#399... the Grizzly Bear

 

I have to start off with an apology.  On social media the other day, I said I was going to make one last comment about the bear, what happened, and then put it away.  Unbeknownst to me, an anonymous "fan" called me a few unsavory things.  Not to worry, as I have been called worse things than this crayon using, bicycle seat sniffing, half a popcorn fart could ever come up with.  My feelings aren't hurt but I would like to rehash a few things on the subject.  So, I am sorry that I am at it again.  If anyone has any comments, I would love to address them in private.

Bear #399, a gri8zzly bear that lived most of its life within the friendly confines of Grand Teton National Park became "famous" as she habituated herself to humans.  The constant presence of humans around her allowed her (or them) to relax a little too much, if you ask me.  

What made this bear famous was her legacy.  She unfortunately died at the age of 28 years old, which is a pretty long time for a grizzly in the wild.  There are conflicting accounts of the amount of offspring she had but the numbers are between 18 and 22 according to a couple of different opinions.  She had many multiple births and one such multiple birth included 4 cubs!  Her last cub who was apparently with her at the time of her death had the pet name "Spirit".  Some wildlife managers said that the 1 year old cub stands a good chance of surviving.

Bear #399 made many trips outside of the park venturing many miles south with her cubs in tow, sometimes seen in the vicinity of where she was struck and killed by an automobile.  

Through the years, her popularity grew with the help of a few "famous" photographers, a few more wildlife guides and even a group named after her.  If you were in the park and saw a big group of people seemingly shooting pictures of the unknown with giant ass camera/lens combinations, all you had to do was pull over and ask the question, "What are you all looking at?"

So many times the answer was a resounding "#399 and her cubs".  The longer you stuck around, the better your chances were of seeing her.  By the time she was half famous, people from all over the nation or world for that matter were keen to this bear and her goings on.

Making her more popular were numerous articles, peoples first hand public accounts and even a few documentaries made about her existence.  People were coming to the park from everywhere, just for the opportunity to see her, just once.

Wildlife guides were especially keen to her whereabouts.  I cannot comment on the networking that went on within the competitive market of guiding, but if you saw one commercial outfit near this bear, you saw a dozen!  Every spring, these curious people did all they could to locate #399 and see how many cubs she came out of the den with after a long hibernation.  Then, they would spend the summer snapping photos (for sale) and chronicling this bears life.

It seems somewhat like a disservice to write a few paragraphs about a 28 year stretch.  Simply, this was one bear living amongst an estimated 965 other grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.  Some of #399's offspring have become semi-famous as well.  These folks seem to know them.  They don't really, but they act like they do.  They will talk amongst themselves at one of the large gatherings mentioned above and sooner or later a Park Ranger or biologist will confirm which bear it is.

Photography and wildlife tourism is big money, folks.  BIG Money!  Taking tourists on trips to the park to see animals and the professional photographers selling their wares bring millions of dollars to the economies of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.

As a reference, one of the more famous photographers in the region sells pictures of #399 ranging in price from $355-$895.... for a picture.... of a bear, that looks like every other sow grizzly in the ecosystem.  The kicker is, the name #399 and "her story' just makes these pictures that much more expensive.

Now, I guess I said all of that shit in order to get to this shit.  I feel differently about #399 or bears in general than the aforementioned individuals.  I was brought to up to respect all wildlife.  I was taught to witness from a distance, give plenty of room and not to mess with these wild animals.  The key word there was "wild".  These animals do not belong to a zoo.  They don't belong to anyone.  They, like you are just trying to squeak out a living in one of the harshest landscapes around.  

People have personified #399.  They made her a legend long before she passed, adding what would be considered positive human traits like "friendly" (If I'm not mistaken #399 jacked up a guy around Signal Mountain this summer), "loving mother" and other things equally irresponsible.  

These are animals that we are speaking about.  Bears only know how to be bears.  Bison only know how to be bison.  Neither could ever be human.  As this bear became more popular, there were specific businesses named after her.  I won't name them here in order to not find my big ass in court, but if you are from around here, you've seen them.  I think this is human behavior is dangerous and irresponsible.

