Environmental journalist and author Todd Wilkinson ’84 and famed American wildlife photographer Thomas D. Mangelsen will deliver a lecture at St. Olaf College titled Will Grizzly 399 Survive? The Harrowing Life and Death Saga of Humans and the Most Famous Mother Bear in America.
In their critically acclaimed new book, Grizzlies of Pilgrim Creek: An Intimate Portrait of 399, the Most Famous Bear of Greater Yellowstone, Wilkinson and Mangelsen tell “the remarkable and compelling story of a bear and her generations of offspring.”
The story focuses on Grizzly Number 399, a wild bruin in Jackson Hole with a global fan club whose struggles — and those of her cubs — speak to the dangers bears face in the modern world.
As Wilkinson, a St. Olaf alumnus, notes in a recent piece he wrote for National Geographic magazine, the story of Grizzly 399 served as a reference point this August as officials at Yellowstone National Park made the decision to euthanize a mother grizzly bear — an action that drew an outpouring of concern that “echoed the uproar earlier this summer over the illegal killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe by an American trophy hunter.”
The U.S. government will soon announce its intention to remove the Yellowstone ecosystem’s legendary grizzlies from longstanding protection under the Endangered Species Act. There are also plans in Wyoming to recommence a controversial trophy sport hunt of these iconic animals. Wilkinson and Mangelsen will lead a discussion of whether this is a good idea, given growing threats facing large carnivores around the world.
Their lecture is sponsored by St. Olaf College’s Institute for Freedom and Community, which aims to foster intellectual inquiry and meaningful discussion of important political and social issues.
