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(upbeat music) - 399, perhaps the best known grizzly bear in history is almost 26 years old, but because of human-caused interactions, south of Grand Teton National Park, her future is now in question.

We gather perspectives from children's author Shelby Huff and Jackson Hole News and Guide reporter Mike Koshmrl next on Wyoming Chronicle.

(upbeat music) - [Advertiser] Funding for this program is made possible and part by, the Wyoming Humanities Council, helping Wyoming take a closer look at life through the humanities, thinkwy.org and by the members of the WyomingPBS foundation.

Thank you for your support.

- I'm Craig Blumenshine from Wyoming PBS, and welcome to this Wyoming Chronicle.

We're gonna visit about bear 399 from perhaps two different perspectives, maybe one through the eyes, maybe a child, and then also present day topics that are impacting perhaps the most famous bear or the most famous grizzly bear maybe of all time.

And with us to start, the discussion is Shelby Huff.

Shelby is the author of the book, "Not Like Other Bears."

Shelby, welcome to Wyoming Chronicle.

- Thanks for having me.

- Shelby you've worked as a park ranger an Alaskan bear guide, a wildlife guide at Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, where you often encountered 399.

You've been a freelance writer and you've written about bears for numerous publications.

So the quick question, the obvious question is, why write the book and why write it as it may be a children's book?

- Well, because 399, her story is so unique.

I wrote the book to make her story more accessible.

As a wildlife guide, I saw a lot of visitors that would encounter her on the side of the road, I think they just got lucky and they maybe didn't understand the significance of her presence.

So my hope with this book was that if I could get readers to care about one bear, then it would encourage them to care about all bears or certainly become curious about them.

The story of 399 and grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is one of the best stories I know.

So I also wrote the book to inspire change for the narrative that we have on grizzlies.

Of course they're capable of being aggressive, powerful, and destructive, but they aren't always these things.

In fact, they rarely are.

- Shelby, you've said that you hope your book is a heartwarming, I'm gonna quote here, "A heartwarming picture book "about one bear's extraordinary journey."

And I guess we all are on pins and needles with our fingers crossed here that it remains a heartwarming story, but I guess we're all not sure.

What have you thought about today as your book is out there, it's a wonderful gift for kids who are gonna be reading this thing, yet also there's some really important things going on in the news.

What are your thoughts about whether or not this remains a heartwarming story?

You've had to have thought about that.

- Yeah, absolutely, I think for people who have been watching her for years, this is what's happening now is the situation that everyone has been fearing for her to be in more conflict with humans, their food, their livestock feed, their beehives and whatnot.

Up until now, she has had rather predictable behavior in locations, and now she's traveling to places that she hasn't before.

And she's not as protected as she would be in the park.

And I think everyone's just kind of waiting on pins and needles to see how this plays out.

It's possible her fame will work in her favor here because they do have such a large team monitoring her and her cubs to ensure that these conflicts don't keep happening.

But yeah, we're just gonna have to wait and see what happens.

- You wrote this as a children's book, wonderful illustrations.

What were you hoping to convey through the illustrations in the book?

They're beautiful, they're well done.

I hope this story has this beautiful of an ending here as we've just talked about.

- Yeah, me too.

Yeah, I wanted the pictures to be playful yet realistic and I wanted 399 to be depicted in a gentle non-threatening manner.

So yeah, the publisher had a few in-house illustrators and they all did sample drawings of bears I went with.

The one I went with just completely exceeded my hopes and expectations for it.

And they did a wonderful job.

- Shelby, what feedback are you getting from people who have read your book and who have read your book to kids?

Have you gotten feedback from either young, young adults or young children or their parents?

- Yeah a lot of the people reading that are people who were not familiar with 399 story before this.

So it's been really encouraging to hear people who read the book, whether as a kid or as an adult who start following 399 in the news and getting more just interested or involved in grizzly conservation or what's going on and Grand Teton and Yellowstone with them these days.

- When you encounter people from probably all over the country, if not all over the world, when you were spending time as a bear guide, what were you hearing from them?

Many people, I think maybe what to use what Tom Mangelson referenced here, Winnie the Pooh relationship, others understand the awesome power that grizzly bears can bring on humans and everything in between.

So what did you hear from people as you were guiding them, as you were describing to them, what grizzly bears are?

- Yeah, it was very much... Before we really started the day, people were on either one end of the spectrum or the other, if they really wanted to see a grizzly bear or if they really didn't.

