JACKSON — Hilary Cooley has worked with wolves in Idaho, carnivores across the United States and polar bears in Alaska. But on Wednesday, she said that managing the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem’s most famous bear was the most significant challenge of her 15 years in wildlife management.

“This was probably the biggest challenge in my career,” Cooley said, speaking during a Zoom meeting with the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, which coordinates grizzly management in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and the country. She cited “the amount of public scrutiny, pressure, expectations from the public, along with the practical situation of, you know, trying to manage grizzly bears — or five of them.”

Cooley’s remarks were the first the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s grizzly bear recovery coordinator has made since Grizzly 399 was hit and killed by a car on Oct. 22 in the Snake River Canyon.

After stating that the famous grizzly bear got into human-related foods in September, the month before 399 was killed, Cooley spoke about 399’s legacy of forcing wildlife managers to strengthen coordination across agencies, and showing how ill-prepared communities such as Jackson were to deal with grizzly bears as they began to roam beyond their core habitat.

After being protected under the Endangered Species Act in 1975, the Greater Yellowstone’s grizzly population has rebounded, and the large omnivores have begun expanding outside core habitat in Yellowstone National Park. Grizzly 399 was the first female bear that raised cubs in plain view south of Yellowstone and the first to set off communitywide alarm bells as she traveled through Jackson Hole.

Cooley said 399 highlighted “difficult management questions” that managers are still grappling with, including how to handle the public’s expectations regarding wildlife and balance the conservation and economic benefits of wildlife viewing with risks for bears and humans.

“How do we balance that?” Cooley said. “There are situations where the benefits would outweigh the risks, and where are those?”

Cooley also anticipates “a future of declining budgets.”

While she didn’t specify why, the U.S. House of Representatives has passed a budget that significantly cuts funding for the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees both the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Also, President-elect Donald Trump has tapped billionaire Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency.”

“How do we choose where we prioritize resource allocation?” Cooley said, steering clear of national politics. “Do we focus on a few animals that might get a lot of attention? Or do we put those resources toward other areas where maybe we don’t have many bears? Or maybe we have still have a long way to go in terms of recovery.”

Cooley illustrated just how difficult it was to manage 399 by emphasizing how the Fish and Wildlife Service first got involved with the famous bear in 2020: by investigating a resident of the Solitude subdivision south of Grand Teton National Park who was feeding the bear and the four cubs of the year that 399 was raising at the time.

The federal agency investigated the resident’s feeding but never filed any charges.

That same year, 399 and her brood got into beehives, livestock feed and compost — activity that continued in 2021, when 399 and the cubs left Grand Teton National Park, delighting wildlife buffs but stressing wildlife managers as the bears got into 17 conflicts throughout the year. Eventually, the service captured three of 399’s cubs, collaring two, before the bears went back into their den for the winter.

The next year — 2022 — was relatively quiet.

Grizzly 399 kicked off her cubs, mated and disappeared into the wilderness. While some of her cubs were hazed immediately after emancipation, and one was killed for getting into human-related foods near Cora, Cooley said Wednesday that the service received few conflict reports.

That relative quiet continued until September of this year, when the agency started getting reports south of Jackson.

“We did confirm a few instances where 399 and her yearling accessed secured livestock and pet feed, as well as garbage,” Cooley said. “We worked with Wyoming Game and Fish to respond to all of these reports quickly.”

On Oct. 20, two days before 399 was hit and killed, the officials received a report of the bear near Shadow Mountain in Grand Teton National Park.

“She seemed to be bouncing around a bunch,” Cooley said.

Cooley also went over the history of what happened next, which the Jackson Hole News&Guide previously reported. Drivers saw grizzly bears eating a carcass in the Snake River Canyon the evening of Oct. 21, and Fish and Wildlife Service staffers went down to search for the carcass that night. They didn’t find any carcasses.

The next morning, Oct. 22, they went back and found a carcass from an elk that was killed overnight and removed it. Later that day, 399 was struck and killed.

Cooley did not weigh in regarding an ongoing debate about whether wildlife managers could have done more to prevent 399’s death.

But she did provide a brief update on 399’s cub, dubbed “Spirit” by wildlife watchers. Officials don’t know where the bear is.

“There was one report a few days after the accident. We followed up on that and did not see the yearling,” Cooley said. “We don’t have any information as to where it is right now.

“But this time of the year, the condition that we think that bear is in, it has a really great chance of survival,” she added.