Moving forward to the unfortunate accident that ended her life, I've seen comments like "This person should be jailed!"  "This person should be killed!"  'How could this happen in a National Park?"  There are dozens more but none more irresponsible than saying any human should die because of an animals death.  This thing was investigated by law enforcement.  It was found that the driver was driving the speed limit and there was no wrong doing...  That should be the end, but uneducated or otherwise ignorant people are still commenting on a subject that they really know nothing about, other than the bear's legacy and what lies between the veil of fantasy and reality.

We can do better.  I love animals.  I also hunt.  Nearly every one of the hunters I know do hunt ethically.  These people admire all wild animals.  They too were raised to admire from a distance, don't pester or molest wildlife and give them the room they deserve.  If you have a chance encounter with wildlife, remember those rules.  Be respectful and for the sake of all things, quit humanizing animals!  They are not our friends.  We don't know them but we do owe them a modicum of respect.  A bear or nearly any large animal you encounter in the Yellowstone ecosystem can delete you in an instant.  They don't care.  For them, its merely survival and far too often we find ourselves in their back yard.

I've had enough of your time.  If you're still with me here, thanks for reading.  I'll end with this.  I have watched this topic turn into a political conversation as well.  Yes, you heard me right.  Political and both sides have said some real stupid shit.  This in no stretch of the imagination should have included politics.  Politics is one thing and this is something different and should be viewed as such.  Trump couldn't have saved this bear and neither could Harris.  Walz might not know what a bear is, and Vance might have wanted to hump the fucking thing...  

More than 3,000 people a day use the Snake River Canyon where #399 was killed as their commute.  This does not include all of the commercial traffic and tourist traffic.  There are dozens of accidents in the canyon yearly.  A lot of them unfortunately include wildlife.  Bears, mountain lions, wolves, coyotes, beaver, badgers, marmots, ermine, skunks, martins, eagles, hawks, mountain goats, owls and more are hit and killed in that canyon and any of the other roads in the region!  Nobody knows their names.  It is an unfortunate and common thing to have happen in wildlife rich areas where humans also exist.  

Yes, there are plenty of shit drivers on the road but again, this accident was investigated and the driver found not guilty of any wrong doing.  I'm not going to pretend I know the individual that hit this bear, but imagine if it were you.  Imagine if you were the one on your nightly that accidentally hit and killed #399?  Imagine reading and hearing of all of the threats coming your way.  You've got to take emotions out of this.  There was no intent!  This person didn't drive off road and chase the bear down in order to kill it.  Me and my family have all hit animals in the canyon.  Each time it's cost us a lot of money, not to mention the fact that we killed another animal.

Be respectful of wild animals and be respectful to other people.  We are all we got, folks.  Something like this will eventually happen again, and I hope you aren't the person behind the wheel.  And if it does happen to you or you witness an accident like this, please have the wherewithal to know that this wasn't intentional.  Have a bit of compassion.  Offer to help.  

Like many other places in life, we can do better.   

What in the hell just happened to my Jeep?

 

How's everyone doing on this glorious Monday?  Hell, its chilly here but the sun in shining so if you are around these parts, get your ass outdoors and soak it up because the shit is going to hit the fan here real soon!  Remember, you don't have to shovel sunshine.  Let it soak in.

So anyhow, I started to write this last week.  I took my 2002 Jeep to a mechanic to have a bunch of shit done to it that I don't have the time or space to do the work myself.  Anything that leaked oil, they replaced the seals.  Other fluid leaks like the front differential and the power steering pump got some love as well and while they had half the damned thing tore apart, I asked them to change the front wheel bearings.

All in all, I spent a couple thousand bucks.  The old girl only has 153k on her.  My 2004 that I owned before this one I traded in when it had nearly 300k on it.  So yeah, it hurt a bit to part with that much dough, but I love this dumb Jeep and I think I can pull another 150k miles out of her.  We will see.

My Jeep isn't all customized.  Besides a couple inch lift, a winch and some bigger tires, I have done no modifications to it.  That's just not my style.  I am not going to Moab every weekend, but I do tend to put the old gal in some questionable predicaments.  

