Steve Bethune, wildlife management biologist from ADF&G, joins KCAW for the Morning Interview to share best practices regarding bear activity this year in Sitka. Bethune oversees bears, deer, mountain goats, moose, and more on Admiralty, Baranof, and Chichagof Islands. Listen to the conversation here:

Law enforcement euthanized two more bears in Sitka, bringing the total to five this season. KCAW’s Lauren Salemo sat down with Steve Bethune, a wildlife management biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, to discuss bear season so far and how the decision to dispatch a bear is made.

BETHUNE: People ask me all the time, is this a better year than last year? How does it compare to prior years? And I’ve been doing this a while now, and the conclusion I’ve come to is that every year is the same and every year is different. We always have bear issues. Nothing ever happens exactly the same as it did the year before, but I’m not surprised, necessarily, at what’s going on this year.

KCAW: What happened with the two removals from this past weekend?

BETHUNE: So, right off the bat, I just want to say that we don’t kill bears in Sitka just because there’s bears in Sitka. We take those decisions very seriously. No bears are ever killed for no reason. Anytime we remove a bear, it’s because we think there is a high likelihood of additional property damage and a potential threat to public safety. So we could choose not to remove these bears —and there’s a chance that nothing would happen — but we’re not willing to take that chance. People are more important than bears, and if there’s a potential that somebody could get hurt, we’re going to take that bear then out of the population.

This year, things seem to be very related to livestock and chickens, in particular. And so we were kind of watching that and seeing, oh, this is going to be be the year of the chickens. We had a sow and two grown cubs that seemed to be keying in on that food source, and then they killed a goat, and that was kind of like over the edge. What’s next is potentially somebody’s pet. So that was like the moment where, like, okay, the decision we’re gonna make is to remove this bear.

So we started looking for those bears. And so one of the bears this weekend was kind of a case of mistaken identity — a bear in the wrong place, the wrong time — that we thought might be the sow that we’re looking for, but still exhibiting behavior that warranted removal. And then the bear in Totem Park was a bear that had been allowing people to get pretty close to it. And there was information that suggested that bear might have a gunshot wound from a previous incident with the police department. Well, now we have a bear that’s potentially wounded. Those bears can be aggressive and tend to be more dangerous, and also we have people approaching, and so we needed to check out this bear. So we did, and we determined it was not that sow, it was just a bear doing bear things in its natural habitat.

We kind of left it at that, and kind of handed it off to the park service, like we’re going to have to do some people management here. But then later that night, that same bear did have a negative interaction with a person where it acted very aggressively and bluff charged somebody. And so that, combined with people approaching this bear closely, we decided this is too dangerous of a situation for people. So we’re going to protect people even if people are behaving poorly and making poor decisions, because, again, people come first even when they’re not acting wisely.

KCAW: How exactly do you come to that decision, and why is it necessary, as opposed to, say, just relocating a bear?

BETHUNE: Relocating bears doesn’t work. We’ve demonstrated that over and over and over with the department over the past 50 years. We’ve tried it on numerous occasions that it rarely works. Every situation is a little different, and I guess that’s kind of where my expertise and experience dealing with these over the years comes into play. Sometimes it’s a very quick decision; a bear will have some sort of action that we’re like, “Well, we’re going to do this now.” For instance, bears that kill pets, bears that break into homes, bears that break into garages, that’s an absolute over-the-line. Other times it’s a series of events that kind of escalate. It’s on a trajectory that it’s not going to come back from, and we often take preventative measures in these cases.

KCAW: What happens to the bears’ remains after they’re put down?

BETHUNE: The hides get skinned and we send them to Anchorage, and they get sold at it. We have an annual hide, horn, fur auction. The carcasses generally are taken to the transfer station because the meat is not palatable. Oftentimes the raptor center doesn’t want the meat because they’ve been shot with lead bullets, and so that poses a hazard to the birds they have there, and the meat’s not fit for human consumption, it’s not fit for animal consumption, just because of the high parasite loads in them.

KCAW: Anything else you’d like to tell Sitkans?

