Grizzly 399 Monument Unveiled at National Museum of Wildlife Art
By Chadd Scott on
She successfully birthed 18 cubs in her lifetime including a rare four-cub litter during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Her last cub was born when Grizzly 399 was 24, a record birthing age for the species.
She represented more than numbers.
Often seen with her cubs near roadsides across Grand Teton National Park and Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming over decades, Grizzly 399 became a neighbor. A friend. A celebrity. “The Queen of the Tetons” as titled by a PBS documentary. She was photographed endlessly.
Sculptor Jocelyn Russell in the Studio. Courtesy of the artist and National Museum of Wildlife Art.
She represented the strength of maternal instincts – for bears and people.
She represented hope.
Hope for the survival of a magnificent species nearly driven to extinction by settler colonialism and habitat destruction.
She was a miracle.
Grizzly 399 passed on October 22, 2024, after being struck by a vehicle in Snake River Canyon, south of Jackson, Wyoming. The Rockies wept. The driver was neither speeding nor distracted. It was just a terrible accident. The inevitable result of too many people in bear country.
On September 9, 2026, the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson unveiled and dedicated the Grizzly 399 Monument, Against All Odds, permanently installing the bronze sculpture near the Museum’s front entrance. The date of 9/9 was chosen as a nod to 399 and served as the kickoff event to this year’s Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival.
Renowned Jackson Hole photographer Tom Mangelsen—whose iconic images helped make 399 famous worldwide—was in attendance. In life, the immediacy and personality of photography was the ideal medium for celebrating Grizzly 399. In death, only sculpture – with its grandeur, presence, and permanence – was appropriate.
Sculpture on a heroic scale. This story is too great for a tabletop.
The roughly one-and-a-half times life-size sculpture was created under the artistic direction of wildlife sculptor Jocelyn Russell. Kristen Douglas-Seitz and Colleen Moore contributed to the project as members of the sculpting team. In 2020, Russell and Douglas-Seitz had the opportunity of observing Grizzly 399 in the wild. Their completed artwork depicts 399 from that year with her four cubs.
National Museum of Wildlife Art Executive Director Steve Seamons at Adonis Bronze with 'Against All Odds.' Courtesy of NMWA.
The sculpture began as an 8-inch preliminary maquette before being developed into a monumental bronze, cast at Adonis Bronze Foundry in Utah.
Against All Odds has been donated to the Museum by The Grizzly 399 Legacy of Love Project via the non-profit Angels Without Wings, Inc. Donations to the project continue being accepted.
“This is more than a sculpture. It’s a statement of love, legacy, and the bond between people and the wild,” Russell said in a press release. “To see her story honored at the National Museum of Wildlife Art is the realization of a dream we’ve carried for years.”
The monument will be located on the NMWA's Sculpture Trail, ensuring free public access and wheelchair accessibility. The ¾-mile Sculpture Trail, designed by award-winning landscape architect Walter Hood, underscores the museum’s commitment to presenting fine art wildlife sculptures within the fabric of Jackson Hole’s incomparable landscape. Home to more than 30 sculptures, the Trail stretches along the bluff to the north and south, overlooking the National Elk Refuge and becoming an open-air amphitheater at the Museum entrance. The artworks and vistas create one of the most memorable art viewing experiences in the United States.
“This monument gives visitors a place to reflect on what she represented—resilience, wildness, and the fragile balance between people and the animals we share this landscape with," the Museum’s Executive Director Steve Seamons said in a press release. “We continually strive to inspire connections with wildlife and nature, the connection that Grizzly 399 inspired in visitors around the world is unparalleled. We hope to share that legacy of coexistence with future generations, that those who cannot see her in the wild, may still marvel at her legacy.”
Against All Odds is intended not only to honor Grizzly 399’s life, but to inspire future generations to respect, protect, and advocate for wildlife.
"This sculpture illustrates just how great of an impact a single animal can have," NMWA Chief Curator of Art, Kennis Forte, said via press release. "We are thrilled to be adding this image of Grizzly 399 onto the Museum's Sculpture Trail—Russell and her team have created a beautiful monument to honor the legacy of this remarkable bear."
Jocelyn Russell, 'Against All Odds,' 2026, bronze sculputre at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, WY. Photo courtesy NMWA.
Grizzly bears once roamed from present-day Alaska to Mexico and from the Pacific Ocean to the Mississippi River. The population might have been as high as 50,000 individuals. The University of California Los Angeles uses the “bruins” as its mascot because bears once frequented the beaches of Southern California. Then the white man came West. Between 1850 and 1970, grizzlies were eliminated from 98% of their original range.
Today, roughly 1,500 to 1,700 grizzlies occupy parts of Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, possibly southern Colorado, and western Canada. They have been listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act since 1975. The current federal administration has proposed making survival more perilous for grizzly bears by giving over management of the animals in the Northern Rockies to states antagonistic to their presence.
