Grizzly 399, the most famous bear in Grand Teton National Park, has an exceptional litter of four cubs to raise. Every day, the family must contend with threats to their survival, including a warming climate and human encroachment in bear country. Now the stakes are higher than ever as Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana seek to remove grizzlies from the endangered species list—which would make it legal to hunt them. In a riveting story full of twists and turns, hope and heartbreak, Grizzly 399 stands as a symbol of the clash between humans and the wild.
S42 Ep15
Grizzly 399: Queen of the Tetons
Known only by her research number, Grizzly 399 has been a fixture in Grand Teton National Park since 2007, becoming the world’s most famous grizzly bear. Now 399 is raising four new cubs in the face of human encroachment, a warming climate and the threat of losing protection under the Endangered Species Act.
PRODUCTION CREDITS
GRIZZLY 399
QUEEN OF THE TETONS
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
KIMBERLY WOODARD
ISAAC HOLUB
GREGORY HENRY
GEORGE KRALOVANSKY
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ELIZABETH LEITER
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ADDITIONAL CINEMATOGRAPHY
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FIELD AUDIO
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AUSTIN PLOCHER
DRAKE ROY
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SOMES HUWILER
FIELD INTERN
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NELL KORING
EDITORS
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POST PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR
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PHOTOGRAPHER
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FUNDING
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TRANSCRIPT
♪♪ NEWSCASTER: Bear watchers are gathering early this year in anticipation of Grizzly 399's emergence from the den.
MAN: She's coming!
She's coming!
CEDARHOLM: She's off-the-charts famous.
MANGELSEN: There they are!
There they are right there!
BLOOM: Grizzly Bear 399, she's known as the matriarch or the queen in Grand Teton National Park.
MANGELSEN: Since I started photographing 399, it's been 15 years.
But her fame makes everything more complicated.
SERVHEEN: As a bear biologist, I'll just kind of go, ugh.
Bears that get close to people lose their normal avoidance or fear response.
This is good in a way because it allows them to live in places where there are people, but it also is risky.
CEDARHOLM: There's just so many things that can go wrong once they get out of the park.
BLOOM: That behavior outside of a national park, in the town is not tolerated.
That bear is usually euthanized.
DIRECTOR: 399 and the cubs were escorted by police through downtown Jackson.
Does she get special treatment?
BLOOM: 100%.
Yeah.
100% she gets special treatment.
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ CEDARHOLM: It's May 18, 2020.
We're all hanging out at Pilgrim Creek because that's where she normally first shows up.
Everybody's driving back and forth and going across the bridge really slow because you can't stop on the bridge.
I was with Tom, off a little ways, and all of a sudden he got a text like, "399's out."
-Here.
-Got it.
MANGELSEN: Most of us thought there's no way she's going to have cubs.
She's getting older, and it's really rare.
WOMAN: Here they come!
Here they come!
CEDARHOLM: Here they come, here!
♪♪ MANGELSEN: And sure enough, here she comes with four cubs.
I said it myself.
This is an amazing, special day.
[ Camera shutters clicking ] WOMAN: What are the chances?
Oh, my God.
MANGELSEN: And it's incredibly nuts, really.
But that's the effect that she has on people.
-You saw four, right?
-Yes, I did, yeah.
WOMAN: Tom saw four.
[ Camera shutter clicking ] MAN: Local celebrity bear 399 emerged from her den in Grand Teton National park this week, delighting onlookers with a surprisingly large litter of four cubs.
At the advanced age of 24, if she's successful in raising these cubs over the next two years, she'll be the first documented grizzly to do so in the greater Yellowstone area.
♪♪ ♪♪ BLOOM: Grizzly Bear 399, she's known as the matriarch or the queen in Grand Teton National Park.
She's famous for coming out with two, three cubs, and now miraculously came out with four cubs, which is very rare.
That's like a human having quadruplets.
♪♪ CEDARHOLM: She's off-the-charts famous.
If you meet people out on the side of the road and, you know, and they're like "Have you seen 399?"
"We want to see 399.
Where's our best chance of seeing her?
We just want to see her."
♪♪ [ Camera shutter clicking ] CATHY: Mr. Mangelsen, I just have to say, I so admire your work.
MANGELSEN: Thank you very much.
CATHY: I follow you on Instagram and have two of your pictures in my home and I just absolutely -- your photos make me cry when I look at them.
MANGELSEN: Thank you.
