JACKSON — Grizzly 399’s cub was not collared when its famous mother was hit and killed by a car Tuesday evening in the Snake River Canyon.
That means wildlife managers do not have an easy way to locate the yearling. The cub has not been seen since the accident, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials said Thursday.
But biologists said they’re optimistic about the cub’s chances because denning season is approaching. The cub is large and approaching 2 years old, when grizzly mothers typically kick off their young.
“High chances of survival going forward for the yearling, even being on its own,” Justin Schwabedissen, Grand Teton National Park’s bear biologist, said in a Wednesday call with reporters.
On Thursday, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials confirmed that the cub, which bear buffs have alternatively nicknamed “Spirit” and “Rowdy,” did not have a radio collar. The service is, however, monitoring the highway in the Snake River Canyon to deter the cub from staying near the road.
“There are currently no plans to capture the yearling,” spokesperson Joe Szuszwalak said in a statement.
The bear was Grizzly 399’s 18th cub, born in the spring of 2023. Before her death, 399 and the cub were not captured by wildlife biologists, who trap grizzlies every spring and fall for research purposes. Without trapping, it’s impossible to know some information about young bears, including their sex. Grizzly 399’s cub, for example, has not been publicly gendered.
But trapping can be dangerous, and controversial.
In 2021, 399 and the four yearling cubs she was raising at the time traipsed south into Jackson Hole, eating compost, beehives and other human-provided foods. That year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service trapped three yearlings, collaring two, to better monitor their location and curb conflicts with people. Wildlife watchers, however, cried foul, arguing that trapping the bears risked breaking up the family unit.
Without collars on 399 or her current cub, officials haven’t known their location at all times. Earlier this year, biologists said the famous bruin and the yearling had likely waltzed through The Aspens and attempted to eat garbage near Cache Creek. But they couldn’t say for sure based on the public’s videos.
Biologist Dan Thompson said wildlife managers didn’t know exactly where 399 was on Tuesday before she was hit.
“We’d had reports of her being in the park, being in Wilson, being all over the place,” Thompson told the Jackson Hole Daily on Wednesday morning. “We don’t always know where all bears are.”
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was called — grizzly bears are listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act, and states don’t have authority to manage grizzlies on their own — and Wyoming Game and Fish began assisting the federal agency, Thompson said.
Grizzly 399 was hit near milepost 126 in the Snake River Canyon, just east of the Wolf Creek Campground. Wyoming Game and Fish received the initial call about 399’s death between 10:30 and 11 p.m. Tuesday, said Dan Thompson, large carnivore biologist. Agency staffers responded to the call, determining that the bear was 399 based on her ear tags, a microchip and the matriarch’s lip tattoo, he said.
The driver is not being charged, and the incident is being treated as a standard wildlife-vehicle collision. The car, a Subaru, according to Wyoming Public Radio, was totaled, but the driver survived.
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