Skagway police keep tabs on multiple bears in town

At least three different bears have recently been spotted foraging in downtown Skagway. Reports say there is a large brown bear sow with a big cub and an adult black bear. KHNS’ Mike Swasey spoke with Skagway Police Chief Jerry Reddick about the department’s efforts to keep the public safe.

Swasey – Well we see you guys driving up and down the alleys with the big spotlights on what’s going on?

Reddick – With the presence of the bears, what we’re trying to do is just deter them from wanting to be in the city. So if we can drive them out of the area and keep them out of the yards, and just being a nuisance to them, more or less, I think we can keep pushing them back out to city. We haven’t had to do any hazing as far as any non lethal rounds or any paintballs at this point. We’re just trying to, I don’t want to use the word harass, but we try to keep them moving so that they don’t just have free range of the city.

Swasey – A friend of mine left my place on Sunday after watching some football and on his way home, he spotted a couple of brown bears running over to the airport. And then you guys are pretty close behind or you were right there, I think. So did you chase them out onto the airstrip?

Reddick – That actually was probably the night that we were over on this side of the town dealing with a black bear at the time. Now I did go out into the airport area trying to locate them just to see if they were in the hanger areas or if they went ahead and went across to the seven pastures area. And we were not able to ever locate them. I know that last night, there were the two bears, which would be the mom, brown bear and cub and the black bear all within like two blocks of each other. And that was State and 13th through 16th, somewhere in that area. They’ve got a pretty broad range of where they’ve been from all the way down Alaska and 2nd all the way to the composter.

Swasey – Is there concern for residents being out at night?

Reddick – I would always err on the side of caution. We’ve not seen any aggressive behaviors from the bears at this point as far as humans. But they’re not exactly scared of humans walking. So that’s why we’re trying to keep the pressure on them. And when they see the white cars come around, they tend to travel a little faster.

Swasey – And then what do you shine the lights on them, and what happens?

Reddick – We shine the lights on them. We’ve been using the air horn and siren to kind of chirp at them a little bit and just be like a nuisance to them and try to get them moving.

Swasey – Sounds like there’s still a lot of fruit on the ground. That was a cleanup day last weekend, but there’s a lot of crab apples around…

Reddick – Still a lot of crab apples, there’s a lot of berries still on a lot of the trees. I know that there were at least a couple of places that had quite a bit of apples that were gathered and taken to the composter. So that’s helped, but they’re still going to be coming back to those areas looking for those apples.

Swasey – What’s your advice to the community?

Reddick – At this point, I think as long as we’re vigilant, we’re not putting trash out too early, to give them an opportunity to become trash bears. As soon as they discover that there’s no more fruits and berries. I think we will be in a much better place.

Swasey – Are you suggesting people get in contact with the owners of property that have fruit trees on them that still have fruit to try and harvest that or?

Reddick – Oh absolutely. If there’s people that can’t or are out of town and need that done, we will make arrangements to figure out somebody to go and harvest that, get it out, so that we don’t continue to have this problem.

Swasey – So call the police department?

Reddick – Yes.

Swasey – Alright. Thanks for keeping us informed.

If you need help harvesting fruit from trees that could attract them, or if you spot a nuisance bear in town, call the police department at 907-983-2232.