Haines Borough Police Chief Bill Musser said this week he’s using public education to gain compliance with the municipality’s bear attractant nuisance ordinance, but he’s not ruling out issuing citations.
Six reported brown bear kills around town so far this year compare to eight last year. Following a spring and early summer with few reports of bears, incidences of bears around homes and garbage jumped in recent weeks.
“We have not cited anyone at this point. We have two who are possibly going to be if they don’t get their materials cleaned up,” Musser said in an interview.
It’s unclear whether anyone ever has been cited under a 2010 borough ordinance prohibiting residents from creating a bear attraction nuisance. Magistrate John Hutchins said he hasn’t seen such a citation come through the local court since the ordinance was adopted.
Musser said this week that issuing a citation is only one tool at his disposal, and one that doesn’t always work. “When we have something significant and nobody’s taking effort to repair the issue, then we will issue a citation. That’s what citations are for, when people aren’t changing their behavior.”
Code establishes a fine of up to $300 for violating the ordinance.
Musser said there were some bear-garbage issues at Chilkoot Estates subdivision, but those have been addressed, including by “anchoring down” bear-proof cans.
“Most of that situation has resolved itself. We have isolated ones around town that we’re working on and we’ve talked to folks and part of what we’re doing is following up. Bears are bears and they get into garbage and we’re trying to educate people that they’re responsible for taking care of their garbage, even if they have it in a secure outbuilding that a bear gets into,” Musser said.
Pam Randles of the Alaska Chilkoot Bear Foundation said she believes the numbers of incidences of bears getting into garbage is decreasing, despite the number of bear kills. She bases her opinion on police reports and a lot of conversations with residents who’ve changed their behavior to minimize their attractants.
“It seems to me people are getting better. There are fewer incidences of bears getting into trash than in the past, and more (incidents) of people seeing bears,” Randles said.
Randles sees one flaw in the police approach: That officers sometimes give residents up to a week to eliminate a bear attraction. (Musser said that happens due partly to police shift schedules.)
“If bears get a reward, they’re likely to come back in a matter of hours or a day. Wildlife troopers will tell you that if (bears) succeed twice, they’ll keep coming back. If they succeed once and get Tased on the second attempt, it’s a different story,” Randles said.
With a third success, “bears start becoming aggressive, and then you’ve got a problem,” she said.
Randles draws a distinction between “habituated” bears, like ones along the Chilkoot River that are tolerant of proximity to humans, and “food-conditioned” bears that have started relying on human food sources.
One of the reasons bear-garbage issues won’t go away immediately is that the bear attractant nuisance ordinance is only four years old, an electric fence at the FAA Road landfill is only two years old, and bears live up to 30 years. It will take time for food-conditioned bears to be replaced by younger ones that aren’t, Randles said.
The number of bear kills around town may not drop soon though, partly because not all kills are legal under defense of life and property provisions under state law, Randles said. “Communities learn slowly. These things take a while to percolate through everybody’s awareness,” she said.
Shannon Donahue of the Great Bear Foundation said bear-garbage activity doesn’t seem to be any worse than usual. Late fall, when bears go into a “hyperphagia,” seeking as many calories as possible to get through winter, will always be an active time for bears. “This time of year is always tough on them. They’re just eating machines.”
Like Randles, Donahue said that while the status quo can be improved, she’s generally happy with enforcement efforts relating to bears. “It seems like there’s a concerted effort to prevent wildlife conflicts. That’s a great thing.”