I just read the sad news 399, a female grizzly bear named after her tag number died on Tuesday October 22 at the age of 28. She was hit by a car. They are looking for her cubs. Grizzly bear 399 was arguably the most famous grizzly bear in the United States. Unlike the typical bear, Grizzly 399 regularly gave birth to triplets rather than twins.
She lived in the Yellowstone and Grand Teton national park area, near Snake River, and 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.

She is special to me because we also encountered her and three of her cubs during a visit to Grand Teton national park in 2007. It was a school trip organized by the math teacher 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.

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 and 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 are dangerous animals. They 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.

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 her, so she used people as a shield to protect her cubs.

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 started running. 399, who was equally startled, pursued him. He laid down on the ground as he had read that he should do when pursued by a 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.

As for us, we had a somewhat scary experience with Grizzly 399, but as it turned out, we were never in any danger. Someone that he had seen enough and decided to leave, so he drove his car, with a trailer in between 399 and her cubs. Someone rightly thought that was dumb and decided to improve the situation by angrily honking.
As a result, 399 started running towards us, the large group of tourists standing outside taking pictures. People started screaming and running, and unfortunately the math teacher who had organized the trip fell and got trampled by the panicking people.

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 away from the bear) because a plus sized lady was stuck in their door.
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 cars through the sunroofs. 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. Below are a few more photos taken by my fellow trip participants. I did not get good photos of this event, so I am not including them.


