Close Encounter with Grizzly Bear Number 399

Esther’s writing prompt: June 24th : Close

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Grizzly bear 399 was a long lived female Grizzy bear who lived in Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park near Snake River. She was called Grizzly bear 399 because of her tag number. She was arguably the most famous grizzly bear in the United States and likely in the World. Unlike the typical female grizzly bear, Grizzly 399 regularly gave birth to triplets rather than twins. She was seen and admired by thousands of visitors. Her Instagram account has 55,000 followers, books were written about her and documentaries were made. She had 22 cubs throughout her life. Unfortunately, she was hit and killed by a car on Tuesday October 22, 2024, at the age of 28. You can read my post about the accident here. Luckily, her one remaining cub was not hurt in the accident, and he was old enough to survive on his own.

rizzly 399 in the meadow. She is followed by her three cubs.
Grizzly 399 with three cubs. Photo from Wikipedia by StevenPDeVries, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

She was also special to me because we had a close encounter with her and three of her cubs during our visit to Grand Teton national park in 2007. It was a school trip organized by the math teacher, Frank Jordan, and each kid was accompanied by at least one parent to give the math teacher a break. Grizzly 399 gave us a very memorable experience.

Photo including a somewhat turbulent Snake River with the Teton mountain range in the background.
My photo of the Teton mountain range taken from Snake River.
The Teton range towering an island is reflected in a lake.
Jackson Lake, an island and the Teton Mountain range in the background. The photo was taken in June 2007 by a fellow trip participant Gabriel Goncalves.

Grizzly 399 frequently sought human company. She came down to the roads with her cubs and stayed with the passersby for hours. She did not beg for food. She just wanted to stay with people. This article describes her as a gentle soul. Grizzly bears seeking human company is normally a dangerous situation and grizzly bears seeking human company are therefore often shot to protect the public. Grizzlies can kill people both out of aggression and for food. However, the park rangers left Grizzly 399 and her cubs alone because they deemed her harmless. She frequently interacted with people without ever showing any aggression towards people.

Four cars that are stopped on the road letting the grizzlies cross the road.
A photo of Grizzly 399 and a couple of her cubs taken in June 2007 by fellow trip participant Gabriel Goncalves.

Her behavior was somewhat strange, but I was told by a ranger that male grizzlies sometimes kill cubs, and this was her way of protecting the cubs. Grizzlies tend to stay away from people except for her. She used people as a shield to protect her cubs.

We had a somewhat scary experience with Grizzly 399, but as it turned out, we were never in any danger. As we were driving through Grand Teton National Park, Grizzly 399 came down to the road, so we stopped to watch her, and so did many other people. She let her cubs visit the cars and interact with people and we went outside to get closer. This is normally not recommended.

One of the visitors, with a big car and a trailer, decided that he had seen enough and began to leave. He drove his car between Grizzly 399 and her cubs. Someone rightly thought this was really dumb and decided to improve the situation by honking angrily. As a result, 399 started running towards us, the large group of tourists standing outside taking pictures. We were about 100 feet from Grizzly 399, which is indeed a very close encounter with a grizzly bear.  As Grizzly 399 ran toward us, people started screaming and running, and unfortunately the math teacher who had organized the trip fell and got trampled by the panicking people.

One grizzly cub is looking in the window of a blue car. The other one is right behind.
A photo of two of 399’s cubs. The photo was taken in June 2007 by a fellow trip participant Gabriel Goncalves.

A lot of other things happened during the panic. People ran back to their cars or to any car. A couple of my fellow trip participants found themselves blocked from entering their own car (on the side facing away from the bear) because a plus sized lady was stuck in the door of their smaller car. Not a comfortable situation with a grizzly on the loose. By pushing her from behind they were able to get her inside and could then enter the car themselves. The kids were standing on top of the SUVs that we had rented and crawled back into the car through the sunroof. My son entered the car last by his own choice.

As it turned out the panic was completely unnecessary. 399 was not chasing anyone and was not really running towards us. She was running to the end of the car with the trailer to get around it to get to her cubs on the other side.

Six cars a car with a big trailer and a grizzly mother and three cubs on the road.
Grizzly 399 is crossing the road with her cubs. The photo was taken in June 2007 by a fellow trip participant Gary Weinstein.