What's your name?
CATHY: Cathy.
MANGELSEN: Nice to meet you, Cathy.
CATHY: Thank you so much.
MANGELSEN: I appreciate it.
[ Camera shutter clicking ] Since I started photographing 399, it's been 15 years.
♪♪ ♪♪ By default I'm her documentarian, I guess.
COOPER: The remarkable photographer who spent his life on the trail of elusive and endangered animals.
His name is Tom Mangelsen.
If all artists have a muse, Tom Mangelsen's is this 22-year-old female grizzly bear.
She doesn't have a proper name but is known by the research number 399.
♪♪ MANGELSEN: I would guess the number of frames I've shot 399 must be upwards of a million.
Some people call it an obsession.
And I can't deny that.
She inspires me.
She has given me a lot of pleasure and joy, and it's my passion to protect her and her offspring.
CEDARHOLM: The cubs look really good in that one.
MANGELSEN: She was closer.
CEDARHOLM: I've worked as Tom Mangelsen's personal assistant for the past 20 years and traveled the world with him.
Tom was really excited to find grizzlies in our backyard.
Prior to that, he had to either go to Canada or Alaska to photograph them.
♪♪ MANGELSEN: Yeah.
This is her favorite place to come out.
There they are!
There they are right there!
MAN: There it is.
[ Camera shutter clicking rapidly ] ♪♪ MANGELSEN: My photographs have helped make her the most famous bear that's ever lived.
But... her fame makes everything more complicated.
And it also has a potential to harm her and her cubs.
♪♪ MAN: Oh, there she comes.
WOMAN: Here comes the fourth one.
MAN: There they are.
[ Camera shutter clicking ] SERVHEEN: It's a big job to take care of four cubs, to keep track of them, to keep them out of trouble, just like children.
Unlike wolves, which are very social animals that live in packs, grizzly bears are solitary.
And so it's all mom.
Mom is the total source of information and protection for all those cubs.
-[ Camera shutter clicking ] -Look at those babies.
-Aww.
-I can see more of them!
CHILD: Oh, they're facing each other.
-Cool.
-There she is.
SCHWABEDISSEN: Across the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, cub survival rate is only 55%.
BLOOM: The number-one cause of mortality for cubs in the wild are male grizzly bears.
[ Camera shutter clicking ] ♪♪ Male grizzly bears, they see a sow with cubs in the spring.
That's mating season.
That female won't mate with him if she has cubs, but he can kill those cubs and push her into heat.
It's pretty savage that that bear would then mate with him afterwards, but that's how it works.
And so the males will seek out killing these cubs.
[ Bear growls ] [ Indistinct conversations, camera shutters clicking ] Grizzly Bear 399 -- she developed a unique behavior where she actually raises her cubs in proximity to traffic and to humans.
And the reason is that male grizzly bears do not like people.
They don't like being seen by people.
They definitely don't like traffic.
Grizzly 399, she learned over time that if she hangs out within 100 yards of the road, she has these people around that are in a way protecting her cubs from the male grizzly bears, which is very, very intelligent and it's very well-suited to the national parks.
But now it's become far more complex to survive that proximity to humans.
[ Indistinct conversations, whistling ] MANGELSEN: Yeah, fairly clearly.
[ Sighs ] It is pretty frustrating, just a little frustrating.
[ Indistinct conversations ] CEDARHOLM: The bear jam is what we call just when all the traffic gets jammed up 'cause there's a bear.
In 2011, we were probably starting to have 100 cars at a bear jam.
Now all of a sudden there might be 400 cars.
[ Camera shutter clicking ] It turns into total mayhem.
MAN: She's coming, she's coming, she's coming.
-Where?
-Come this way.
SERVHEEN: All the things that could go wrong in one of those bear-jam situations, you know, as a bear biologist, I'll just kind of go, ugh.
♪♪ People look at her and think, "Oh, she's idyllically living in the national park, and it's just wonderful."
But bears that get close to people lose their normal avoidance or fear response, and that's called habituation.
This is good in a way because it allows them to live in places with people but it also is risky because it puts them in closer association to people.
[ Indistinct conversations ] MANGELSEN: 399 has been so good at getting her cubs across the highway.
Waiting by the roadside, looking both ways, and then she'll cross the road and call her cubs.
Sometimes one will be left behind and she'll go back across the highway, say, "You guys stay here.
I'm going to go get Joey."