BETHUNE: Because the bears were focusing on livestock this year, I just want to reiterate electric fences for your livestock. Your electric fence needs to be part of your action plan before you even start to gather your animals. You need to have those in place rather than getting your animals and then figuring out what your fencing is going to be like, and you’ve got to do a really good job of it. You can’t just string one one line of electric fence around the top of your chicken coop and call it good. These are very resourceful animals. They’re going to figure out a way to defeat weak electric fence systems.

Authorities had to kill four bears in Sitka earlier this month in defense of life and property, so Bear Awareness Day on June 15 felt especially timely this year. The event took place at Fortress of the Bear in collaboration with The Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Defenders of Wildlife, Sitka National Historical Park and the U.S. Forest Service.

The bear-resistant trash can demonstration is the highlight of the now-annual event. The bears tried to break into a variety of trash cans filled with food, struggling with the bear-resistant models but dispensing easily with the regular trash can.

“You can see how easy it is for the bears to get into that and find food really quickly,” bear curator Claire Turner told the assembled crowd. “Whereas these other two cans are really giving them a run for their money.”

Turner is in charge of bear care at Fortress of the Bear which looks after orphaned bears in an educational environment. As dozens of visitors watched from the facility’s overhead walkway, a trio of resident brown bears pushed the trash cans around, clawed at them, tried to bite into the thick layers of plastic, and jumped up and down on them.

“We’re really fortunate our bears are willing to be testers and ambassadors for their species. This is great enrichment for them. It’s really good and physical for them in terms of exercise; it’s engaging mentally. You can see them trying to figure out the ways things might work,” Turner said.

After the bears had spent a while trying to break into the fortified cans, Turner asked the crowd to think about the real world implications.

“One of these cans that’s taking our bears in excess of  5, 10, 15 minutes to get into, it’s unlikely that wild bears would spend that kind of time without it getting any kind of reward. This is the kind of can we need all over town,” she said. ” It does help them learn that this is not a viable food source for them.”

Wildlife biologist Steve Bethune of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game drove home the same message.

“As you can see the cans are taking a beating and they’re not having any success,” Bethune said. “It’s a great argument for the City of Sitka someday going to a system with these cans.”

Switching all of Sitka’s trash cans to state-of-the-art bear resistant ones would cost an estimated 1.5 million dollars. But Claire Turner made the case for starting small.

“We’d love to see, even if we were not to try and replace all 3000 cans in town immediately, maybe we just buy a few and we test out in those areas that get higher bear traffic and see what kind of difference it makes.”

Even without bear resistant trash cans, the experts at Bear Awareness Day reiterated how important it is to stay vigilant about items that could attract bears. They suggested keeping trash inside until pick up day and even freezing it if need be.

“With no salmon quite yet or very few it’s a really important time of year to help teach bears an urban area is not a  place to find a meal,” Fish and Game Education and Outreach Specialist Abby McAllister said. “They’re opportunistic, they’re omnivores; this time of year food is scarce and they’ll find a meal wherever they can find it. If they can’t find it in town they’ll find it elsewhere.”

The day also included presentations on bear spray, electric fencing and other information on how to prevent, avoid and survive encounters with bears.

“Everyone here is passionate about trying to keep bears safe,” Turner said. “If it keeps wild bears safe, it keeps us safe too; it keeps local dogs safe; it keeps kids safe.”

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the Alaska Wildlife Troopers killed a young male brown bear on Guertin Island in Sitka Wednesday afternoon after it was found guarding the remains of a large dog it had just killed. Fish and Game wildlife biologist Steve Bethune is confident it is the same bear that killed a different dog in the 2800 block of Sawmill Creek Road on Sunday. 

“I’m pretty sure yeah, I’d say 99.99% it’s the same bear that we’ve been getting pictures of,” he said. “Members of the public have been sending me pictures of it.”

Bethune says he got a call from the Troopers about 1 p.m. Wednesday that a second dog had been killed, and the bear was still guarding the carcass. He said the bear was easy to find and kill because of its location.  

“It was kind of a remote site and actually a good site for doing this kind of work, “he said. “Had a good downhill angle on the bear, the woods were fairly open, no houses or anything like that in the background. So a really safe place to do it and the bear went down quickly and we didn’t have to do any tracking.”