One ranger told us a story about 399 that sounded a bit scary. A hiker, hiking alone (which you should not do) stumbled upon 399 and her cubs as they were in the middle of eating an Elk carcass. He had come out of a thicket and had not seen them until he essentially bumped into them. He screamed on top of his lungs because he was shocked and then he started running. That is a very bad reaction by the way.

Grizzly 399, who was equally startled, pursued him. He laid down on the ground as he had read that you should do when pursued by a grizzly. Grizzly 399 sniffed him but did not touch him. Her two cubs bit his behind but not hard. After the grizzlies had left, he stood up, walked away and went to a hospital to check out the bites on his bum, which allegedly were not bad. Well I guess he had a closer grizzly encounter than we did.

A grizzly bear is walking out of the thicket in a forest nearby the road.
The math teacher, Frank Jordan, took this photo of Grizzly 399.
Cars a trailer, and grizzly mother with her cubs on the road.
Grizzly 399 and her cubs amongst the cars. The photo was taken in June 2007 by a fellow trip participant Carl Ondracek.

My Other Responses to Esther’s Prompts

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Author: thomasstigwikman

My name is Thomas Wikman. I am a software/robotics engineer with a background in physics. I am currently retired. I took early retirement. I am a dog lover, and especially a Leonberger lover, a home brewer, craft beer enthusiast, I’m learning French, and I am an avid reader. I live in Dallas, Texas, but I am originally from Sweden. I am married to Claudia, and we have three children. I have two blogs. The first feature the crazy adventures of our Leonberger Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle as well as information on Leonbergers. The second blog, superfactful, feature information and facts I think are very interesting. With this blog I would like to create a list of facts that are accepted as true among the experts of the field and yet disputed amongst the public or highly surprising. These facts are special and in lieu of a better word I call them super-facts.

27 thoughts on “Close Encounter with Grizzly Bear Number 399”

    1. Thank you so much Anneli. I agree, what a sad end to such a remarkable bear. There is a Swedish word for it, snöpligt. I am not sure how to translate it, unexpected, sudden and ignominous/inglorius maybe. Anyway, I also think those mountains are very beautiful, They are very beautiful and interesting parks.

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    1. Thank you so much Esther. You are right she was an incredible bear. Normally you should never interact with grizzly bears but in her case she used human company to protect her cubs and people were perfectly safe around her, and enjoyed human company. A behavior which is probably unique for wild grizzlies. I agree it was sad that she died by being hit by a car. But what a story she left behind.

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    1. Thank you so much Jacqui. You are right, a grizzly mom with bear cubs is certainly not something you mess with, except grizzly 399 was different. She was likely the only grizzly bear in the world who loved humans.

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  7. Good photos of the bear and cubs and also the trees and mountains and river. I’m glad you did get to see this bear. Very unusual, but pretty smart for her to come around people to avoid the male bears. Sad in the end, though.

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  8. I read about her and was amazed by her story, Thomas. When she died, my family was heartbroken. But it’s good that one of her cubs survived. A car accident though – leave it to a human. I wonder how the driver felt and what really happened. Your photos are beautiful and those are parks that we have yet to visit but hope to check off soon on our list. Thanks for this wonderful post.

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    1. Thank you so much Lauren. Her story was indeed amazing. There are no grizzly bears like her anymore, so if you see a grizzly bear along the road you can stop, but don’t get out of the car. It is not safe. No more 399 shows. Yellowstone and Grand Teton National parks have a lot of animals, bears (grizzly, black, cinnamon), wolves, thousands of bison, moose, elk, and then beautiful scenery, and yellowstone has a third of all geysers in the world. The parks are amazing. Best time to see animals is in June, before they start hiding from people and the heat.

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    1. You have a good memory Robbie. I posted about her and her death on my other blog one or two days after she had died. My other blog was reatively new at the time. I had started it in August 2024 and this happened in October 2024.

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    1. Yes that might be better Java Bean. And whatever you do, if you bark at a grizzly bear and they start chasing you don’t run back to Dada for protection. He will not appreciate it. Instead run around somewhere else until you lose the bear.

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