I always think it's like Russian roulette every time they cross the road.
Russian roulette.
But she's managed.
Against all odds.
Except one time.
And that was Snowy.
♪♪ CEDARHOLM: In 2016, 399 came out with a single cub.
Really light-faced cub so it just got nicknamed "Snowy."
[ Camera shutter clicking rapidly ] MANGELSEN: She was a single cub.
One of the only single cubs we know that 399 has had.
399 played with Snowy a lot.
♪♪ They were just so much fun to watch.
♪♪ And then 399 was crossing the road at dusk just north of Pilgrim Creek.
And Snowy was hit by a driver that didn't stop.
♪♪ CEDARHOLM: They never found out who hit the cub.
[ Camera shutter clicking ] MANGELSEN: 399 picked up Snowy and took him off the road and laid the body by a big spruce tree and then ran up and down the road bawling all night long.
You could feel 399's... How distraught she was.
[ Camera shutter clicks ] That was a really sad day.
GUIDE: Alright, you guys ready?
[ Speaking indistinctly ] -Grizzly.
Grizzly.
-Grizzly bear.
GUIDE: So 399 is by far and none the most popular and famous bear here in the Tetons and probably in all honesty the world.
We are within minutes of where I was told to maybe go.
I need you all to keep your fingers crossed.
Think positive thoughts.
And this is a bear jam.
So let's hop out.
MAN: Right there.
Beneath those trees.
WOMAN: Right there, there's mama.
There's mama right there, right there.
It's right there.
-Yeah.
WOMAN: Oh, my gosh.
MAN: Oh, there she is.
Look, look.
Look right there.
Right there.
-Oh, I see!
I see her.
MAN: You want to keep that on her.
SCHWABEDISSEN: Grizzly bear management is incredibly complex.
Certainly there's a lot of passion by people who really enjoy the opportunity to see grizzly bears, are really passionate about bears.
♪♪ The grizzly bear was listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1975.
SERVHEEN: We probably had 30 females left in the Yellowstone Ecosystem.
That's it.
The Yellowstone bears were about to go extinct.
They would be gone today, but now they're here because they were listed.
We caught them just in the nick of time.
You know, they're kind of the epitome of a challenging species to recover under the Endangered Species Act.
You know, they can conflict with people, whether it's garbage or livestock or whatever.
They can kill people.
They have killed people.
♪♪ SERVHEEN: Bear management will likely continue to adapt and evolve as we move forward.
You said you were in the Pilgrim Creek area?
Is that correct?
So it is very possible you did see a grizzly there.
When a grizzly bear is in conflict with humans, we investigate the circumstances and we evaluate what are our management options.
Sometimes that might mean capturing that bear and relocating that bear to a different part of the park or a different part of the ecosystem.
The unfortunate reality, sometimes that might mean we may have to euthanize a bear, remove it from the population.
SERVHEEN: 399 is habituated and all of her offspring are habituated, because her offspring learned from her.
If she gets into a situation where she becomes really dangerous to people, she's probably going to have to be removed.
We don't want that to happen.
We never want that to happen.
♪♪ MANGELSEN: There's a lot of knee-jerk opinions about roadside bears.
[ Camera shutter clicks ] Nice color behind me.
This is a living, intelligent, emotional being.
Won't everybody just leave the bear alone?
Only the wild owns the bears.
She's getting pretty far.
[ Camera shutter clicking ] NEWSCASTER: Bear watchers are gathering early this year in anticipation of Grizzly 399's emergence from the den.
They hope the famous bruin will emerge this April with all four of her cubs.
The famous family's presence in Grand Teton National Park is expected to draw large crowds again this summer.
MANGELSEN: This is day 13, waiting for her, and haven't even seen a bear, let alone 399.
♪♪ Watching her basically over 15 years, every season, you just have to wait.
It takes so much patience and waiting.
But that's what I've done all my life.
I was hoping she would come out a week or two earlier than last year because it comes in much bigger and they're a year older.
Last year I spent 145 days out.
I mean, that's half the year.
Stupid amount of time.
You know, out of all those days I probably photographed her 15 maybe.
The payoff is great, but it's a hell of a lot of waiting.
♪♪ All four cubs are just running.
She's fine.
They're playing.
Now they stop for a second.
They're healthy as heck.
Finally, after two weeks, waiting.
Every day, all day.
Now look at 'em go.
Wow.
Man, she was, like, full of energy.