I've driven her to the top of rural dirt 2 tracks to the top of mountain passes.  I've bombed nearly every 2 track dirt road in the desert around here.  I've snatched small vehicles out of snowbanks with the winch.  I've gone mudding in her burying the poor thing over the tops of the wheels where even my winch couldn't pluck her out.  I've crossed streams, driven a few shitty washes in southern Nevada and ended up in California and or Arizona.  I've driven the worst logging roads in this part of Wyoming.  We did donuts with the kids in her.  Numerous fishing trips, a few hunting trips, a few more camping trips.  We were in that Jeep so often as a family that Buddha The Adventure Dog though he owned the son of a bitch!  Old boy had dog slobber all over the passenger door.  Big ass nose prints on the passenger window and nobody knows how many big ass dog farts erupted in the old girl.  It's a Jeep and this is what we do.  Tell me I can't get there from here is just another invitation for another adventure, and she's always been down for that.

Here's where the story takes a little turn.  I don't know if I can make it through this story without shedding a few tears.  If you are a Jeep guy, you probably ought to continue reading on your own in private and get the fucking tissues ready...

I go down to the mechanics shop in order for the 2 of us to be reunited.  The mechanic tells me the total damage and I hand him my card.  He runs the card, all is well and then tells me the keys are in it... just as I left it with him a few days prior.  I walk out to her... there she is in all of her glory, no longer leaking fluids and the front end tightened up a bit.  As per usual, she fires up on the first crank.  To me, this feels just like pulling on my favorite boots.  Just like the boots fit my feet, this Jeep fits me.  This is the best codependency in a relationship that ever existed.

I pull onto the highway and give her hell (as much as you can with a 4.0 liter straight 6) and she responds!  I pull into the liquor store to grab she and I a beer that we can share in the driveway as we listen to some AC/DC!  She's perfect!  We reminisce about all of the good times.  I swear, if I wasn't married to my wife, I'd marry my Jeep!

We get home and I am grinning from ear to ear.  The wife asks, "How's she run?".  "Better than ever, baby!  We've got to go put her through the paces somewhere we haven't been."  Truth be told, the wife loves that Jeep as much as I do and I know damn well she would marry the Jeep.  She gets far less shit out of the Jeep than she does me, so that would be a no brainer for her.

The next morning, I drove her to work.  Highway speeds the whole way with a little Black Label Society pumping through the shitty speakers and a hot cup of coffee in my hand.  I knew that this was going to be a good day!  Again, as per usual, the round trip of a 100 miles goes off without a hitch.  I get her home and marvel at her beauty.  I say to myself, "This is love..."

I can't remember why, but the wife wanted to borrow the Jeep the following day.  I let her because she is my wife and is also on the title.  I knew the wife would take good care of her.  When she came home that evening, I was busy in the yard doing chores.  I heard the stereo when they pulling in blasting some Blues Traveler or other obnoxious shit the Jeep doesn't like, but she was still moving, still looking pretty and doing her job as I expected she would.

"Man, she runs great" the wife exclaimed.  "You can tell they did some work on the front end too.  Maybe it was the new steering box they put in."  I just smiled as we were one big happy family again.  I helped the wife into the house with her bags and eventually fell into a peaceful slumber.  I woke up the next 3 mornings and drove the truck to work because its more comfortable.  But as we pulled out, I looked at her and said "I'll never let anything bad happen to you."

That afternoon when I arrived home, I had some chores to do.  I went in, changed clothes and came out to get things winterized around the ranch.  I mowed up all of the leaves, put all of the hoses away, put all of the yard tools in the shed and made my way to the Jeep to hook up to my home made pasture drag to drag the pasture.  As I approached, I could tell something was amiss.  She looked at me a little differently.  Normally it's like "Hell Yeah Buddy".  This time was like, "Oh geez, I'm not so sure about this... can we talk about this?"  

"No way, girl.  We have shit to do!  Were going to drag the pasture and then I am going to take you to the car wash, put a coat of wax on you and vacuum all of the dirt and rocks out of you!  You're the best."

I opened the door and what did I see.  Kombucha... a FUCKING KOMBUCHA  was sitting in the cup holder!  I screamed bloody murder!  The neighbor came out and said, "What's wrong?"  I said, "Someone tried to kill my Jeep!  There is a fucking Kombucha in the cup holder.  Everyone knows that the cup holder is for coffee, soda, maybe water and occasionally beer but never, ever, ever a Kombucha."

