007, 399 attacked a hiker who had approached an elk carcass. Then-Teton park superintendent Mary Gibson Scott, and Chris Servheen, the former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s grizzly bear recovery coordinator, opted not to kill 399 or remove her and the cubs from the wild.
After that event, 399 became more well known, and onlookers anxiously awaited to see if she would emerge from hibernation each spring.
She often wandered with her cubs through downtown Jackson Hole and its suburbs. Cindy Campbell, a health care administrator and wildlife advocate who has lived in Jackson Hole for 50 years, has filmed 399 on remote video walking near her door at night.
“Even if people didn’t like grizzlies, it was hard not to have goodwill for 399,” Campbell says. “For the most part, our community embraced the heavy responsibility of her living so close to us, and 399 helped us understand our weaknesses.”
In the days after her emergence, 399 would sometimes draw up to a thousand people in what were called “bear jams,” gatherings that often put her and other wildlife at risk of being killed or involved in a human-wildlife conflict.
That’s why “399 was a symbol and a reminder of how we need to constantly be vigilant in exercising self-restraint,” says Servheen, now board chair of the Montana Wildlife Federation.
Back to the earth
In recent years, 399’s age was becoming obvious—for one, her teeth were showing signs of severe wear and tear.
“None of us really wanted to speak about it, but we knew there would come a day when 399 left us,” Mangelsen says. Though he’d hoped for a more “poetic ending,” he is devastated that she was killed by a motorist. (See a bear's-eye view of Yellowstone.)
“But that is always a grave possibility in a wild ecosystem where human pressures are growing daily,” he says.
Servheen, who has spoken to federal wildlife officials, says 399 may be taxidermied and displayed in a prominent location. But some Jackson Hole residents feel she should be remembered the way she was.
“If she is stuffed like a museum specimen, then it’s kind of like her becoming a trophy,” Cedarholm says.
“For many of us, it would be better if her body were laid gently in the wild, in a remote location, so that she could go back to the earth where she belongs.’