Just pshew.
The cubs were running ahead of her.
That was really cool.
They ran for like three miles there, full out.
I love to see 'em run.
♪♪ She has inspired me to just enjoy life more.
Honestly.
It's that simple.
I never got married.
I sort of missed the boat having kids.
But maybe 399 in a way, watching her with all her cubs over the years is somewhat -- I don't know -- it sounds goofy but it's replaced that sort of need in a way.
Now where is she going to go?
♪♪ ♪♪ There they are, you see 'em?
CEDARHOLM: I got them.
♪♪ In the early spring when they come out of the den, they're just looking for any kind of food.
By now the cubs are big.
You know, they're all hungry.
They've been in the den and haven't had anything to eat for months.
At first they're grazing right alongside of the road, so they're easy to spot.
But then 399 started moving south.
Heading south out of the park.
SCHWABEDISSEN: Grizzly bears are a transboundary species.
Here in Grand Teton, we're a relatively small National Park.
Most of our grizzly bears actually use areas outside of Grand Teton when food sources are really scarce.
But grizzly bears outside the park, certainly some controversy involved.
CEDARHOLM: We didn't see her much all summer because, 399, she started being very elusive.
It was very unusual.
So it started being much harder to find her.
She was getting in all these people's beehives and was going through neighborhoods, on somebody's porch.
WOMAN: Oh, that's 399!
That's her.
Oh, my God.
MAN: It's like a zoo here.
WOMAN: Uh-huh.
CEDARHOLM: She really started changing her behavior.
And that was really, really stressful because there's just so many things that can go wrong once they get out of the park.
♪♪ [ Cows mooing ] VICKREY: I'm a fifth-generation rancher from Sublette County.
When I was a kid, I spent my summers with my granddad and we'd move cows -- cowboying, they call it -- in the mountains up here.
Never saw a grizzly bear.
Never heard of a grizzly bear other than up in Alaska or Canada or somewhere else.
♪♪ It really varies year to year.
I mean, last year we lost as many as 10 or 12 cattle to bear kills.
And we don't mind feeding a grizzly once in a while, but we're trying to feed people, not grizzlies.
Bear 399, she's a beautiful animal, but I think they habituated that bear and her cubs to people by chasing her all around, and everybody wanted to see her.
And they didn't let her be a wild bear, and, you know, those things come back to haunt wildlife most of the time.
PRICE: What does a person do with their yard, right?
Do you just let everything just grow wild in your yard?
You manage your yard.
And this is your yard.
This is everybody's yard.
It's public land, and it ought to be managed properly.
I would like to see the state of Wyoming be able to manage the bears themselves.
And that would mean hunting.
Allow hunting season on the grizzly bears, which is fine.
I think they should be here, but they just need to be managed to a certain number.
And, you know, that numbers... we're over it.
VICKREY: They are beautiful animals and they take really good pictures.
They're also a dangerous animal.
♪♪ THUERMER: As great a mother as 399 might be and as cute as the cubs might be, she's, in fact, a grizzly bear with long teeth and claws and can do substantial damage to a person in certain situations.
SERVHEEN: You know, they can conflict with people.
Actually the first time I ever heard of 399 is when she mauled a guy in the northern part of Grand Teton Park.
VanDENBOS: 15 years ago, 2007, I used to get up early and go for runs and hikes.
And so I wanted to do that in the National Park.
As I'm going up this path, all of a sudden there's 399 and her cubs.
And I'm yelling, "Hey, hey!"
She was charging right at me, but just turned and stopped right next to me.
Arm length away.
I stepped directly away from her, and I stepped off the edge of the road.
I had to take quick steps to keep from falling down.
That moment, she charged right at me.
She bit me in the back, and at that moment, I had this thought that they're just going to eat me.
The next thing that happens is I hear this voice yelling, "Hey!
Hey!"
And then there's more commotion.
Then I hear voices.
Then this paw leaves my leg.
♪♪ When I got to the hospital, a Park Service employee asked what I thought should be done with the bear.
I did not want to see anything to happen to that bear.
It was not at all her fault.
SERVHEEN: It was a surprise encounter.
She was feeding on an elk carcass.
She had offspring with her.
The Park Service called me.
We agreed to leave that bear on the landscape and not do anything to her because it was what we call a natural aggression.
So that was a long time ago, but it was a recognition that there were more and more bears in the Jackson Valley and they would be moving south and there'd be more people around.