He scratched his head.  I said, "Can you come grab this shit?  I don't think I can do it!  I can't touch that hippy shit and then touch my Jeep!!!  She will explode!"  He turned around and walked away.  I fell to the ground unable to do anything but cry for about 10 minutes.  Somebody put hippy shit in my Jeep!  This was uncalled for, out of line and if I ever find the culprit... well, it wasn't going to end well.

I came to my senses and wiped the tears and snot on the sleeve of my favorite flannel shirt.  I apologized 20 times before I could muster the strength to grab that hippy juice from the confines of a man's cup holder and threw it in the driveway.  The bottle didn't even break.  This hippy love potion shit or whatever it is has super powers I don't want to fuck with!

I wiped the dash and asked her, "Who did this to you?  I have a set of skills that will allow me to make this person very uncomfortable for the rest of their lives, no matter how long or short that it may be."

I couldn't bring myself to making her drag the pasture.  Instead, I rolled down the windows to let her air out.  I had to get those hippy vibes out of the Jeep no matter what.  I grabbed Lysol, bleach, ammonia and 4 cans of brake cleaner and cleaned the ever loving shit out of every ever loving inch of her.... and then it hit me.

My wife, the woman of my dreams was the one to betray the Jeep and I!  How could she!  This senseless act could have been the end of the Jeep had I not caught it sooner.  That hippy juice was sitting there, further fermenting, casting unicorn dreams around the neighborhood.  I mean, this was unforgivable!  Nothing would ever be the same.  I gently closed the door to give her some time to be alone and free from the witchcraft bullshit my wife bestowed upon her.  And I waited.  Vengeance would be mine when I saw that woman!

An hour later, I caught my wife pulling into the drive in her little hippy wagon.  She had a big old smile on her face... life was wonderful for her, not knowing what she did to the rest of the household.  Even the dogs were pissed and if Buddha The Adventure Dog would have been there, he would have flat ass admonished her.  Nobody does that shit to Adventure Dog without repercussions.

"Wipe that smile from your face!" I demanded.  "Do you know what you've done?"  Before she could say anything, I pointed at the Kombucha bottle and said, "Someone tried to poison the Jeep!  I have a sneaky suspicion that it was YOU!  How dare you put hippy shit and hippy vibes in that Jeep... I was willing to let the Blues Traveler music slide but Kombucha is too much!"

She looks me dead in the eye, snatched the key out of my hand and walks to the Jeep.  She hops in, adjusts the seat, fires her up and says, "Nothing is wrong with the Jeep, you big pussy!  It's a Jeep!  She don't care!  She lives for this and all adventures" and off they went...  Yeah, leaving me standing there.

Not only did I not settle anything with her, she called me a pussy and stole the fucking Jeep.  Honestly, at this point, I started to question everything.  Was the Jeep and my relationship just a figment of my imagination?  Why did she turn so quick on me and try adjusting to a hippy lifestyle?  Everything I knew had changed in an instant.

With my head buried in my hands, I slowly made my way into the garage.  I suspected that the garage was going to turn on me too.  I fired up the boombox to a little song list that I call 'Fuck yeah" and sipped on a whiskey.  My life seemed so unfair at this moment in time.  Everything I knew to be true was just a lie.

The wife came back home eventually.  She glared at me.  She said, "I bought you a tall boy Busch Light and some grocery store sushi.  Will that help calm you down?"  I couldn't say yes.  That would allow her to think that she won.  I took the tallboy and sat it on the bench next to my glass of whiskey.  I stared at my tools, the Jeep and then the pictures I have of my kids.  I looked to see if my truck was still in the driveway.  No telling what kind of shit was going to happen next.

I walked in the house and tried to see if the house smelled of patchouli...  I knew it wouldn't because she hates that hippy shit as much as I do, but I wouldn't have put it past her.  She said in the warmest tone ever, "Honey, please have some sushi.  It's real good and you're going to love the wasabi.  It's super hot.  And, since you are so heart broken, I thought we could binge watch Hunting Bigfoot or Ghost Adventures."  She had me.  She had me like she always knew she did.

So here we sit, a week after this horrible event.  I guess I feel okay about things.  I swore I'd never forgive her.  I'm not sure the Jeep will.  Time will tell.

Thanks everyone for hanging in there with me.  This one was one of the top 10 most stressful things that has ever happened, IN THE WORLD!