{"id":2151,"date":"2024-10-26T06:27:37","date_gmt":"2024-10-26T06:27:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/?p=2151"},"modified":"2024-10-26T06:27:37","modified_gmt":"2024-10-26T06:27:37","slug":"sad-news-americas-beloved-bear-dead-heres-grizzly-399-mattered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/?p=2151","title":{"rendered":"SAD NEWS: America\u2019s most beloved bear is dead. Here\u2019s why Grizzly 399 mattered."},"content":{"rendered":"
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The oldest known grizzly mother in history, the 28-year-old bear was often photographed with her cubs in Grand Teton National Park before she was killed by a car in October.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"A<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Grizzly 399 peers above the sagebrush during spring in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Bozeman, Montana \u2014\u00a0<\/span>The grizzly bear named\u00a0399, likely the most famous bear in the world, was killed by a vehicle on Tuesday south of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, a sad coda to the life of a truly remarkable wild animal, experts say.<\/p>\n

At 28 years old, 399 was the oldest known\u00a0grizzly bear\u00a0mother in history, birthing at least 18 cubs. She had a yearling cub, Spirit, with her when she died,\u00a0according to the National Park Service, but its whereabouts\u2014and chances for survival\u2014are unknown.<\/p>\n

Not only was 399 a prolific mother, she was a famous sight in and around\u00a0Grand Teton National Park, attracting a solid fan base of photographers who came to see her ambling around the park with her cub\u2014or, in 2023, her quadruplets.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"A<\/picture><\/div>
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A grizzly bear nicknamed Blondie leads her two cubs through a meadow below Mount Moran in Grand Teton National Park. The region surrounding Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana are home to around a thousand grizzlies.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cI had never encountered an animal like her, and never will again. She was that special,\u201d said nature photographer\u00a0Thomas D. Mangelsen\u00a0from the front deck of his rustic log cabin home near Moose, Wyoming, only a few miles from where he first caught a fleeting glimpse of her almost 20 years ago.<\/p>\n

Scientists have speculated 399 chose to raise her young around busy park roads and highways to keep them safer from aggressive male bears, though that also put the family at risk of getting hit by a vehicle. Such wildlife collisions are common in the region, and\u00a0one of her cubs was previously killed by a vehicle, according to the NPS.\u00a0(Read how trains are killing grizzly bears in the Northern Rockies.)<\/i><\/p>\n

Yet her visibility to the public has also inspired countless visitors to learn more about grizzlies and embrace their conservation, Chip Jenkins, superintendent of Grand Teton National Park, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe changed the way the federal government and state agencies deal with bears, and the way she magnetized public attention put them on notice that a massive number of people care about bears. That kind of overwhelming sentiment didn\u2019t exist before,\u201d says\u00a0Sue Cedarholm, a Jackson Hole wildlife photographer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Four<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Grizzly 399 leads her two-year-old quadruplets through the snow not long after leaving their den in Grand Teton National Park.<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Two<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/div>
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Two of 399\u2019s two-year-old cubs wrestle in a meadow in Grand Teton National Park. Just a couple of weeks later, the mother pushed her cubs out on their own.
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A symbol of restraint<\/h2>\n

Born in 1996, 399 was part of a wave of bear recolonization pushing out from nearby Yellowstone National Park into wildlands where grizzlies had been largely eradicated for half a century.\u00a0(Read how grizzlies bears are rebounding in the West.)<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In 2007, 399 attacked a hiker who had approached an elk carcass. At the request of the hiker, then-Teton park superintendent Mary Gibson Scott, and Chris Servheen, the former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service\u2019s grizzly bear recovery coordinator, opted not to kill 399 or remove her and the cubs from the wild.<\/p>\n

After that event, 399 became more well known, and onlookers anxiously awaited to see if she would emerge from hibernation each spring.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Two<\/picture><\/div>\n