Haines’ bear encounters are down significantly from last year

Haines’ collective efforts to keep a better lid on its trash, plus more wild food available than last year’s poor berry yield and lackluster salmon runs has reduced bear encounters. And the numbers prove it: at this time last year, there were 243 calls to Haines Police involving bears, and this year, there have been 135 calls – that’s a 44 percent drop. And significantly, there have been no more bears killed in defense of life and property this summer, according to police. KHNS’ Corinne Smith checked in with Alaska Department of Fish and Game wildlife biologist Carl Koch on the progress made.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

KHNS: Haines has seen significantly less bear encounters as compared to last year, a 44% drop in calls to police – would you say Haines’ mitigation efforts have been successful?

Carl Koch: Yeah, I think if you have a 44% drop that’s helpful. But I also think, realistically, there’s more natural foods this year as well. And I think we’ve all made great progress… Yeah, you know, Haines has done a lot since 2020. They have bear resistant trash cans that are a lot better than what they’ve had in the past. We had issues with one of them, and the landfill owner has made some adjustments to that. When I was in town, one of the things I checked in at the hands office to see how many electric fences were left out, there were four or five of them sitting there not being used. So presumably, a lot of folks have bought their own electric fence, or there’s fewer people requesting them. So that to me, indicates things are better in that regard, as well. So I mean, I think compared to last year, it’s much better. Every community is going to have attractants that the bears can get, it’s just a matter of trying to reduce them to a manageable level. 

There’s a lot of green belts in the Haines area, so bears coming and going, is not that unusual. It certainly seems like folks feel like it’s still more than it’s been, you know, better than 2020 but the anecdotal reports are that they’re seeing them, more often than they were and say 2015, something like that.

KHNS: How are the fish runs and this berry season kind of influencing bear behavior?

Koch: Well, it seems like natural foods are more abundant. And, and so that in combination with the fact that things are more secure than they maybe have been in the past, I think that reduced the bear-human conflicts by a lot.

KHNS: Can you tell us a little bit about your visit to town and what you’re up to in terms of bear activity? 

Koch: Sure, so I was in town to do research. But I also spent several extra days looking into some bear complaints. There was complaints of property damage in a couple of locations, one of which was pretty significant garage door damage, or multiple garage doors, I should say. The other stuff that I was investigating had to do with attractants. I discovered what was going on with those and provided some advice to folks. And then the other thing I was doing was spending some time on the Chilkoot (River). It’s not uncommon there to have, you know, fishermen occasionally instead of cutting their line or taking their fish away and leaving the river when the bear is approaching, some folks wait till the last minute and then they panic and back away from the fish. And so we had a situation where a bear took a person’s salmon while it was still on the fishing rod and dragged the rod and all into the woods. And then it approached a second fisherman after that. And so I spent some time there, and also assisting the weir crew and kind of how to interact with with bears in general and that particular bear. It’s definitely an area where you have to pay attention because the bears do see a lot of folks, a lot of people and they get used to people. 

KHNS: What’s the advice for that situation? 

Koch: Basically, you’re out fishing, it’s the same river that bears are using, keep your eyes peeled, stay alert, have some bear spray with you, or other deterrents. But if a bear is coming down your way, yield to the bear, get out of the river, take your fish with you. Always keep stuff nearby so that you can pick it up in a hurry. And what if the bear comes upon you and you know total surprise, then your options are more limited. You can get rid of your fish. Because the thing is, you don’t want the bear to associate you with an easy way to get fish. Then it’ll just try and push other fishermen around. So we tell folks, if there’s a fish on your line, and it’s splashing around, let the line goes slack, or cut the line and be willing to wait till you know to fish again when the bear is gone. 

KHNS: What can you tell us a bit about your current research?

Koch: Anthony Crupi, our research biologist, could do a better job of explaining, because he’s been out there a lot. But basically, what’s going on is we’ve collared a number of bears to learn about their movement patterns and habitat selection, including den sites and things like that. This summer, he’s doing an intensive effort, which is about to wrap up within the next couple of days. They have 51 sites throughout all of unit 1-D, with methods of capturing hair from collecting hair samples from bears. It depends on the location where they’re doing those units, there’s 51 zones, but then there’s hundreds of air snares. They have both single catch air snares where a bear walks through wraps around their neck, and then it tests it a little piece of rubber that breaks away and collects hair. There’s some corrals that have stinky stuff in them, nothing they can get a reward from it, just some stuff that smells good, in the middle of the woods. Or they can go and get attracted to that, and when they walk past, it’s basically barbed wire, when they cross it, a little bit of hair gets stuck in the wire, and then they can do DNA work to basically to get a population estimate.  They also have a lot of cameras out. One of the things that he said that was kind of interesting was, they’ve gotten a lot of black bear samples, compared to the number of brown bear samples. And on the cameras, they have photos of black bear, about 50% of them have been cinnamon black bears. That’s definitely, I would think, different than what you’d probably find, you know, down here where I am in Juneau, for example.

KHNS: The bear hunting season is opening September 15th, what should people know?

Koch: Yeah, just to remind the hunters, we’re using this new management plan. So we have three bears left to be harvested this fall, before we’ll have to close the season, and that’s if they are males. If two females are taken, then we would also close the season and that includes if our agency kills between now and this season. So the reason I mentioned that, in part is people that target bears, but also there’s a lot of hunters that go out, they buy the locking tag, and they have a permit just in case they encounter a bear when they’re moose hunting for example. And I just want on anyone who’s going to do that to understand that the season could close partway through and then they would not be able to harvest the bear. It (killing a bear) would have to be under circumstances of a defense of life and property situation, in which case they wouldn’t get to keep the hide or the skull.

KHNS: Is there anything else our listeners should know about bear activity at this time?

Koch: Yeah, so this is the time of year when we’re starting to head toward fall, and bears go into a period of hyperphagia. They’re basically trying to pack on as much weight as they can before they hibernate. And so it’s even more important to really keep things secure, so that bears don’t get food rewards. 

KHNS: Well, thank you so much, Carl.

Koch: Thank you, appreciate it.