And I think I could tell them as much as I wanted about grizzly bears, but would really show them what grizzlies were like was seeing one, encountering one and especially in Grand Teton and Yellowstone, you're most likely going to encounter one in a very safe manner when you're with the crowd or certainly a group of people from a distance, hopefully.

And perhaps you might even see them near your vehicle.

But I think for the most part, people coming there, they don't have experience being in grizzly country.

It's just not relevant to their lives.

So most of what they're learning is new, most of what they've heard about previously is simply not true about grizzly bears.

They are just these giant, beasts capable of massive distraction, It was a really great opportunity just to teach people about what grizzly bears really act like and for them and to show them that as well.

- Well, we wanna continue this discussion about bear 399.

It's an important discussion that certainly ongoing Shelby.

Thanks to you, congratulations on your book.

I think it'll be a wonderful read for parents and their children here, not just in the upcoming holiday season, but perhaps year round.

So we encourage readers to find the book, it's available pretty much everywhere.

Best wishes on your future.

And really we appreciate your time joining us on Wyoming Chronicle.

- Thank you for having me.

- Up next is Mike Koshmrl from the Jackson Hole News and Guide.

He'll bring us up to date with all things happening right now with grizzly bear 399.

That's next, stay with us.

(upbeat music) And as we continue our discussion about bear 399, it's my pleasure to be joined by Mike Koshmrl.

Mike is a reporter for the Jackson Hole News and Guide, and he's reported on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, wildlife, Wild lands and the agencies that manage them since 2012.

Mike, welcome to Wyoming Chronicle.

- Hey, thanks for having me there.

- Mike, there's so much to cover with perhaps, as we said in our open, maybe the most famous grizzly bear of them all.

we haven't really covered the stats of bear 399, almost 26 years old, which is really unusually old for a grizzly bear.

She's ridden many successful cubs.

In 2020 she had quadruplets, she weighs almost 400 pounds, stands almost seven feet tall, but untypical for a grizzly, she's existed near humans.

And here in lies her recent problems.

Mike bring us up to date if you would on really know.

From my perspective and correct me if I'm wrong in a struggle for survival here, she heads towards hibernation.

- Yeah, I think that's a fair characterization, she's an unprecedented dire straits.

I think most people on this community would agree.

kinda the backstory to where... so I guess I'll just say right off the bat, this is Wednesday, November 10th and last night, grizzly 399, like literally walked down the streets of Jackson, Wyoming through the middle of town, escorted by police officers and U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service agents.

And I didn't hear of her getting into any trouble.

So to speak, like getting into garbage or anything.

And I think she was more or less made it through town around 10 or something p.m. unscathed and it was off in more wild landscapes now, but there's a big backstory to her coming to a place like that and being very comfortable, which is a product of her upbringing and her learning to live, with thousands of people, gawking at her in Grand Teton National Park.

Just a complete lack of fear of people.

But she hasn't had to deal with places like Jackson for most of her life, her 25 years, because she's largely stayed up in the National Park Grand Teton and her den is actually just to the north east of there, in the Bridger-Teton National Forest.

And for the first 24 years of her life, she more or less was in those protected landscapes and starting in 2020, in the fall of 2020, a little over a year ago, she came out and she, I still remember vividly here and grizzly 399 and her four cubs at that time young cubs were passing Calico Restaurant on the road to Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and lo and behold, that was the beginning of a month long sojourn in the Southern part of the valley.

She did get into some trouble I'd say.

She exploited, got into livestock feed, she wiped out a beekeeper's colony, this is all last year.

She got into some compost, but mostly it was kind of living without conflict and just in a typical area for her.

And then she went back north, to the National Park, went to the den around new year's 2021.

And then this year it's been a lot more fraught.

She has spent more time outside of the national park than within it since summer.

In the early part of the year, she was in the park, not having issues, but a couple of weeks ago, Wyoming Game and Fish Department biologist, who is very involved in monitoring her until the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service, the federal agency came in and took over, this Wyoming Game Fish Department biologist, a local carnivore guy named Mike Boyce said he's seen a noticeable behavior shift.

And she went from maybe opportunistically taking advantage of grain or something she might stumble across to really actively seeking it out.

And I wanna say, they reported that there'd been at least 10 conflicts they documented including five beekeepers colonies that she has gotten into and eaten honey out of.

I didn't even know there were five beekeepers in Teton county.

So she's obviously very good at sniffing these out and has been spending time further and further from her normal range, time down by Hoback Junction.

