Grand Teton National Park announced the first grizzly of the season was spotted Tuesday, only two days after the first grizzly of the season was spotted just outside Grand Teton National Park in the Jackson Hole area.
While Yellowstone’s grizzlies have been waking up for the last few weeks, the first grizzly of Grand Teton usually emerges in the latter half of March. It seems that life moves at a more luxurious pace in Jackson, even for grizzlies.
The first grizzly of the season in Grand Teton might have been spotted Tuesday, but several people posted about a young male grizzly in Buffalo Valley 3 miles east of Grand Teton two days earlier. Local wildlife guide Ryan Kempfer even captured it on video.
“I think what we've all experienced just in these last couple of days is that even though there's snow on the ground and cooler temperatures during the day, we’ve got bears up on the landscape moving around,” he told Cowboy State Daily.
And to answer the question all Wyoming bear-lovers are asking — not, these first bears are not 399, the most famous bear on the planet.
Hours Over The Fence
Kempher recently moved to Jackson to work as a wildlife guide. He knows the virtue of patience when it comes to observing animals.
“You're on their clock,” he said. “If the bear or moose you’re shooting is going to stop by a tree and hover for 30 minutes, they will do that. Or they might walk fast across the landscape. To get the photo, it's all about patience.”
On Sunday, Kempher heard that someone had spotted a grizzly off in the distance in Buffalo Valley, so he grabbed his camera and headed over, hoping to confirm the rumors with a photo.
“You race up north, just looking,” he said. “There were four or five of us driving around looking. And that group of people dwindled down to me and one more group walking down the roads, using scopes and binoculars. But we were being ethical, staying over the white line, and staying right on the road.”
Wildlife watching is so often like fishing — hours of patiently waiting in the hopes the catch of a day is only moments away.
But after several hours with nary a grizzly in sight, the bear watch was becoming more unbearable. That’s when Kempfer noticed a dark spot in the willows.
“I really wanted to see a griz,” he said. “It had taken me a couple of seconds, and it moved, and boom! I could see facial recognition. It was super exciting. I watched its trajectory and knew that if I gave it time and was patient, it was going to make its way into a big open field.”
Bear On The Move
Kempfer took the opportunity to drive further down the road for a better angle should the grizzly decide to emerge onto the field. The grizzly, meanwhile, wasn’t on the fence about where it wanted to go. Until it was.
“I watched it walk over this rustic buckrail fence and out into the field,” he said. “It faded south and faded away from the road. We got a good 45 to 60 minutes of watching this bear from start to finish. It was beautiful.”
For Kempfer, it was an experience to be remembered and cherished. All the better, he shared it with his wildlife-minded friends, some of whom were on the road with him Sunday.
“We had the opportunity to share this all together,” he said. “I'm not going to take all that credit, by any means. But seeing that grizzly there on the landscape was really special. It was heartfelt.”
The First And ‘The First’
While the grizzly Kempfer captured on film was spotted two days earlier than the first official grizzly of the season for Grand Teton National Park, it’s still one of the first spotted in the Jackson area in 2024. It’s possible the same grizzly was spotted in both “firsts.”
Kempfer sees an appropriate metaphor in the distinction between the first grizzly. A park boundary is critical to people, but grizzlies do not recognize or heed humanity’s lines on maps.
“We all knew we were outside the park boundary, but the animals don't,” he said. “The animals are waking up inside and outside the park boundary.”
Meanwhile, Yellowstone’s Office of Public Affairs announced that a grizzly spotted on Specimen Ridge on March 13 was the park’s first officially confirmed bear to come out of hibernation this year. There also were sightings of two grizzlies on a bison carcass in the Hayden Valley area earlier that week.
Yellowstone grizzlies routinely emerge a few weeks earlier than their Grand Teton counterparts. The bison buffet that usually serves as a bear’s first breakfast hasn’t arrived yet.
“Our bison herd in the Tetons not only is much smaller, they also don't have similar dangers to cross,” Wyoming wildlife photographer Jorn Vangoidtsenhoven told Cowboy State Daily. “Plus, up until recently, there wasn't all that much snow cover in Jackson Hole, so even in February, the bison hadn't been forced down to the Elk Refuge yet.”
Regardless of when or where, spotting “the first grizzly” is a dream for many wildlife enthusiasts and photographers. For Kempfer, it was an opportunity to be grateful for the wonderful wildlife of Wyoming and the exciting spring and summer ahead.
“Deep down, I am very grateful and full of gratitude,” he said. “I got to be in the top five people who can say they saw the first bear in the Teton wilderness. And it’s very exciting to hear that people did start a grizzly in Grand Teton National Park. It's all starting to happen.”
About the video: Ryan Kempfer got this video of the first grizzly of spring 2024 spotted in the Jackson Hole area about 3 miles outside Grand Teton National Park on March 23, 2024. (Video Courtesy Elk Raven Photography)
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
