New children’s book features famed Jackson area grizzly

By Mike Koshmrl, Jackson Hole News&Guide Via Wyoming News Exchange
Posted 11/19/20

Lessons humans have learned from grizzly bear 399 are many.

The 24-year-old matriarch frequently seen in Grand Teton National Park has lived a complex, sometimes dramatic life emblematic of her …

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New children’s book features famed Jackson area grizzly

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Lessons humans have learned from grizzly bear 399 are many.

The 24-year-old matriarch frequently seen in Grand Teton National Park has lived a complex, sometimes dramatic life emblematic of her species.

Owing to her habitual foraging spots alongside park highways and roads, she has also been under the microscope.

She has a fan club of photographers and wildlife watchers. She has been studied by researchers, who documented a rare “cub swap” when one of her cubs was adopted and raised by her daughter, grizzly 610. She has worn GPS tracking collars to help federal researchers count grizzlies in the Yellowstone region and assist in understanding how bears and elk interact on the landscape.

And she has survived close encounters with humans, though her cubs haven’t always been so lucky: They have been run over by vehicles, killed because of habituated behavior and euthanized after repeatedly killing cattle.

A well-told yarn of the famous grizzly’s life makes for compelling reading. And now that Idaho Falls author Sylvia Medina has added “Grizzly Bear 399: The story of a remarkable bear” to her Green Kids Club book series, that story is now available for children.

“I’ve followed her, and I thought it was great timing to write a book,” Medina told the News&Guide, “I just didn’t know that she was going to pop out four babies.”

Although nearing the end of a typical grizzly’s lifetime, bear 399 emerged from her den this spring with four cubs — a litter size that’s a true rarity, occurring only about 2% of the time in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem — the latest addition to her legacy.

The first 10 years of grizzly 399’s life aren’t well known, so Medina had to improvise. She begins the story in the den until Little Cub, Big Cub and Sister Bear (399) are cast off by their mother. Along the way the youngster grizzlies learn lessons about eating huckleberries and trout and steering clear of geysers.

The narrative then works to stick with what’s known of the adult life of the faithfully followed bear, although it also allows for some obvious creative latitude.

Grizzly 399 canoodles with a male bear named Brutus and has her first brush with humankind. She bears a litter of three cubs and knocks down and bites a human who comes too near an elk carcass she is feeding on. She feels a sharp sting and awakens wearing ear tags and a GPS collar.

It’s all illustrated and told simply, with the goal of helping children understand the trials, tribulations and joys of the life of a grizzly bear that has learned to live among humans while mostly steering clear of conflict.

“I’m just so happy she’s still with us,” Medina said. “There’s so much overlap with people and grizzlies. I just hope that, as a world, we can continue to make room for animals like 399.”

As the story continues, a wildlife photographer with a clear likeness to Tom Mangelsen enters the story, sticks around and waves to the grizzly bear as she sets off to her den. The Images of Nature gallery founder said he wasn’t too excited about the book for a while, but he came around it and even helped vet the storyline.

“I just hope it adds to kids learning about nature and the bears,” Mangelsen, a champion of the region’s grizzlies, said. “Right now we need that more than ever, and hopefully the kids will get some joy out of it.”

Photographs Mangelsen has taken of 399 were used as templates for some of the scenes in the book, which were illustrated by Morgan Spicer. Environmental journalist Todd Wilkinson, who collaborated with Mangelsen on the 2015 adult book, “Grizzlies of Pilgrim Creek,” wrote the foreword.

Medina closes her 65-page book with real Mangelsen images of grizzly 399, along with statistics and background information about the real bear and her species.

“Grizzly 399: The Story of a Remarkable Bear” is written for kids age 6 to 9. It’s available as a hardcover for $17.95, a softback for $11.95 and can be purchased online at www.GreenKidsClub.com or at the Images of Nature gallery.

Half the proceeds go to support the Cougar Fund, a mountain lion-advocacy group that Mangelsen co-founded.

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