| 1 | Yellowstone’s celebrity bear |
Which bear is the most famous in the world? If you asked the question in summer 2020, it would undoubtedly be Papillon the escape bear, who stormed to headlines after breaking from an Italian bear sanctuary not once, but twice. However, many would argue that the most consistently famous bear is 399 of Yellowstone.
She’s a 25 year old sow born in 1996, who has mothered 14 cubs in her lifetime, and has numerous grandchildren. She’s unusually habituated to people, spending time on the roadsides by parked cars and people eating picnics. Consequently, people flock to Yellowstone park in the hundreds just to lay eyes on this prolific mother bear. Despite only rarely attacking people, her antics are constantly in the media, and she’s even a social media superstar with Facebook and Instagram accounts, run by a mysterious identity (unless we’re being cynical and it really is her).
399 was born in Pilgrim Creek, Wyoming, and she still hangs out in Wyoming today. In the 1970s, the Yellowstone population of bears plummeted to 150, but evidently, 399’s parents were among the lucky few to survive. Today the population is a far healthier 700, including 399 and her family. 399’s official bear stats include a weight of 400 pounds, and a height of 7 feet when standing on her hind legs. She has one distinctive feature, as her coat is mostly dark brown, but with two thin, blond stripes on her upper chest.
| 2 | Mysterious early days |
For five years after her birth, 399 was a mystery no-name bear, getting up to antics we’ll never know about. Her mother was an unknown bear who scientists had never tracked. The 399 story proper kicked off in 2001 when researchers put a VHF radio collar around her neck, and assigned her the famous number.
399’s mothering career got off to a slow start, as she emerged from her den in spring 2004 with a single cub, which promptly vanished. The likely culprit was infanticide by an overexcited male bear. At this point, 399 was just a random bear – she had no taste of the superstardom which awaited her.
In November 2005, she established her den in Grand Teton National Park, which lies just 10km south of Yellowstone in Wyoming. This time, she found her feet and emerged in spring 2006 with three cubs in tow. Wandering down the roadsides, she attracted huge crowds, and her celebrity was finally beginning.
One of the things that fascinates people about 399 is that she has triplets more than any other bear. Normally, this puts a mother bear’s health at risk, seeing as she must provide food for all of them, but 399 always has the intelligence to make it through. In 2020, she emerged from hibernation with quadruplets.
| 3 | Uses roads to her advantage |
Without her fondness for roads, 399 almost certainly wouldn’t have become the superstar bear she is today. Most grizzlies will venture onto roads occasionally, but 399 has made it a way of life. She’s unique in that she returns to Yellowstone’s roads year after year. It’s probably a survival adaption, as Yellowstone rangers believe that she may have lost a cub to a marauding male deep in the wilderness, and realised that human developments are safer.
399 is so accustomed to the presence of humans that she allows people to photograph her, and doesn’t react strongly if they accidentally stand between her and her cubs. In 2006 and 2007 alone, hundreds of cars parked up to watch the 399 family. 399 and her cubs are commonly spotted eating berries by the roadside, or digging up roots. Sometimes, she prefers the meadows directly adjacent to roads where dandelions are plentiful.
399 particularly favours the Oxbow Bend near Snake River in western Wyoming, meaning that photographers know exactly where to find her. From 2006-2011, she regularly taught her cubs to hunt elk on the Willow Flats near Jackson Lake Lodge, keeping visitors enraptured.
That said, she isn’t a nuisance bear who pinches garbage, as garbage control was tightened up massively in the 1970s. 399 has been spotted travelling 35 miles in one day, but her remarkable bear memory always guides her back to the old haunts like a homing device.
| 4 | Rarely attacks people |
399 has only committed one crime against humanity and it was judged to have been natural behaviour. It happened in 2007 when school teacher Dennis VanDenbos was attending an educational conference in Jackson Lake Lodge, the famous place overlooking 399’s stomping grounds. VanDenbos went for a walk one morning, before his luck turned and he stumbled onto a 4-strong bear family feeding on an elk carcass. This was 399 and her three cubs from 2006.
The mother bear’s defensive instincts kicked in and she immediately started posturing in front of VanDenbos, who remembered his training and waved his arms. He shouted at the top of his voice, trying to scare 399 off. But as he moved slowly backwards, he stumbled and fell, and when he stood up, he was face to face with one of the bears. He instantly pushed himself to the ground, stomach first, to protect his internal organs, while pulling his arms over his head. Teeth nipped him on the back, before delivering a more powerful bite to his backside. Claws slashed at his left calf, and VanDenbos must have thought it was all over. Miraculously, he suddenly heard a human voice, of a Jackson Lake Lodge cook and horse wrangler who had been nearby. He shouted, and 399 and her cubs scampered into the woods.