BLOOM: Grizzly bears, there's so much controversy there, mostly because they're still protected under the Endangered Species Act.
The grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, they've recovered more than seven times of what they were.
And so Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming have petitioned for the grizzly bears to be taken off the list.
And that is on the table right now.
That is the intention of the Endangered Species Act, is that an animal recovers and then they're delisted.
The majority of Wyoming wants that to happen.
The ranchers want that to happen.
The hunting community wants that to happen.
But the argument for keeping them on the list is that we're not seeing any gene flow between the distinct populations.
Here in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, we've got a really healthy population.
Up in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Glacier National Park, you have another population of grizzly bears, and there has not been gene flow between those two populations, meaning there's a genetic bottleneck.
Grizzly bears need connected landscapes and corridors in order to make that gene flow possible.
Recovery, in many people's opinion, would be defined by when those two populations can interbreed.
Some people would argue that we should let that happen first before they're delisted.
If they get delisted, they're going to get hunted.
399's behavior is a great behavior within a national park.
If there is a hunting season for grizzlies, it would be a horrible behavior to be that tolerant of people.
If there was a hunting season, it would actually be some of these roadside bears that would be the first to go.
[ Camera shutter clicking ] CEDARHOLM: That whole fall, it was just always -- you never knew where she was going to be.
It's all private property.
So the Game and Fish were chasing people out.
And we're all worried that she was going to get in trouble.
BLOOM: From a management, like, perspective, I mean, she's a nightmare, Everybody was like, "Oh, my God, she's in this neighborhood.
Now she's in this neighborhood.
Now she's back in the park!"
And You talk to people that work for the Forest Service, they work for the Park Service, they work for U.S.
Fish and Wildlife, Wyoming Game and Fish.
The public is, like, telling them they need to do this, they need to, like, protect this animal.
There's so much pressure on them.
NEWSCASTER: Late Saturday, an interagency team successfully attached radio collars to two of Grizzly Bear 399's yearlings in order to monitor the bear's location and take steps to prevent conflicts between the bears and residents of Jackson Hole.
MANGELSEN: Look at that.
[ Camera shutter clicking ] [ Siren wailing ] That whole parking lot was full of agency people, and the parking lot was closed off.
They trapped three of the cubs.
399, she ran up in that little hill there.
obviously really stressed out, looking for her cubs.
Man, I've seen her lose cubs before, just in the bushes and stuff, and she goes nuts by huffing and drooling and standing up and running around and bawling like crazy.
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ MAN: Over the weekend, the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service collared two of 399's four yearling cubs after increasing conflicts with humans south of Jackson.
MANGELSEN: Excuse me for interrupting, but what happened two days ago, it was pretty brutal, I think.
She was separated with her one cub from her three other cubs.
She's 26 years old.
She's does not need to have her cubs darted and drugged MAN: Yeah, Tom, no, thanks for that response.
And this is where, you know, this passion comes through, right?
Dr. Servheen, you know, any response to that?
SERVHEEN: What happened was to try to get collars on some of these subadults so that we could understand where they're getting into trouble.
And most disturbing to us bear biologists is what her offspring are going to do because they're learning how to live around people.
We've got increasing numbers of bears, and we've got increasing numbers of people in bear habitat.
And that collision is the dance that's occurring.
And I just hope that we can keep her out of trouble.
♪♪ ♪♪ [ Radio static crackling ] [ Radio chatter ] ♪♪ MAN: Grizzly 399 and her four yearlings paid a visit to Jackson last night around 10:30 p.m. and got a reception from law enforcement and wildlife authorities.
THUERMER: Five grizzly bears walk the entire length of Jackson Hole.
Everybody in Jackson Hole held their collective breaths.
It was a wake-up to people here.
SERVHEEN: Where she goes and what she does, she teaches that to her young.
If an animal is around people a lot and nothing bad happens, they become more likely to be around people because it's not that scary.
BLOOM: That behavior outside of a national park, in the town of Jackson, in a neighborhood, along a highway, is not tolerated.
That bear is usually euthanized.
[ Siren wails ] DIRECTOR: 399 and the cubs were escorted by police through downtown Jackson.
Does she get special treatment?
BLOOM: 100%.
Yeah.
100% she gets special treatment.
These bears are getting pushed into more human conflicts because their natural food sources are being hit hard by climate change.
The big changes that we're seeing are in the fall.