The bear hide, skull, and claws were salvaged and surrendered to Fish and Game. Bethune said the hide will be sent to Anchorage for sale in the annual Fur Rendezvous Auction. Any proceeds will go to the state.

“Hopefully by killing this bear, we’re saving somebody else’s dog and potentially keeping some people from getting hurt.”

In the first major incident of its kind this year, a bear attacked and killed a dog Sunday in the 2800 block of Sawmill Creek Road, near the Thimbleberry Creek Trailhead. Steve Bethune, a wildlife biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, went to investigate with Alaska Wildlife Troopers after receiving a call about the incident Monday.

“We found blood and hair in the driveway and did a quick search of the woods, in the immediate vicinity of the house in the direction the bear went, to confirm that the dog had been killed and consumed,” Bethune said.

The attack had occurred about 24 hours earlier but it took a while to figure out what happened because the dog’s owner, Mike Mayo, did not witness the attack. He remembers hearing the dog bark and then yelp but it was a while before he realized the dog was actually missing. Later in the day, the bear that is believed to have attacked the dog ambled across the property. Mayo was able to take a photograph from inside the house. Authorities were not able to locate the bear Monday but intend to keep searching.

“Pets are dear to people everywhere so we have a general policy that we don’t tolerate bears killing pets,” Bethune said. 

Mayo’s dog was a 12-year old Jack Russell and Chihuahua mix named Dodo.

“He was a lovable little dog,” Mayo said. “Very personable and loved to be held. Never bit anyone. He liked to be around people.”

Bethune pointed out that it’s dangerous for people as well as pets if bears associate pets with food.  He said bear activity has been relatively low in Sitka for the past two years but the two years before that set a record with officials having to kill 21 bears over two seasons. He said the department has received other calls recently from the same vicinity reporting bears active during daylight hours and not showing fear of people.

“So that’s a little bit disconcerting,” he said. “But we haven’t had any reports of bears actually acting aggressively toward people, but we would encourage people, at least in this area, if they see a bear to give us a call.”

Bethune reiterated some basic bear safety tips: keep garbage inside until pickup day, don’t leave food out for pets, bring bird feeders inside during the summer, and be mindful of grills and fish smokers as items that could attract bears. He also noted the upcoming Community Bear Awareness Day scheduled for Saturday June 15th at the Fortress of the Bear. Safety presentations will include bear-proof trash can and campsite demos.

UPDATE, 1-30-23

Non-resident deer hunters will be limited to two bucks in one of the most prolific units in Southeast Alaska, the Board of Game decided last week (1-23-23).

The decision came a day after the board had declined to reduce the sport bag limit from six to four deer in the same region.

The state has made it clear: There is not a problem with the deer population in Game Management Unit 4. Rather, there is a people problem.

Jake Fletcher is a board member from Talkeetna, who brought Proposal 10 back for reconsideration on Monday, January 23, just a day after the Board of Game had unanimously voted to keep the sport bag limit at six deer for hunters on Admiralty, Baranof, and Chichagof islands – the so-called “ABC Islands.”

“As the Department stated earlier, you know there’s not a biological concern on overharvest to this population,” said Fletcher. “But I think that it’s going to reduce user conflict. I think that under certain weather conditions certain bays get incredibly crowded, maybe non-residents coming into conflict with residents. And I think that this (Proposal 10, with new language) really addresses that problem.”

Sitka, Angoon, and Hoonah are the largest communities in the ABC Islands, but hunters from Juneau can make it down by boat or floatplane if the weather is good. While there are special harvest restrictions around Hoonah, which has a developed road system, the remainder of Unit 4, with thousands of miles of forest and shoreline, is available for any sport hunter, regardless of residency, hoping to fill six tags. Unit 4 is not being overrun by out-of-state hunters. As ADF&G biologist Steve Bethune puts it, non-resident hunting on the ABC Islands is adjunct to resident hunting, or to guided hunts for brown bear.

