A first look at the new bear-resistant cans. (Photo Robert Woolsey/KCAW)
Sitka police chief Sheldon Schmidt demonstrates a couple of bear-resistant garbage cans to assembly member Mim McConnell after a budget work session Thursday (5-10-12). The Bear Task Force and Alaska Pacific Environmental Services (aka Stragier Sanitation) will be installing 24 of the cans throughout Sitka neighborhoods in a trial run this spring and summer. Both cans are operated by a latching mechanism — one operated by hand, the other by gravity. The cans are not “bear-proof.” The strategy is to frustrate a marauding bear so he’ll move on. A patient bear — like those at Sitka’s Fortress of the Bear — chewed open the green model in about 24 hours.