Right now it's first week of October and it's still 70 degrees and sunny when historically we'd be getting our first snow falls right about now.
Our falls are getting warmer, our springs are getting warmer, and in general our summers are getting longer out here, driven by climate change.
And so plants that bears like to eat like chokecherry and serviceberry and buffaloberry are all fruiting earlier, and they're providing food in late summer instead of early fall when the bears need them going to hibernation.
And what that could mean is that the bears are going into the fall hungrier, seeking alternative food sources, traveling further in search of food because their fall food sources are not as reliable as they once were.
So bear-human conflicts are only going to increase.
And that is not the bear's fault.
All these arguments over a single grizzly bear, 399 is a symbol.
It's not about one individual animal.
It's about grizzly bears surviving into the future.
It's about the preservation of nature itself.
MAN: Grizzly Bear 399 and her four cubs have been elusive ever since their walk through downtown Jackson last month.
The famous family has been rarely seen, but the radio collars on two of the cubs provide wildlife officials with the family's location.
399's fans assume the grizzlies have made it to den in Grand Teton National Park, where they're expected to hibernate.
MANGELSEN: So, we'll go ahead and cross Pilgrim Creek and maybe we get out the scope and scan those hills.
♪♪ ♪♪ Every day we wait, it gets closer to the day she should be out, so... Hopefully they're all healthy and well and made it through the winter, which we actually don't know for sure.
So I don't know what she's waiting for.
But I'm getting a little -- a little worried actually.
♪♪ I think we start taking for granted that she's going to survive the winter, that she's going to survive the den.
But she's kind of at the very end of her life.
♪♪ KEMBEL: In 2021, Montana had 128 conflicts with grizzly bears, resulting in two human injuries, one human fatality.
We did also have 10 documented grizzly bear mortalities this last year.
NICHOLSON: Today I'll be talking about grizzly bear conflicts.
It wasn't until about 2005 that we started seeing conflicts every year.
MANGELSEN: But I think the real elephant in the room is the delisting of grizzly bears.
To delist grizzly bears and then turn over the management to the states, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.
We did that with wolves recently and they've massacred wolves.
If that's the kind of management the states do to wolves, why the hell would we ever want to turn over the management of grizzly bears to the states?
Thank you.
♪♪ Okay.
Thanks a lot, everybody.
We're done.
♪♪ Headline reads, "399 faces tough future.
Hilary Cooley is worried about the season ahead for Grizzly 399 and her cubs, who have yet to emerge from hibernation.
'The future's not so bright for these guys,' she said during a meeting of state and federal wildlife and land managers Wednesday in Jackson.
'They've been in a lot of trouble.'"
They've not been in a lot of trouble, in my opinion.
They've gone south, they've gone through neighborhoods, they've gotten in some beehives.
That's not a lot of trouble.
[ Radio static crackling ] CEDARHOLM: Just keep your eye on that whole open area.
MANGELSEN: You got that longer lens?
CEDARHOLM: Yeah.
MANGELSEN: Okay, hold it there.
CEDARHOLM: Okay.
MANGELSEN: Here she comes!
[ Camera shutter clicking ] ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Clicking continues ] ♪♪ [ Mangelsen breathing heavily ] ♪♪ Oh, my God, I told you she'd come down the river.
I knew she'd come down the river.
[ Clicking continues ] DIRECTOR: Tom, how are you feeling?
MANGELSEN: I'm great, amazed that we saw her.
DIRECTOR: [ Laughs ] MANGELSEN: I was just about ready to give up.
Not give up on her, but for a day.
DIRECTOR: Yeah.
MANGELSEN: She's just something.
The cubs all look really healthy.
Yeah.
Yeah, I was starting to worry really.
♪♪ CEDARHOLM: They're coming right to me.
[ Camera shutter clicking ] ♪♪ ♪♪ Okay, we did it!
She's out of the den!
We were in there for the last couple little minutes all by ourselves!
And she walked right freaking past us.
I mean, was that not amazing?
When she came across and just went woosh!
That was just like -- That's -- your heart just starts pounding.
I mean, I've -- how -- I've been watching her for 17 years, and it still is so thrilling.
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ SCHWABEDISSEN: There is no doubt that 399 has a lot of experience of how to successfully raise cubs, how to navigate the landscape with cubs.
But certainly once those cubs reach adulthood, there are questions about what is their survival?
Especially some of these cubs that are habituated, are now leaving the park because the park is fully occupied with grizzlies.
