The Haines Borough will host a “bear summit” to discuss issues surrounding a high number of bears around townsite residences in recent years. It will be held 1 p.m. Monday, Aug. 16 at the assembly chambers.

Anyone with questions about bears or the proper securing of garbage, livestock or other attractants is encouraged to attend.

Panelists will include Fish and Game wildlife biologists Ryan Scott and Anthony Crupi, wildlife trooper Rick Merritt, park ranger Preston Kroes, Chilkoot bear monitor Shannon Donahue and borough police chief Gary Lowe.

Topics will include, “Living in Bear Country,” an introduction for residents new to the area, “Do We Need a Bear Trash Ordinance in Haines?” “What Can I Do to Keep Bears Out of the City?” and “Why Can’t They Just Relocate Bears?”

Borough manager Mark Earnest said the meeting is to discuss bear awareness and education, in addition to a possible ordinance. The Alaska Chilkoot Bear Foundation, a local group, is asking the borough to establish laws requiring secure storage of trash in the wake of continuous years of high bear activity in the townsite.

“An ordinance is one tool, obviously, but the most important part of the effort is to get information out to people on how to keep bears away from their property,” Earnest said this week.

“A lot of people have moved here from other places in Alaska or the Lower 48 where you don’t run into bears downtown. In Haines, you only have to go a half-mile (from downtown) and there are bears in that area,” he said.

“I think this is a starting point. These are the experts. They’ll have suggestions and ideas of what’s worked in other communities,” Earnest said.

Chief Lowe encouraged anyone with questions about bears to attend the meeting, as expertise on hand should be able to field just about any question about bears.

Lowe said his department is seeing the same three bears continually hitting the same neighborhoods and is concerned they are being habituated and will have to be destroyed.

“We live in bear country. That’s part of the reason we’re here. We have to take responsibility to make an environment that the bears can live in, too,” he said.

The individual brown bears identified include a young brown bear that travels an arc between Deishu Drive, Small Tracts Road, the Matrix-New Hart neighborhood and Beach Road; a brown bear that goes between the harbor, Picture Point and Union Street, and a third bear around Helms Loop Road.

Lowe said two very large bears were believed have taken up residence at the FAA Road landfill and traveled on Small Tracts Road and around Mount Riley, but they haven’t been seen for a few years. “They generally don’t get into things.”

Lowe said he believes a bear ordinance like one adopted in Juneau would help the department and reduce bear encounters. The ordinance would lay out rules for securing bear attractants and allow the police to write tickets for violations.

Enforcement currently is limited to the borough’s littering ordinance, requiring a letter from the borough to landowners who do not secure attractants.

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