Bears are running wild in Skagway. They are opening dumpsters, dragging garbage cans away, and causing borough officials to ponder how to keep them away.
Bear activity this fall has been intense in downtown Skagway.
Reddick: “We’ve had some issues with the bears since, I want to say early August.”
Jerry Reddick is Skagway’s police chief.
Redick: “They started out at the salmon bake in the Liarsville area. Since then the bears have kind of moved into town with the trash issue. We have dumpsters that don’t have bear proof lids.”
Reddick says only a few individual bears are responsible for the majority of the reports. One brown bear sow, and her two cubs. And they are getting craftier.
Reddick:” They’ve learned how to go to the right side of the dumpster, and when it’s flipped upside down, then the latches don’t hold, and they’ve been able to get access that way.”
Terry Williams lives on Skagway’s north side. He’s had first hand experience of the mischief. He attempted to bring his trash to the transfer station, but missed the window for when it was open. He then left his garbage can outside his home. In the middle of the night, he heard some noise.
Williams: “And I went outside, and my whole garbage can was gone!’
In the morning, his wife found it.
Williams: “She figured out that they carried the garbage can across the railroad track and 50m up the mountainside. And you could see our garbage can sitting up on the hill, maybe a block away from our house.”
Skagway Mayor Sam Bass says borough officials have been discussing measure to deny bears access to garbage.”
Bass: There’s rules on the book already that people have to treat their trash in a certain way, to at least try to mitigate some of those encounters with the bears, and so we’ve increased our fines, how often we issue fines, we are hoping people will go and manage their trash correctly. We are looking at the possibility of providing bear proof garbage cans. That’s another option.”
Bass says the municipality is also looking at measures to make the garbage transfer station less of an attractant.
Carl Koch is a biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. He says securing garbage is essential.
Koch: “They hibernate when it gets colder, a lot of people think that’s just automatic. But really it’s about if there’s less natural food around, then when they start burning more calories than they can take in, they’ll go find their den.If they have available food, which late in the season is usually human food, garbage or chicken, then they can delay hibernation.”
In other words, the more trash they access, the longer they’ll stay in town.
Meanwhile, Chief Reddick and his officers are out patrolling every night, chasing bears with noise and rubber bullets. He says the bears are skittish, and usually leave when the officers arrive. Reddick says if the bears become a safety issue, they will have to kill them.
