Neighborhoods in Haines are resonating with air horns, barking dogs, and the occasional gunshot. The bears are *back in town.*  But, they aren’t getting into too much trouble — at least, compared to years prior.

Since early May, the Haines Police Department has received 37 reports of bear activity in town. 

Carl Koch is a wildlife biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. That number isn’t alarming to him. 

Koch: “…seems like it’s down quite a bit from some past years.” 

The bears are sniffing around for trash and getting into fruit trees.  Despite the complaints of their human neighbors, they are being *good bears.* 

Three summers ago, a food shortage  drove them to break into houses and vehicles at an alarming rate. Around fifty bears were killed in Haines that year, most of them for scrounging around human habitations. 

This year, apart from the noise we make to chase them away, the bears aren’t much of a disturbance. 

But there are some outliers. Some of the police reports detail the work of one particularly busy sow. 

Koch: “There was a bear getting into cars, and it had learned how to open car doors, and it was breaking into garages.”

On July 15th, according to the police report, she was killed by a property owner after breaking into his shop. Her cub was also killed. Koch says he hasn’t heard a single report of property damage since then. The mother and her cub were the only bear fatalities reported in town this year.

Following all the bloodshed that happened three years ago, Fish and Game implemented a new rule to keep bear deaths down. It states that if two female bears are killed in one year, the agency will cancel the hunting season. Koch says Haines has already reached that limit. But he and his colleagues looked at the numbers over the last three years, and decided that the average mortality was low enough to proceed with the hunting season.

Koch: “:So we are not going to close the fall season yet, but very likely if one more female is killed we will close the fall hunt.”

Koch wants to remind residents to secure their garbage. He says there are many ways to keep bears away from attractants.  Residents can appeal to volunteers to come and pick their fruit trees. More volunteers are needed. Fish and Game has electric fences residents can borrow, and there are grants available to assist with their purchase. 

Bears are better off when they are kept away from us.