Lying in the ambulance, VanDenbos radioed to say that he had provoked the attack. Ultimately, head ranger Mary Gibson Scott agreed. 399 was judged to have behaved like a normal defensive mother rather than an aggressive problem bear, and she was spared euthanasia. Since then, 399 has never attacked a human being.
| 5 | 2011 antics |
In May 2008, the 2006 wave of triplets finally disbanded. The first sign was when the cubs started foraging 100 yards away from their mother. When mother 399 crossed a road, she grunted at them, an instruction they barely listened to. Eventually, they encountered a male bear, which ran off with 399 into a ravine. Two of the cubs followed her half an hour later, only for photographer Sue Cedarholm to watch them re-emerge with 399 hot on their tail, charging them away from her love nest!
The family was over, but on June 5, 2011, 399 remerged with triplets. By this point, 399’s sky high popularity had forced Grand Teton to establish the Wildlife Brigade, consisting of 16 volunteers. Its job was to stand by the roads as amazed tourists took pictures of 399 and cubs, and prevent them from getting within 100 yards. Founded in 2006, the volunteers explain to parked bear enthusiasts how easily avoidable incidents could cost the lives of the bears they love so much. They also instruct people not to feed the bears, in case they become addicted to garbage and keep coming back for more.
In short, the sole purpose of the Brigade is to contain the chaos brought by the celebrity of 399. The funny thing is that by 2014, 399 was already deemed to be “getting old”, as rangers noticed that her teeth were very worn down. Yet she’s still thriving today.
| 6 | Grizzly 610, 399’s daughter |
In Yellowstone, there’s another collar-tagged bear called 610 who has copied 399’s strategy of sticking to roads. 610 also hangs around Willow Flats, and is perfectly comfortable with hundreds of passing cars and tourists. All this makes more sense when you hear that 610 is 399’s daughter.
She was one of the 3 2006 cubs, and by 2011, she had three cubs of her own, the first of 399’s cubs with a confirmed litter. Unlike the more adventurous male bears, she stuck to the place of her youth. 610 loves the roads so much that in August 2011, she caused a major traffic jam when she tucked into an elk carcass 70 metres away from the road. It was too good an opportunity for photographers to miss, and 30 cars stopped at once, while the rangers watched on to make sure that nobody went for a cuddle.
People always wonder whether mother bears recognise their adult children, but in 2011, there was a reunion when 399 and her 2 cubs walked past a traffic filled road in Grand Teton National Park, only for 610 to emerge with 2 cubs later. Over several weeks, thousands of tourists watched the mother and daughter families interact. In mid-summer, the bear families disappeared, but when they returned, 610 had 3 cubs while 399 had 2. Rangers theorised that daughter had helped out mother by adopting one of her cubs – her much younger half sister! This shot to headlines around the world under the title of “rare grizzly bear adoption”, increasing 399’s fame further. On November 28th though, a family feud erupted, when 610 and 399 started fighting over an elk carcass. They were due to enter hibernation and probably extra aggressive.
| 7 | Hunting legalisation |
By 2017, bear 399 had lasted for 21 years, but the gravest threat yet appeared when the US federal government decided to delist grizzly bears as an endangered species. Numbers had risen to 700 in Yellowstone, but conservationists were in uproar, fearing a hunting feeding frenzy. While Montana kept grizzly hunting banned and Idaho allowed just one yearly kill, Wyoming declared open season, issuing 22 permits per year. Some hunters were salivating at the prospect of shooting 399, wanting a famous hide on their walls, calling it the ultimate kill.
Conservations like Jane Goodall launched an infiltration operation, attempting to buy up the 22 permits for themselves. It partially worked, as bear biologist Peter Mangelson acquired tag number 8. Others urged the cameras to shoot ’em with cameras, not guns.
