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Nearly a decade has passed since Millcreek resident Megan Burick caught a glimpse of the grizzly bear known as 399, but the memory remains precious to her.
"It was just so exhilarating to see that bear, even though it was over in a flash," said the home health-care provider of her experience in the Colter Bay tent cabin campground along Jackson Lake in Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park. "I don't think I realized at the time what it meant to have a bear that big so close. It was thrilling."
Burick's reaction to her encounter with 399, accompanied by the grizzly's first set of triplets, would not come as a surprise to either wildlife photographer Thomas Mangelsen or nature writer Todd Wilkinson, who have published a 240-page coffee-table book called "Grizzlies of Pilgrim Creek — An Intimate Portrait of 399."
"She has been so visually accessible with triplets at her side that 399 has this magnetic allure to her," said Wilkinson. "We can talk about grizzly bears in the abstract, but there's something magical about seeing one first-hand."
Wilkinson will join Mangelsen this coming Wednesday for a discussion of the book and prospects for 399 and her progeny in light of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's consideration of loosening endangered-species protections for grizzlies and possibly starting trophy hunts outside of national parks — including areas where 399 spends winters.
The King's English Bookstore and Utah Chapter of the Sierra Club are co-sponsoring the book talk from 7-9 p.m. at Rowland Hall, 843 Lincoln St.
For Wilkinson, who has written books about the sage grouse and Ted Turner's efforts to save the planet, 399 provided a vehicle to allow the general public to establish a personal affinity for this most ferocious of predators.
"I've been writing about grizzly bears for 29 years, but I had never found an ideal window for being able to bring readers into the lives of bears," he said.
"Typically, when we write about bears, we write about population levels and seldom about them as individuals. But when 399 came on my radar screen almost a decade ago, she spoke to all of the issues involved in grizzly bear recovery, including life and death encounters with people," Wilkinson added.
"She's really provided a lot of fodder for being able to explore what makes a bear a bear, and the issues in play in potentially de-listing the grizzly and recommending a trophy sport hunt."
The story began with 399's birth in 1996, but didn't really come into the public spotlight until 2006, when she gave birth to triplets, two females and one male.
Wilkinson said wildlife managers theorize the four hung around the heavily traveled roadways between Jackson and Yellowstone and became so visible because 399's first cub in 2004 apparently was killed in the backcountry by a male bear.
"399 is not a grizzly bear mother who started frequenting the roadside to be near people, but rather because it was a place she could forage and provide food for her cubs away from those potential dangers," he said.
Wildlife photographers initially took note of 399's presence with her cubs, then more and more people started reporting sightings and looking for the bear, making 399 "the most famous grizzly bear in the world."
People were drawn to her. "I have spoken with international travelers and with moms and dads of kids who said that being able to see 399 or her daughter 610 (who has had two sets of twins) made their whole vacation," Wilkinson said. He heard stories of people internalizing the frantic fear that 399 must have been feeling when she lost track of one of her cubs and scrambled about in a frantic search for her young one.
Burick's sighting of 399 incorporated a humanizing element as well, albeit not as stressful. She was part of a large group preparing dinner at the Colter Bay tent cabins when a National Park Service ranger came by to warn campers that a grizzly with cubs was approaching. One of several adults who spread out around the perimeter of camp to keep a look-out, Burick saw 399 leading her three cubs down a trail about 50 yards away. The middle cub was fooling around with the cub in front, batting it with a paw, so 399 wheeled around and got between the two of them and they kept walking toward Hermitage Point, disappearing into the trees without breaking stride.
Momentary though it was, the image lingers with Burick. "I focused more on the cubs than on her because it was so amazing to see three of them."
Providing people with opportunities like that was one reason Wilkinson and Mangelsen set out to document 399's story and to build sentiment for protecting them.
"What we have in America's wilderness backyard is extraordinary," Wilkinson said. "People come to our national parks to see bears and it becomes part of their family history. There's an appreciation for those animals that differs from the human myth asserted upon them. It runs counter to the adage of the Old West that the only good grizzlies are dead grizzlies and that you have to turn in mortal fear and run from them."
Instead, he said, "399 demonstrates that's not true. We realize these animals don't have to be demonized. 399 and other bears are driving a very robust nature tourism industry that's worth more than $1 billion in the Greater Yellowstone area.
"She has a profound existence value but also is driving a sustained tourist-based economy," Wilkinson said. "Should we manage these animals as a sustainable asset? Or should we hunt them as a one-time consumptive trophy?"
The answer is obvious to Wilkinson. And he's confident anyone who checks "Grizzlies of Pilgrim Creek" will agree that conservation is the way to go.
To learn more
For more information about 399 or "The Grizzlies of Pilgrim Creek," go to http://www.mangelsen.com/grizzly, or attend the book talk co-sponsored by King's English Bookstore and the Utah Chapter of the Sierra Club this coming Wednesday from 7-9 p.m. at Rowland Hall, 843 Lincoln St.