“There’s not a whole lot of non-resident deer hunters in Unit 4, and very few that are guided,” said Bethune, who clarified:”I would say that there are very few guides that take deer hunters specifically. It’s usually an add-on to a fall brown bear hunt. Certainly there are a few deer hunters (who target deer exclusively), but generally it’s an add-on. I think we talked about earlier how most of the non-resident hunters in Unit 4 are friends and family of people who live in Unit 4 and are just coming up, so they’re probably staying with their friends and family or they’re staying on (boats). Most of the guided hunts are large boat-based hunts, and so they’re staying on those vessels.”

Just the day before, the Board of Game had voted down Proposal 10, which would have cut the sport bag limit for deer on the ABC Islands from 6 to 4. A second, similar proposal (Proposal 11) was withdrawn by its author. Both proposers were active sport hunters in the area concerned that – although the deer population was abundant at the moment – a heavy winter or two could easily change that. Resurrecting Proposal 10 and substituting a two buck limit for non-residents in place of the overall bag limit reduction seemed like a nod toward compromise, especially for subsistence hunters in Hoonah, who feel the most pressure from out-of-town sport hunters.

The board took the additional step of lowering the non-resident limit in the Hoonah “controlled use area” as well. Board chair Jerry Burnett thought this was a reasonable approach.

“We heard from the department that this would make it uniform across the entire unit for the non-residents,” Burnett said. “Make sense.”

On reconsideration, the state Board of Game unanimously adopted an amended version of Proposal 10, which now limits the harvest of black-tailed deer by non-residents to two bucks in Unit 4.

ORIGINAL REPORT, 1-29-23

Despite hunter concerns, sport limit for deer to remain at six for Southeast’s ‘ABC Islands’

The bag limit for the sport harvest of deer in Unit 4 in Southeast Alaska will remain at six, one of the most liberal in the state.

During its Ketchikan meeting over the weekend (1-22-23), the Board of Game unanimously voted down a proposal that would have reduced the bag limit to 4 deer, saying it saw no biological necessity for lowering the harvest. Advocates of the change, however, urged that – given so much ecological uncertainty recently – erring on the side of caution was the more prudent course.

Things have been pretty good for deer hunters in Unit 4 for at least the past decade, as deer populations have rebounded to near carrying capacity for the three major islands comprising the unit – Admiralty, Baranof, and Chichagof, which are often called the “ABC Islands.”

This is a change from 2006 through 2008, when harsh winters, with especially high snowfalls, dramatically affected deer populations. Fish & Game beach surveys in the spring of 2007 recorded roughly 4 winterkill deer carcasses per mile of shoreline – and the ABC Islands have many miles of shoreline.

Kevin Maier, who proposed the bag limit reduction, was aware of this history, as well as where things stand now. If anything, his proposal was an effort to nudge the Board of Game to think more broadly about changes happening in the ecosystem, and to manage Southeast Alaska’s now-abundant deer population with caution.

“We’re facing incredibly uncertain climate and economic futures, and we owe it to our children and future Alaskans to make conservative decisions,” Maier told the board. “Although I’ve spent most of the last 20 years in Southeast, I grew up in Washington state where I watched dramatic fisheries declines happen in my lifetime. I’m in Alaska in no small part because of abundant fishing opportunity. And I’m hopeful you make decisions that help us avoid the disastrous fate of much of our hunting and fishing opportunity in the lower 48.”

Maier sits on the Juneau Fish & Game Advisory Committee, but offered the proposal (Proposal 10) as an individual. He told the board that he personally would be unaffected by the bag limit reduction, since he didn’t have a large enough boat to hunt in the ABC Islands. In fact, he said his position on his own proposal was neutral.

Unit 4 area management biologist Steve Bethune suggested that many more hunters would also be neutral, as a very small percentage ever filled all six tags, after the bag limit was raised from four to six in 2019.

“And we found that between 2019 and 2021, under this new bag limit, we had an average of 30 non-federally qualified hunters who took five deer and 29 non-federally qualified hunters who took six deer,” said Bethune, “and this averages out to about 88 additional deer per year. It’s about one- to one-and-a-half percent of the annual harvest.”

“Non-federally qualified hunter” is government-speak for sport hunter, or in the case of Unit 4, hunters from Juneau. Every other community on Admiralty, Baranof, and Chichagof islands is a federally-qualified subsistence community. Hunters in these towns, including Hoonah, Angoon, and even Sitka, have always been able to take six deer, and also have an extra month of hunting in January on federal lands. The total number of deer taken in the Unit ranges between 5,000 and 7,000 animals per year.

