Daily Sitka Sentinel

3 Garbage Bears Shot in HPR Area

    By SHANNON HAUGLAND

   Sentinel Staff Writer

Alaska State Troopers killed a female bear and two cubs Thursday at a cache of garbage the sow was aggressively defending near homes on Granite Creek Road, Alaska Department of Fish and Game said today.

Stephen Bethune, F&G area wildlife biologist, said Trooper Kyle Ferguson called him Thursday evening to tell him about the bear.

The sow had dislodged a large community garbage container that had been chained down, and also chained to a large steel beam. The container was found rolled off the road and down an embankment.

“Most bears usually just grab a bag and take them away,” Bethune said. “To take an entire dumpster is a little unusual.” 

The sow took the contents, which including a deer carcass, and created a cache in an area about 25 yards from the nearest home.

“She was caching it and aggressively defending it,” Bethune said. “Folks were trying to pick up the garbage and she and her cubs were still there and wouldn’t leave the area. ... You can’t have a situation where a bear is aggressively defending a food cache that close to a residential neighborhood.”

Ferguson told Bethune Thursday that when he responded to the call about the bear sow he found it with “ears laid back, growling and popping teeth.” 

Troopers killed the sow and called Bethune for advice on the two cubs, which were less than a year old. Fish and Game works cooperatively on bear issues with Alaska Wildlife Troopers and Sitka police.

Bethune said it was a tough call to destroy the cubs. He estimated their size at 80 to 100 pounds.

“We didn’t have a placement for them – I would’ve loved to have the Fortress of the Bears hold onto them but there’s no request for brown bear cubs less than a year old, at this time,” he said, referring to zoos and wildlife centers.  “It’s really a sad situation – no one wants to see these bears killed unnecessarily.”

He weighed several factors in deciding to dispatch the cubs. He said destroying them might have been the more humane course, since they weren’t likely to survive without their mother or they could become dangerous themselves since they were already conditioned to getting into garbage.

“It’s what they been taught by their mom,” Bethune said. “They can become dangerous.”

He said he and Sitka police have been getting calls over the past month about individual bears on both sides of the road system, so the call about a group of three bears caught him a little by surprise. Over the weekend there were calls about bears on Knutson Drive, Lance Drive and Indian River Road.

As Police Chief Jeff Ankerfelt was talking to the Sentinel at noon, officers were responding to a report of a bear in the 4100 block of Halibut Point Road.

“We’ve had a couple of bears becoming more desperate and potentially becoming a threat,” the chief said. “We were most concerned about the bear between Indian River and Whale Park, but then in the intervening time, according to troopers, we’ve got a sow and two cubs getting increasingly aggressive toward Starrigavan.”

The main problem is still that residents are putting their garbage out before garbage day, Bethune and Ankerfelt said.

“The take-home message is how to handle garbage responsibly,” Bethune said. “It’s tough for people without sheds or garages to store their garbage ... people get lackadaisical. We live in bear country. People need to continue to keep that in mind and please wait until the day of garbage pickup.”

Ankerfelt agreed and said the police department is working on getting more information out.

“Once the bears know there’s a good place to go, they keep coming,” the chief said. “That’s 90 percent of it.”

Bethune said the bear carcasses were donated to the Alaska Raptor Center. The hides and skulls will be donated to a scientific or educational organization, or auctioned off at the annual fur auction in Anchorage.