With bear lovers around the world still reeling from the death of Grizzly 399, many remember another immensely popular bear, Grizzly 104, that was also struck and killed by a vehicle.
Grizzly 399 was hit and killed at about 10:30 p.m. last Tuesday on Highway 26/89 south of Jackson in Lincoln County. Wildlife photographers and bear fans across Wyoming and the world were shocked and saddened by news of her death.
Grief over the loss of Grizzly 399 echoes the sadness in the wake of the death of Grizzly 104. She was struck and killed by a food concessionaire’s truck May 14, 2001. That happened on a bridge on Highway 14/16/20 near the Pahaska Tepee Resort, just outside the east entrance to Yellowstone National Park.
“It drew worldwide attention at the time. Grizzly 104 was just as well known, if not even more well-known, as Grizzly 399,” Penny Preston told Cowboy State Daily.
Her husband, Chuck Preston, was the founding curator of the Draper Natural History Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody. The Prestons moved to Park County in 1998 and remember Grizzly 104 well.
Chuck has retired, and they spend their winters in his home territory in the Arkansas Ozark Mountains. They live in the Shoshone National Forest next to Yellowstone four months out of the year in the summer.
Could Grizzly 399 End Up Next To Grizzly 104?
There’s a chance that the two beloved Wyoming grizzlies with lives, rises to fame and deaths that mirrored each other could end up being permanently memorialized together.
It hasn’t yet been decided what will be done with Grizzly 399’s carcass, although cremation has been considered.
However, there’s also a chance that a full-body taxidermy mount of Grizzly 399 could join a taxidermy mount of Grizzly 104 on display at the Draper museum.
Chuck Preston told Cowboy State Daily that requests have already been put in to display Grizzly 399 there.
“For audience recognition and notoriety for the bears, it would really provide and opportunity to talk to visitors about the vulnerability of these bears when they are in close proximity to people,” he said.
He added that he understands that some might find it more fitting to have Grizzly 399 displayed somewhere in or near Grand Teton National Park.
While Grizzly 104 was a Yellowstone bear, Grizzly 399 was dubbed “Queen of the Tetons.”
“I understand that people would love 399 to have a permanent home there (in Teton country), but I would love to see her in the Draper,” he said.
He successfully lobbied to have taxidermy mounts of Grizzly 104 and her last cub installed in the museum after their deaths in 2001 and 2002.
The yearling cub was with Grizzly 104 when she was struck and killed on the bridge at about 1 or 2 a.m., Chuck Preston said.
“He jumped off the bridge and injured himself, but they couldn’t capture him right way,” he said.
The following year, the then-grown cub started breaking into cabins the in area and was killed by wildlife agents.
Likewise, Grizzly 399’s huge cub, named Spirit, was with her when she was struck but fled the scene, apparently uninjured.
Spirit’s whereabouts remain unknown, but bear biologists think that Grizzly 399 taught him (or her) well, and the cub has a good chance of survival.
Roadside Lifestyles
Penny Preston worked as a television and radio reporter, and first saw Grizzly 104 in 1995, when she traveled to Yellowstone on assignment for a Denver-based television station.
In the late 1980s, Grizzly 104 ran into trouble when she became conditioned to human-provided “food rewards” in the park.
A 1988 documentary film about Yellowstone grizzlies, narrated by Robert Redford, indicated that Grizzly 104 would likely would not survive because of food conditioning, Penny Preston said.
However, she was trapped and relocated to the vast Shoshone National Forest adjacent to Yellowstone.
That did the trick, the Prestons said. Although she would frequently hang out around Pahaska, she stayed out of trouble.
Grizzly 399 gained fame by taking her cubs near roadways in Grand Teton, where she could be easily filmed, photographed and admired by ever-growing throngs of fans.
It was the same with Grizzly 104.
She typically hung out with her cubs about 100 yards of so from the highway, Chuck Preston said.
“She would never try to approach people directly,” he said. “And if people tried to approach her, she would move away.”
One Fierce Mamma
Grizzly 104 wasn’t a particularly large bear. Her maximum weight was around 300 pounds, on the low end of average for female grizzlies.
But she had a lot of courage, particularly when it came to protecting her cubs, Penny Preston said.
On one occasion, “her cub fell into the raging river, and she dove right in to save it,” she said.
Grizzly 399 and Grizzly 104 both likely started taking their cubs near crowded roads to protect them from large boars, or male grizzlies.
Boar grizzlies are known to kill cubs that aren’t theirs so they can in turn impregnate the mother bears with their own cubs.
Penny Preston recalled one day in spring 1999 when Grizzly 104 put two huge boars in their place.
As she was pulling up to Pahaska, she saw a crowd gathered near the highway.
“There were more than 100 people there. I mean, it was crazy,” she said. “The officials, the Game and Fish and the park rangers, could not herd all those people away.”
They had gathered to watch Grizzly 104 fight a male bear that had dared to threaten her cubs.
“She had knocked the crap out of a big boar,” Petty Preston said. “Literally, there was a pile of it on the road. She was biting his face, and he pooped in the road and then took off. He took off the other way back down toward the river.”
As the male grizzly sulked in a meadow by the river, Grizzly 104 and her cubs disappeared into the forest.
“Then, another boar came screaming out of the forest,” she said, fleeing right past the crowd in the same direction that first boar grizzly had gone.
He also ended up sulking, defeated, in the meadow.
“She had gone up into the forest, encountered that second boar and pushed him out of there too,” Penny Preston said.
Watch Out For Wildlife
It’s hard to fathom that 23 years later, Grizzly 399 suffered the same tragic fate that took Grizzly 104 from her adoring fanbase, Penny Preston said.
Grizzly 399 was 28 years old when she died, quite an advanced age for a wild bear.
Grizzly 104 was 19 when she was hit and killed.
But both bears, and many wild animals that live near roadways, are gone sooner than they should have been, Penny Preston said.
Although the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office reports the driver who hit Grizzly 399 wasn’t speeding, she said she’s seen people speeding on the roads near Grand Teton and Yellowstone all too frequently.
She hopes that 399s death prompts people to slow down near the parks, sparing bears, moose and other wildlife.
“I would love to see her (Grizzly 399) featured in any kind of exhibit that encourages people to be more careful driving on the roads around our wildlife,” she said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