So in a nutshell, 97-percent of sport hunters are taking four deer or less in Unit 4. Why not make that the bag limit? Possibly, because it sends the wrong message to the federal government. This is biologist Steve Bethune again.

“The four-deer bag limit is adequate for most non-federally qualified hunters,” said Bethune. “However, six deer is sustainable and provides an additional opportunity. So it’s going to be fully up to you all on the Board of Game to decide if you want to make changes on the state side to try to influence the federal subsistence board.”

The Federal Subsistence Board meets at the end of the month in Anchorage and will weigh in on several proposals about deer hunting on the ABC Islands, most notably a proposal that would close several major drainages on Admiralty Island to sport hunting during the month of November – the peak deer hunting season – in order provide more access for subsistence hunters. In a relationship that is murky at best, the Federal Subsistence Board relies heavily on research from the state Department of Fish & Game, but sets policy based on different priorities. Often, federal and state regulations overlap, but there is always a possibility that they could conflict.

Paul Johnson, a well-known hunting guide based out of Chichagof Island, also put in a proposal (Proposal 11) to cut back the Unit 4 bag limit for deer, but withdrew it when it became clear that the Board of Game was not going to support Maier’s proposal. Unlike Maier, Johnson did have a “horse in the race” with a four-decade career in guiding on the ABC Islands. The board kept Johnson at the testimony table for a few minutes, just to hear his opinion on the issue. Johnson didn’t disagree with state biologist Steve Bethune, he didn’t sense any urgency to lower the bag limit, but he felt the four-deer limit was probably more cautious.

“I always felt the four-deer limit held the  test of time,” Johnson said. “Times have changed, the department has got different concepts on what’s happening around. I don’t want to interfere, it’s above my level. But I can say that Steve’s right it’s the winters that play the biggest role”

Nevertheless, the state Board of Game unanimously voted down the proposal to reduce the sport bag limit for deer on Admiralty, Baranof, and Chichagof islands.

The Sitka Bear Task Force is reconvening to gather ideas for addressing Sitka’s bear issues proactively. Assembly liaison Crystal Duncan and ADF&G biologist Steve Bethune (who advises the task force) discuss the group’s mission and goals, strategies for living successfully with bears, and aspects of habitat biology which make garbage management a more effective solution than killing the animals. The first meeting is noon, Thursday, April 21, in Harrigan Centennial Hall. The public is welcome to attend.

The first brown bears of the spring have been spotted in Sitka. Not a moment too soon, the assembly is reviving a bear task force to address increasing conflict between bears and humans within the community.

The new task force will spend six months investigating Sitka’s bear history, reviewing work and suggestions from the last task force that was established in 2005, along with studying bear deterrent efforts in other communities. Assembly member Crystal Duncan, who sponsored the discussion item with Rebecca Himschoot, said the decision came on the heels of Sitka’s worst year for bear killings in the last 30 years.

“We want to prevent that,” Duncan said. “And we know that it needs to start now.”

Last year’s bear activity was unprecedented. Fourteen bears were euthanized in Sitka last year — more than double any other year on record since 1980. The Sitka Tribe of Alaska asked the Assembly to prioritize the community’s bear issue during the government to government meeting this winter. And on March 8, ADF&G wildlife biologist Stephen Bethune told the assembly that the community needs to figure out a way to deal with its garbage problem. 

“If there is a silver bullet, and it won’t solve the problem entirely. But if there was one, one method that is going to significantly impact our issues, it’s bear resistant containers,” he said.

City Administrator John Leach said that whatever the bear working group came up with, there would be a price tag for the city to consider. 

“We talk about bear proof cans, they’re expensive,” Leach said. “We may not be able to do that across the entire community, and may be targeted to higher traffic areas for bears. But there’s a cost to that.”

“And if the community wants it, we need to bear that cost. I don’t mean that…there’s a pun there,” Leach said. “But we need to absorb that cost somehow if we’re not able to find it by means of grant.”

