Since Wyoming’s famed Grizzly 399 was struck and killed by a vehicle, there have been calls for lower speed limits, more wildlife safety fences near highways and questions over whether her death was somehow preventable.
The short answer seems that one animal’s death, even an animal as beloved as 399 was, won’t lead to any immediate changes.
Instead, some officials told Cowboy State Daily that trying to stay ahead of the constant threat that traffic poses to wildlife is an expensive and ongoing endeavor.
“Our district traffic engineers are always studying traffic patterns and crash data to identify areas where speed limits may need to be adjusted,” Wyoming Department of Transportation spokesman Doug McGee said. “Speed limit adjustments are a formal engineering process.
“A single wildlife-vehicle collision, even one as heartbreaking as this one, does not necessarily indicate a speed limit adjustment is needed,” he added.
Accident Was Outside Of Most Project Areas
There have been numerous wildlife-safety projects on highways adjacent to Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks in some of Wyoming’s most wildlife-rich areas, said Teton County Public Works Project Manager Chris Colligan.
The biggest current project is a system of overpasses, underpasses and fencing between Jackson and Grand Teton National Park, where wildlife of all sorts is especially abundant, he said.
However, in recent years, Grizzly 399 seemed to be ranging ever farther, Colligan said. The spot where she was struck is along Highway 26/89 in the Snake River canyon in Lincoln County was well south of the park.
It was about as far south as Grizzly 399 was ever known to have gone, he said.
Extra measures for wildlife there is “not as high of a priority area, because of challenges with the canyon,” he said, adding that in the past, (Grizzly 399) “used some of the areas where we had crossing or crossing projects.”
Would A Lower Speed Limit Have Helped?
The speed limit is 55 mph where Grizzly 399 was hit. The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office reported that the driver of the vehicle that struck there wasn’t speeding, distracted or doing anything wrong.
Even so, some have asked if a lower speed limit there could have prevented the accident in the first place.
That’s not likely, officials said.
In fact, lowering speed limits can make things worse.
“While it may seem counterintuitive, lower speed limits do not always make drivers safer,” McGee said. “Speed differentials between vehicles often lead to additional crashes and injuries.”
Federal bear biologist Frank van Manen said changing speed limits can produced mixed results when it comes to wildlife safety.
“In general, higher traffic speeds tend to be correlated with higher risk of wildlife-vehicle collisions because both the driver and the animal have less time to respond and avoid a collision,” said van Manen, the supervisory research wildlife biologist for the U.S. Geological Survey’s Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team. “However, studies have shown that simply reducing the speed limit may not be effective,”
It won’t work if everybody doesn’t play by the rules, he said.
“Speed limits are typically set to match the structural design of the roadway,” van Manen said. “If speed limits are reduced to well below that design, something that is referred to as ‘speed dispersion’ occurs, in which some drivers stay within the speed limit while others drive the higher speed of the roadway design.
“This can actually increase the risk of wildlife collisions.”
Infrastructure Helps
Keeping track of animals’ movements helps determine where fencing, wildlife crossings and other infrastructure is needed, Colligan said.
However, increasing safety for wildlife and drivers isn’t as simple as just setting up fences here and there, McGee said.
“While it may seem simple, the goal of a wildlife fencing project is to use the fence to funnel wildlife to a safe crossing location, which generally includes a wildlife-friendly underpass or overpass,” he said. “The location of this event would include a number of engineering complications for either type of crossing. Funding for wildlife crossings is limited and those structures are extremely costly.”
Federal funding helps with the costs, van Manen said.
Wyoming tapped into $350 million in federal wildlife crossing money made available in 2023.
However, grants from that money pool frequently require matching funds, either through state or local governments or private donations. And even a single project can be hugely expensive.
Earlier this year, $2.7 million in donations enabled backers of proposed wildlife crossing near Dubois to snag federal grants for the balance of the project’s estimated $28 million price tag.
Construction is scheduled to begin there in 2027.
That fits with the typical timeline of major wildlife crossings, “five or more years,” van Manen said.
A Risky Lifestyle
Grizzly 399, Grizzly 104 and other female bears gained fame by raising their cubs near roadsides.
That’s because the mother bears learned that crowded areas could help keep them safe from large male grizzlies. Male grizzlies are known to kill cubs that aren’t their own.
Having highly visible grizzlies around has its benefits, van Manen said.
“The ability to safely view bears from a vehicle or road is highly valued by many visitors to the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and for many it is a memory of a lifetime,” he said. “It is why bear 399 became an ambassador for grizzly bear conservation in the GYE.
“Studies have shown that visitors would be willing to pay a higher entrance fee to the national parks if bear sightings were guaranteed; bear viewing also contributes to local economies.”
The downside is, roadside bears create situations in which more work and more personnel are required to keep the bears, and people, safe, van Manen said.
Within national park boundaries, that’s worked well, he said.
Outside of the parks, it’s a different story.
“Where this is less feasible, however, it can create potentially dangerous situations, as we have seen on Togwotee Pass in recent years,” van Manen said.
Where Grizzly 399 was hit isn’t a hotspot for crowds hoping to get glimpses of bears, he added. But her habit of hanging out near roadways made her overall lifestyle risky.
“The vehicle collision of 399 was not such a situation (as Togwotee Pass) but her habituation to human activities did place her, and many of her offspring, in landscapes where mortality risks are greater,” he said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
