A fine new book on a famous grizzly bear family of Jackson Hole

I recently wrote about the reinhabitation of grizzly bears in Grand Teton National Park and Jackson Hole. There, two female bears and their families have really caught folk’s attention for about the last decade. The book is about them.

Grizzly bear 399 and her daughter 610, both of whom have now had many cubs, and some of which made it to adulthood, are the subject of Grizzlies of Pilgrim Creek. At Amazon.com, it has a somewhat different title due to apparent publication disagreements, but it is the same book. Be that as it may, this coffee table book has many stunning photos from famous wildlife and wild country photographer Thomas D. Mangelsen. He has followed the bears with his cameras for about as long as 399 has lived in Jackson Hole.  The text comes from Todd Wilkinson, environmental journalist and author of twelve books. You can order an autographed edition that also includes an original fine art print autographed by Tom Mangelsen with a matching edition number at this website. This book is packaged in a protective clamshell-style portfolio case.

Getting to the book’s information, the front has a “Bear Family Tree,” beginning with 399, born in 1996. Her daughter 610 was one of a litter of triplets born in 2006. 399 has had three sets of triplets!  Of these, four are probably still alive, with only 610 known to have her own offspring. 610 herself has had 3 litters, consisting of a single cub and two sets of twins. Three of these five are thought to live, but all are unnumbered (no radio collars). You can see how difficult it is for a grizzly bear to reproduce herself with an another adult, fertile female.

These two grizzlies are so well known because they frequent the roadsides of Grand Teton National Park and people get to see them. The bears’ habits seem dangerous because people frequently kill easily visible bears. On the other hand, cubs and adult females too are in danger from adult males away from the roads. Some these bears’ cubs fell to attacks by boars. The big males tend to stay back from the roadside. 610 and 399 have proven skilled in keeping safe and tolerating people near the roads.

Many of the events described have been covered in The Wildlife News, but here there is more detail. I can see now how stupid it was for the Game and Fish department to move 610’s subadult male cub (bear 760) to the North Fork of the Shoshone River, a drainage completely full of all manner of grizzly bears. It was an obvious death sentence, although he did not die there. He fled through the rugged north Absaroka Mountains to Clark on the edge of the plains, north of Cody. There he found a deer carcass from the hunt in a tree. He was then trapped by Game and Fish and Dr. Chris Servheen, national grizzly bear coordinator gave permission to have him “euthanized.”

If the grizzly is delisted and there is a hunting season, it seems almost certain that these roadside bears will be killed even though there would be no hunt inside Grand Teton N.P. Don’t take the term “roadside” or “park bear” too literally. They cross out of the park onto the national forest or the National Elk Refuge and private land. The bears often den in Pilgrim Creek, deep in the Teton Wilderness, a safe winter place due to the Wilderness Act and complicated terrain.

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