The task force will be comprised of representatives from the ADF&G and the city, the Sitka Tribe, BIHA and the Sitka National Historical Park, among other agencies. 

The city is also seeking two at-large volunteers to join the task force. Find information on how to apply here.

As Sitka’s deadliest bear season in recent memory winds down, the Department of Fish & Game is stepping up outreach to try and prevent a repeat of 2021, when 14 brown bears were killed in the community.

ADF&G biologist Steve Bethune last week (11-18-21) delivered an hour-long presentation on how Sitkans can live with bears.

Steve Bethune is trained in Biology. He thought that meant spending a lot of time outdoors with wildlife. There is some of that, but he also spends a lot of time on a computer, and on a phone, talking to concerned humans.

“I deal with some real extreme attitudes about bears here in town,” he said. “There’s kind of ‘kill them all’ crowd. And there’s the ‘they were here first crowd.’ And I try to get everybody more where I live — more in the center. I can’t kill them. Even if I decided that was the right thing to do, it would be impossible, right? It’s just not not available.”

Bethune spoke to an in-person and online audience in Sitka’s Harrigan Centennial Hall. Just as he can’t kill every bear that enters town, Bethune said he must kill some — as they present a legitimate threat to public safety.

He doesn’t use the term “problem bear,” because he believes bears aren’t the problem.

“Because they’re just bears being bears,” said Bethune. “It’s actually people that are the problem. And the bears are using the intelligence that they’ve been created with, and all their resources, and they have to do the best they can with whatever they can just to survive.”

Full presentation: Living with Sitka’s Brown Bears

Bethune said that bears come into contact with humans because we provide them with a limitless supply of high calorie food. A domestic chicken has about as many calories as a salmon. A greasy pizza box is also rich in calories. Even with 14 bears removed so far this year, he said “the calls keep rolling in.” The exact number of bears in Sitka remains the “million dollar question,” because their sense of smell is legendary — 10 times better than a bloodhound’s, 2500 times better than ours — and they are extremely mobile. Today’s Sitka bear might have been nowhere near yesterday.

“Moving long distances for these bears is really, really common — up to 50 miles a day is not unheard of,” said Bethune. “And we know from radio collar data that they’re excellent swimmers. Even here in town, you know, the bears are using all the little islands and then there’s Middle Island, Kasiana Island, Apple Island. We’ve had a bear over on Japonski Island, and I’m pretty sure they’re not walking across the bridge.”

This mobility is why relocating bears isn’t feasible. Many of the complaints Bethune receives involve his decision to kill a bear, rather than trap it, dart it, and move it to a far off island. Short answer: It doesn’t work.

“Bears have a tremendous homing instinct,” he said. “And over and over and over our radio collar data shows these bears covering tremendous distances, and large bodies of water to get back to where they are removed from.”

Bethune said that a bear that doesn’t make it back to its home range will likely come to harm. He likened it to a non-urbanite like himself being dropped into Times Square completely unprepared.

Although this has been the worst year for urban bear mortality in Sitka in the last 30 years, Bethune believes an answer has emerged recently that can help enormously: inexpensive electric fence kits. He said the department has purchased several at less that $300 that can be loaned to residents while they work on permanent solutions at their homes.

Bethune told the audience a quote from a fellow biologist, that “ what most people know about bears has more to do with the nature of bear stories than with the nature of bears.” He added that with bears, “we often see what we believe.”

He said the only effective way to eliminate bears from Sitka, was to eliminate the reason they come here.

“It’s unsecured garbage that’s a problem,’ said Bethune. “When I remove a bear, that is treating a symptom and not treating the root cause”

As for when bears will finally head into their dens for the winter, and allow Sitkans to have some peace — not to mention their National Park Trails — Bethune said there wasn’t a precise date. Some sows with cubs might den up in October. For other bears, he said “Thanksgiving is kind of a general standard.”

Sitka’s Fish & Game Advisory committee wants to revive a local bear working group, to look for solutions to the high number of kills in the community this season.

The committee wants the city to reinstate the Sitka Bear Task Force, and to cooperate with the Department of Fish & Game, the National Park Service, and other agencies to mitigate Sitka’s growing bear problem.

