Grizz

n 2007 I photographed Grizzly #610 with her mother, Grizzly #399, and her two brothers when they were yearling cubs. Today, less than 15 minutes after entering Grand Teton National Park we came upon #610, now a mother with 2 of her own cubs and one of #399's cubs that she has adopted. I feel privileged to be able to photograph this bear as a cub and now as a mother with her own cubs. In this image she is testing the air while one of her cubs digs for food. She is a good Mom.

Beautiful image Bill. And It's interesting that she adopted the abandoned cub. I heard about this while up there the last couple of weeks.

This really is a good one, Bill. I love seing her surrounded by sagebrush.
You might consider zooming tight into her eyes and lightening that area up subtly.

Nice to see your image of this famous mama bear. Are the cubs a year old now? (which would mean they'll be with her for another year)

@John, thanks for the tip. I've been uploading images from my laptop along the way and am excited to get these images on the desktop for a corrected view.
@Dave: Yes, the cubs are yearlings so they'll be with her another year or until a male kills them or chases them away. That seems to be the situation with #399 who is #610's mother. She had 2 yearling cubs with her this spring but became seperated from them. Speculation is that a male grizzly chased them off in order to make more little grizzlies with 399. Those 2 cubs got seperated from each other but I heard last night from a buddy up there that they are back together as a 2 bear support group.

A very nice image Bill. I love the color in the Sage and the wildflowers next to the cub. If it were me I think I would crop off a good portion of the background and see how it looks.

Beautiful color of the sage and the bears.