Last weekend, she was...

So U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service came in about two to three weeks ago came in and they basically are just following her.

They recognize this is a special bear, loved by people around the world.

And frankly, hasn't really done anything to deserve being punished.

she's habituated absolutely but she hasn't been aggressive to people, she hasn't been super destructive necessarily.

And so they're treating her completely differently than they would a normal bear and they've come in and they just last weekend kinda took a big step towards successfully monitoring her until she goes back north.

And what they did is they attached a couple of GPS collars to her cubs who they successfully trapped in near the side of a road killed animal that they were eating on.

- And Mike I there's a lot of, I guess there's a PR war kind of going on about that, right?

About how this bear is managed.

That that was something that necessarily didn't need to be done some are saying, and some are saying, absolutely that needs to be done.

It allows us to predict where she's going to be, where she has been since we can better educate, give me a sense, Mike, if you will, the local reaction to what's going on today, how this bear is being managed, is it contemptuous?

Is the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service supported in what they're doing?

What's being felt on the ground.

- Yeah, what I feel like with grizzly bears you Nobody is ever always on the same page on there, There's certainly a division and opinions.

There has been a criticism, including from probably one of grizzly 399s most famous documenter, Tom Mangelesen, is wildlife photographer in the valley here.

And he was not happy with how the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service handled that situation.

He thought it was an extraordinary risk that they were taking by capturing some of the family.

And then grizzly 399 was not successfully captured, she kind of headed off for the hills and was evidently about a half mile away with one of her cubs while three of her cubs were captured.

- And just to interject Mike, she had been captured before, correct?

And she may have remembered, this might not have been a nice trailer to go into, correct?

- Yeah, she, man I wish I had these numbers off the top of my head.

She was captured many times early in her life.

I mean, I wanna say maybe double digits.

Many, many captures, and she's worn GPS colors in the past, but hasn't for quite a few years.

And in the last like 10 or 15 years has only been captured once.

I don't think that's unusual.

I think that these bears are very intelligent animals and they do learn.

Even if there is a hunk elk meat or whatever it is in there that they I'm sure wanna eat.

they must have a little voice in their head telling them "It's not worth it."

'Cause yeah-- - You talk about the various intelligence though and I think that in long-term that's big fear because perhaps it may not impact bear 399s life.

And that is her research number by the way for viewers that might be wondering why she's called bear 399.

But she now has been teaching her cubs that, you know what, this livestock feed tastes pretty good or this honey tastes pretty good.

And that's the fear right?

In now what the next chapter will bring to the Jackson valley.

- Absolutely, and to illustrate that, all you really have to do is look at her offspring, one of her bears that is an equally kind of famous bear in this area is called grizzly 610.

This is a adult female born to grizzly 399 and so for example, this year grizzly 610 had two cubs that were two and a half years old, which is how old grizzly 399 cubs will be next year.

And at that age, the nap kind of just in grizzly bear analogy, what they do is they just push them off.

They're ready to go into estrus and breed again.

And so grizzly 610 pushed these two cubs off.

Neither of those cubs is alive today because of repeated conflict in residential areas primarily.

And grizzly 399, I could give the exact same example from her previous litter, she had two cubs in her previous litter.

One of those bears got into conflict, south of Grand Teton National park, was relocated across the ecosystem to kind of to North West of Cody and the other remaining bear was captured and killed about a month ago after repeated, repeated, repeated conflicts.

So yes, when she is teaching four cubs that this is how you get food, bear managers, all they have to do is look at what they do every year, and they realize that it's not bode well for their future, and it's certainly, I fully expect all these bears, or most of them certainly that she's raising right now will run into issues next year.

So do the biologists Ive spoken with.

- What are we learning from bear 399, Mike?

I mean that's a very general question, but there has to be some takeaways here that are piling up because of A, her fame, B, because of all of the interactions now that are well-documented, all of the history that you've just shared with our viewers.

What are we learning here about bear-human interaction?

And specifically with thousands of people that live right where you live, what are we learning?

- One thought that comes to mind is, although this is very contentious and fraught and it might not work out.

I see grizzly 399 as like a great uniter.

I see advocacy groups that it's their job to be critical of agencies and watch dog what they do.

I see them lauding, the great efforts they're making.

I'm thinking of Wyoming Wildlife Advocate.

That's a group based here in Jackson and they are lauding the effort to collar her, and keep her alive.

I mean, that's what they're trying to do.