The tally of brown bears killed in Sitka now stands at 13 — 12 bears killed by wildlife authorities, and one killed by a car (and whose cub was later euthanized by Fish & Game).

Area management biologist Steve Bethune told the committee at its October 27 meeting that he doesn’t know what kind of toll this is taking on the bear population of Baranof Island, because that number has never been determined.

He asked the committee to write a letter to the state Board of Game to deploy a research team for a thorough, 2-3 year study.

“With everything that is going on around here, I would be really interested in a Baranof estimate,” said Bethune. “We’ve had population estimates on north Admiralty and northeast Chichagof. We’ve never had one anywhere on Baranof island. So a lot of people anecdotally think that the population is increasing. I can’t say with any data to support that one way or the other.”

Although he doesn’t know how many bears are on Baranof Island, Bethune is convinced that easy access to garbage is what brings them into town. Over a decade ago, a Sitka Bear Task Force was formed to look into the problem, and to explore possible solutions like upgraded garbage cans.

Committee member Andrew Thoms served on the original task force, which — rather than recommend bear-proofing measures on cans — advised the assembly to enact ordinances governing how and when Sitkans can dispose of garbage.

“Brown bears can get into whatever,” he said.  “They are really strong. And so all of those things just don’t work. And that’s where it came down to: You have to keep your garbage inside, reduce the amount of garbage, you have or take it down to Crescent Harbor, or the transfer station and drop it off. That was pretty much what we came to.”

The flaw in that plan was compliance. Bethune said that just one or two households improperly handling trash could bring bears into a neighborhood. 

Committee member Tad Fujioka suggested turning that behavior to advantage.

“What if you looked at it from the other way, and we had some booby-trapped garbage cans out there?” Fujioka asked.  “Maybe it would only take one or two bad experiences for a bear to associate that big black thing with an unfavorable experience.”

Bethune said he was interested in hearing creative ideas to address the problem. He’s been a vocal advocate for the use of simple, electric fences in Sitka — equipment which is relatively inexpensive.

But for some committee members, there already was a proven method for managing bears in town.

“It’s horrible and it sucks, but I think being aggressive with lethal take is not a bad thing at all,” said member Woody Cyr. “And that by taking some (bears) quicker, you save more in the long run. Yeah, it seems like it’s just way too okay for them to be in town.”

Member Jeff Feldpausch also was reluctant to move forward with a new task force, since it seemed likely to lead to the same result. 

“I have a feeling this is just going to turn around and be going to be like the initial round of the (bear) working group,” he said. “Basically, it is going to attack the public and require them to come up with either more money to pay fines or more money to build a shed or whatever. And it’s just going to turn back on the public. So I’m voting no.”

Feldpausch said that his strategy of choice was “to thin the bears.”

Biologist Bethune responded that thinning the bear population around Sitka was not an option in his toolbox. The landscape had changed in recent years — literally. Prior to 2020, Sitka National Historical Park’s trails were crowded daily with visitors, and bears were rarely seen. In the last two years, however, Bethune suggested that the park had become a sort of wildlife refuge in the absence of tourists.

“And we’ve had a pretty good — almost a cooperative — agreement between people and bears for many years where people park is for people during the daytime, and bears use it at night,” said Bethune. “And it’s become a place where bears are roaming freely all day long. And it is potentially now a dangerous situation.”

Bethune has examined all of the 13 bears killed in Sitka so far this year. None was skinny or hungry; rather, they appeared to be in robust health, with enough fat stores to survive the winter. That hasn’t always been the case with Sitka’s bears; their circumstances change year-to-year. And so do the attitudes of Sitka’s human residents.

“This town is different than it was 20 years ago, when I hear all kinds of stories about you know, we used to have a landfill,” he said. “So when a bear showed up in the landfill, we’d just kill it and roll it  into the burn pit. Or back in the mill days, people would just kill a bear when it came into a neighborhood. So it’s just a different different mentality now than than it used to be.”

On a split vote, the Sitka Fish & Game Advisory committee urged the Sitka Assembly to take measures to mitigate the bear problem. The committee will also send a letter to the Board of Game in support of a bear population study on Baranof Island.