There just isn't additional suitable habitat available for grizzlies to coexist in some of these highly human-dominated areas.
MANGELSEN: Look at the all the cars, unbelievable.
Holy man.
CEDARHOLM: 2022, the cubs were 2 1/2.
So that's the summer they get kicked out.
The night before, we saw her nursing them, and we didn't realize she still nursed when they're that big.
And then the next day she starts running down the trail and she's swatting them and growling at them.
And we're -- "What is going on?"
Nobody could figure it out.
She chased them off.
And then the next day we saw her and she didn't have the cubs, and then you saw her cubs come out of the trees and she chased them for a mile.
Then the cubs got the picture.
It's like "Oh, we can't come back anymore."
But it was really sad to watch because we'd been watching them all being so loving.
Sometimes cubs will stick together that first summer they're kicked out for a little while and then they separate.
But, for the most part, all of sudden, they're out on their own.
♪♪ [ Birds chirping ] STEVE: It wasn't until most recently we had a bear, which we later understood to be 1057, a cub of the famous mama bear 399.
This is when you first noticed the bear.
PATSY: Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
The bear turned and looked.
STEVE: The bear had been on other people's porch as well and actually had gotten into someone's freezer.
PATSY: Game and Fish, they told me that that was the 13th call that they had received.
♪♪ THUERMER: There's a difference between a habituated bear and a food-conditioned bear.
A habituated bear is familiar with people in the environment without being spooked.
A food-conditioned bear sees people or signs of people and associates them with food.
And that's one thing that society won't tolerate.
♪♪ ♪♪ MANGELSEN: It broke my heart.
I mean, I obviously saw how difficult it is for 399 to raise these four cubs to subadult.
You've got to give these bears a better chance than that.
STEVE: When we learned that 1057 was euthanized, I felt as humans, we were responsible for that and that's where we've kind of shortchanged the bears.
[ Water rippling ] ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Indistinct conversations ] MANGELSEN: 399 has changed people's attitude towards grizzly bears.
And because of that, she will likely save bears from being delisted and killed.
Who is this?
YOUNG MAN: This is my dad.
MANGELSEN: I thought so.
MAN: Tim, sir.
Nice to meet you.
I love your work.
MANGELSEN: Thank you.
Pleasure to meet you.
MAN: This guy got a shot of 399 this morning as a matter of fact.
MANGELSEN: You did?
YOUNG MAN: Yeah.
It's through some trees.
But ever since I -- MANGELSEN: I was there.
YOUNG MAN: Oh, really?
MANGELSEN: And I didn't get a shot.
YOUNG MAN: Oh.
MANGELSEN: So was that the first time you've seen her?
YOUNG MAN: Yes.
We've been here two other times.
And I've been looking for her, but I haven't seen her.
It was the first time.
MANGELSEN: So good for you.
YOUNG MAN: Thank you.
MANGELSEN: She's such a challenge to photograph.
I mean, seriously photograph.
Really good images.
I mean, I have probably really great images.
I have to say maybe 5 or 10.
You know, ones that, in my heart, like "The Guardian"... And "First Light"... "Out of the Sage."
Those are special images.
Images that I say that "I got it," you know, "that's great.
Good job, Tommy."
[ Chuckles ] MAN: Hey, excuse me!
MANGELSEN: Yeah?
MAN: What's going on here?
MANGELSEN: There's a grizzly bear far out on your left.
MAN: Oh, awesome!
MANGELSEN: Just watch where the people are looking.
MAN: Cool.
Thank you.
MANGELSEN: You're welcome.
You know, I think every year I should do something else and get a life, whatever.
And then she surprises me.
There she is.
WOMAN: Oh, my God, look at that.
[ Camera shutter clicking rapidly ] ♪♪ MANGELSEN: 399 comes out of the den this year with another cub.
At 27 years old, she is the oldest living grizzly bear that's ever given birth in the greater Yellowstone area.
I've got her.
It just amazes everybody because everybody says she's too old, she can't have any more cubs.
But she did.
The cub had a lot of spirit, so I personally named him Spirit just for my own sake.
[ Camera shutter clicking rapidly ] 399 gives me a lot of hope.
The odds are stacked against her.
But she lives every day, every year, trying to raise her cubs in a really difficult world.
She's just one special bear.
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ To learn more about what you've seen on this "Nature" program, visit PBS.org.
♪♪