This Celebrity Grizzly is On Borrowed Time

Meet Grizzly 399, AKA "the Queen of the Tetons," the most famous "wild" animal in the world thanks to doting, den-to-den press coverage and a gaggle of grizzly groupies who document and follow her every exploit through every summer tourist season in the Tetons.

This bear's celebrity status and avid following among Timothy Treadwell types (Google him if you don't get the reference) has done her no favors, however, since it has discouraged wildlife professionals from relocating her to more remote areas, for fear of a grizzly groupie backlash, no doubt. She's enjoyed a level of tolerant treatment that no other grizzly enjoys, enabling behaviors that eventually will come back to bite her (and maybe an overly-friendly tourist).

How long before 399 and her lovable and cuddly cubs (a number of whom also have grown up to be human-habituated problem bears) cross the line into behavior that forces removal or even worse? Will this be the season when the inevitable happens? Only time will tell.

I don't wish 399 or her offspring ill. Maybe, when the time for removal comes, she'll be spared relocation to the wilderness, where there are no easy handouts from humans and she wouldn't last long, and end up in a zoo instead, where her career as a gawked at celebrity can continue. I just recognize that grizzly recovery has clearly met its aims (and arguably exceeded them) when 399 and other celebrity roadside grizzlies begin mingling with tourists on an almost routine basis. I also understand that responsibly and humanely managing these animals, in a manner that keeps them wild and minimizes the potential for dangerous human-bruin conflicts, can't happen until Congress delists the bear and allows states to take a firmer hand in managing them, just as states manage other big game.

Why is it on Congress to do the long-overdue delisting? Because federal ecocrats repeatedly have been stopped from following the law and the science by green extremists and their "friendlies" on the federal bench. The Endangered Species Act has been hijacked by special interests and no longer works as it should -- turning animals like Grizzly 399 into pawns in a larger struggle for control over Western federal lands. Those seeking to "rewild" the modern West with apex predators pose as animal lovers and animal advocates. But they're actually perpetuating animal cruelty by pushing the concept beyond reasonable limits, since it's the animals that most often pay the price when rewilding conflicts inevitably result.

Catch this major roadside attraction while you can. It's only a matter of time before Grizzly 399, through no fault of her own, also falls victim to the folly called "rewilding."