And the are putting the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service is putting pretty extraordinary resources.

I mean, they don't have employees based in Jackson.

They are dispatching people to be here around the clock to follow a grizzly bear around, to keep her alive, because she's so loved by people around the world.

And I don't know, that's heartening to me that people recognize this effort, the agencies making, that the agencies making the effort, the agencies clearly treating this bear differently.

And so, I don't know what the outcome is here, but just all the effort that I see is, is really, I think like a positive step for grizzly bear management more generally.

And it's maybe uniting people, which is something that certainly we can use in this day and age.

Another thought that comes to mind is, and this has been just straight up called out by people like the grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the federal government, Hillary Cooley, that Jackson Hole is way behind the times when it comes to having regulations that allow these bears to co-exist in developed areas.

We have some bear standards that are designed to reduce conflict and in technically required bear proof trash cans in a lot of the valley, but those trash cans fall into disrepair enforcement is bad.

There are also parts of the community, like the town of Jackson, where grizzly 399 walked through last night where any one time there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of trash cans all around her.

And fortunately she hasn't really learned that's a food source.

I believe she's gotten to garbage once that they've confirmed, but man, if she did, that would be a really, really difficult attractant as they call it to kind of get her away from just because it's everywhere.

And so I think that local elected officials here are well aware that they kind of need to take action and shore up our local regulations because grizzly 399 is attracting a lot of attention to this issue, but it does happen year after year after year with more anonymous bears, a lot of those bears end up dead.

And grizzly bears are expanding their range in Jackson Hole and throughout the region.

More and more often, these are gonna be grizzlies and not black bears that we need to learn to try to figure out a way to co-exist with.

And so I feel like there's definitely some pressure to get these regulations kind of shored up on the books and enforced.

So that a situation like grizzly 399 coming through Jackson is not just going to be a guaranteed way for her to get in trouble and worse.

- So what you're saying is perhaps some interesting policy debates in front of maybe the Jackson City Council and the Teton County Commissioners or so.

- Yeah, that'll be coming up, probably not realistically till this winter, but I would expect to see changes to what's on the books by the time bears come out of their dens in the spring.

- Mike, I'm not sure that many other grizzly bears have their own Facebook, Twitter, Instagram accounts, fan clubs, you name it, like this bear has.

But certainly I think the eyes of maybe it's hard to say it, but the eyes of the country, if not many across the globe are on Jackson Hole right now, kind of watching here to see when and if this bear makes it to hibernation, which I was surprised to learn isn't until usually January or so.

- Yeah, I think there is some variability, interestingly, usually females with cubs, my understanding like are the first to go into their den ordinarily, but grizzly 399 is an extraordinary bear.

And she has learned that there are these late season, cow elk hunts in a couple of places, Grand Teton National Park.

It's unusual that there's a hunt there, but there is it's part of the legislation that created the park and the National Elk Refuge.

And in these late season hunts, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cow elk and calf elk are killed and out of each outcomes, 40 and 50 pounds of guts and organs.

And it's a very rich food source and grizzly 399, certainly I've seen her out there doing this and other bears have learned to capitalize on that food source, not to mention, there is a fair number of elk that get shot, injured, not recovered by a hunter and that's hundreds of pounds meat.

And so collectively, there's just thousands, if not tens of thousands of just biomass out there that these bears can capitalize on and that has kept her out.

Last year, it kept her out until into January, which is very late for a bear.

she was trudging through deep snow to get up to her den, which was, oh gosh, 30 miles north of where most of this hunting takes place.

And actually that was a story and incitement itself.

I mean, there were people following her as she basically paralleled the highway, trudging through snow and these grizzly cubs on the way to go sleep, and she was gone for months and came back out, we've seen how it's gotten since she's been out.

It's been a rough(indistinct) - Well, Mike, I appreciate the background.

I'm not sure that there are many journalists who have invested the time and resources than you have in covering bear 399.

So Mike Koshmrl from the Jackson Hole News and Guide and Shelby Huffy earlier in the show who spend some time with us to maybe think about this from a children's perspective or at least a young adults perspective.

I think that this has been very valuable for our viewers.

So thank you both for joining us on Wyoming Chronicle.

- Thanks for having me Craig.

(upbeat music) - [Advertiser] Funding for this program is made possible in part by the Wyoming Humanities Council, helping Wyoming take a closer look at life through the humanities, thinkwy.org and by the members of the WyomingPBS Foundation.

Thank you for your support.