Ultimately, Wyoming’s decision was overturned by a federal judge in Montana, but there was a big scare in December 2015, when a hunter commented on facebook that “I KILLED BEAR 399″. He even described her last moments “gasping for air as her cubs ran about”. Was he bluffing? In spring 2016, photographer Bernie Scates waited patiently in Yellowstone for 399 and her cubs to appear, and on May 10th he got his reward. It was 399’s first sighting of the new season. She wasn’t a zombie, she wasn’t riddled with bullets – she was perfectly healthy.
| 8 | 2020 comeback |
399 was a true supermom of a bear, but biologists had to be realistic. In early 2020, she was now 24, and she had looked quite thin and scraggly the previous winter. It’s normal for elderly bears to die during hibernation, having failed to eat enough food the previous summer as they gradually get outcompeted by younger, fitter bears.
A hushed air of anticipation fell over Yellowstone park, Wyoming, and indeed the world (except maybe North Korea). The Yellowstone winter was particularly brutal, with 11 feet of snow accumulating. But there was also a buzz of excitement, because 399 hadn’t mothered any cubs since 2016, and she had been spotted in the company of a huge 600 pound male named Bruno throughout summer 2019. Would it be boom or bust?
The first confirmed sighting of a grizzly in 2020 came on 7th March. This was a male, who always leave their hibernation dens earlier. Nobody was concerned, and on May 18th 2020, 399 was finally spotted. Better yet, she had 4 cubs! Everyone’s wildest dreams had come true. It was surprising that she had cubs at all at age 23, let alone 4 cubs. Yellowstone rangers had never seen it before.
She was first spotted where else, but Pilgrim Creek, her trustworthy haunt of 14 years. At first, 10 people stood by to watch, but by 3:30pm on May 18th, 200 bear enthusiasts were milling around. This was the 3rd time 399 had reappeared on May 18th exactly. In a previous spring, a man had burst into tears at the first sight of her.
| 9 | The family gets lost |
As of late 2020, the 399 family was in a spot of bother. Her internal compass seemed to be malfunctioning, as compared to their usual Pilgrim creek haunts, the family was venturing too far south. They were reaching inhabited settlements on the flat valley, which included Teton village, but also the crowded suburbs of Jackson Hole.
Not a place a grizzly bear wants to be, and worse, they were wandering near the Moose-Wilson Road, which is notorious for moose being killed in traffic collisions. On October 27th, one of the cubs narrowly avoided a collision itself. By Wednesday 28th, they were sighted on a ranch, and local bear enthusiast Ann Smith started sending emails en masse to Jackson Hole residents to make them drive carefully. Soon, 399 was on the wrong side of the fast-flowing snake river to usual, straying close to a painful black bear trap.
Why was 399 leaving her normal hunting grounds? It was a poor hunting season in 2020, meaning that less elk carcasses were left behind for 399’s family to feast on – they were spotted instead eating hawthorn berries near the town of Wilson. 399 superfan Thomas Mangelsen said that she was looking fairly fit, but others insisted that she was thin. One of the cubs was walking with a slight limp.
Is the 399 family finally finished? Good news – by November 27th, they were spotted back in their traditional stomping grounds of Grand Teton National Park. Clearly, mother 399 came to her senses and corrected course.
| 10 | Cub pathways |
The harsh reality is that only 85% of bears make it to 399’s grand old age of 24. Despite making numerous cubs, up to half of 399’s may have died. The most notorious case was in September 2009. Stephen Westmoreland was walking through Bridger-Teton National Forest when he encountered bear 615, a female cub of 399’s, who was feeding on a moose carcass. From 35 metres away, 615 stood up to view the human interloper. She was said to be a shy, reclusive bear who stayed away from tents and barbecues, and this time, she gave no indication of a murderous charge.
Regardless, Westmoreland raised his rifle and shot 615 in the chest and abdomen. He didn’t use bear spray – he wasn’t carrying bear spray, but rather a deer head. One of the 2006 litter was no more. Surprisingly, the case went to trial, where Westermoreland pled self defence. By now, the “399 army” was already a force to be reckoned with, and they followed the trial avidly on the internet. It was called the OJ Simpson trial of bears, and Westermoreland was convicted of malicious killing.
Next to perish was 573, one of 399’s 2006 cubs. He was euthanised on July 3rd 2013 for killing livestock. The headlines said “taste for beef kills cub of grizzly 399”. The most heart-breaking incident came in June 2016, when Snowy, a whitefaced cub born that year who had stolen the internet’s heart, was found dead on a road near Pilgrim Creek, clearly killed in a collision. This bear had a white head and blue-brown body, looking more like a Tibetan blue bear than her mother. Eyewitnesses said that 399 had frantically tried to help her mortally wounded offspring.
That’s the harsh bear world for you, but on a more positive note, both 610 and 399 are still alive in western Wyoming as of 2022.
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