Bears Among Us

A summer filled with multiple bear maulings and attacks has prompted one Anchorage Assembly member to draft an ordinance to give the city a comprehensive bear policy. As it stands right now, AK Fish & Game oversees bear management. Assemblyman Bill Starr says the city needs procedures to protect the safety of its residents. Starr is proposing the city hire a seasonal wildlife safety specialist to help with the problem.

The problems last summer included a mauling at Far North Bicentennial Park, where cyclist Petra Davis was attacked by a sow grizzly. "You know, people don't feel safe," Starr said. "We need to give our parks and our open space in the urban setting back to our residents." Anchorage needs to better manage how it deals with bears, Starr said. That's why he drafted a resolution for a comprehensive policy, including a specialist who would be qualified to manage nuisance and aggressive bears.

"They've got an increased habitat territory now, and I think public safety is at risk," Starr said. "And I want to be ready by next spring when those bears come out of hibernation and start to move around."

State wildlife biologist Rick Sinnott appreciates the resolution, but said the state won't hand over bear management to the municipality. "The city shouldn't be involved in actual direct management of bears, but we definitely need help with management of people," Sinnott said.

Black bears, which are most common in Anchorage, Sinnot said, would not be as big a problem if it weren't for garbage left out by humans. "So bears start feeding from it, and then they learn bad lessons and they want to hang around, and then they become more dangerous to people just because they're around our homes all the time," Sinnott said.

But a bigger problem, according to some, are the brown bears roaming around the city.

Starr says it's time to make the bears uncomfortable -- and scared of humans. "Shooting them with rubber bullets, air horns, some noise-making arrangements, just a whole host of things that aren't being done now," Starr said.

Bears have probably become braver, Sinnott said, but Anchorage should instead consider closing certain trails in the summertime that are near salmon streams.

"The people don't necessarily have to be on those trails, but the bears have to be there because that's where their food is, and they have to have that salmon in order to survive the winter," Sinnott said.

Of the multiple attacks and maulings this past summer, all the victims were on trails within a quarter-mile of a salmon stream. If those trails remain open, it will likely lead to more maulings, Sinnott said. "It may be that the future of Anchorage is that some trails -- a very limited number, a mile here a mile there -- might need to be closed in the summertime to keep people from being injured by bears on those trails," Sinnott said.

Both men agree something must be done to manage the bears, but they disagree on how to do it.


(Photographer: Rich Jordan/KTUU)