A grizzly killed last week by a hunter in the Ditch Creek area north of Jackson may be one of three offspring from a bear that gained fame in Grand Teton National Park for raising its cubs by the roadside from 2006 to 2008.

Grand Teton officials could not confirm whether the dead bear was a cub of bear No. 399. Tests, though, could determine the bear’s lineage. Park officials said researchers with the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team captured the cub this July on the 4 Lazy F Ranch near Moose Junction and dubbed it No. 615.

Park spokeswoman Jackie Skaggs said the researchers inspected the animal’s teeth and took blood samples and hair samples. The hair samples, she said, could be used to make a DNA comparison with 399.

“We don’t have anything back,” Skaggs said. “There’s no way [right now] to confirm its genealogy. When the lab gets to doing that analysis is anybody’s guess.”

Skaggs noted that 399 took her cubs to the Shadow Mountain/Ditch Creek area in 2008.

“Two years ago, before she scooted them off on their own, they were near Ditch Creek,” Skaggs said. “It is certainly part of her home range and an area that she had introduced them to.”

Officials said a hunter shot a female grizzly bear Saturday in the Ditch Creek drainage, but few other details have been provided.

Deidre Bainbridge, a Spring Gulch Road resident who hikes in Ditch Creek, said she saw the bear for the first time in 2008 and has since seen signs of the bear frequently. She said all the evidence indicates that 615 is 399’s cub.

“One of [399’s] cubs was up there last year, no doubt,” she said. “I’ve been stepping over her scat and her tracks every week. All of us are very upset because we’ve known that bear.”

Bainbridge said she has a hard time believing that the bear’s death was necessary.

“She’s never been aggressive,” she said. “In fact, she’s made herself scarce. If she was a problem, she would be looking at me or following me. She absolutely behaved appropriately around people.”

Skaggs said it behooves hunters to use bear spray, instead of a gun, to fend off an aggressive grizzly.

“Use of bear pepper spray to deter a bear is obviously less lethal to the animal and, more often than not, safer for the hunters themselves,” she said. “The science is actually indicating that it’s more effective to use pepper spray against a bear than bullets to defend yourself.”

Wyoming Game and Fish Department law enforcement officers announced Tuesday they are investigating the shooting death of the grizzly bear. Few other details about the encounter have been released. It is illegal to shoot a grizzly except in self-defense.

Hunters accounted for a significant portion of last year’s grizzly deaths in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.