Residents and some visitors are raising concerns about bear-viewing etiquette along the Chilkoot River.
“It’s a mad house. All day long. It’s a mess,” said Etta Meeks, a visitor for 12 years and a former Chilkoot campground host and volunteer along the corridor. “People are leaving coolers and five-gallon buckets full of stuff. There is no supervision, no authority being shown.”
Last week during a cruise ship visit, she watched passengers from two local tour buses follow bears at close range along the river, Meeks said.
Resident Niall Hackett said on Monday relations between residents and visitors devolved into a shouting match about proper behavior around bruins.
Park ranger Travis Russell said he didn’t work Sunday, Monday or Tuesday, so there wasn’t enforcement those days. He said he recently hired an Alaska Conservation Corps worker who will also work to keep peace along the narrow corridor where bears, sport fishermen, campers and sightseers create congestion and sometimes gridlock.
“We’ll be increasing our presence out there, I just can’t put an exact number on what the total number of hours will be, and we’ll be shifting to more of an evening schedule,” Russell said.
Russell and local Fish and Game officials said this week they’re hearing concerns about activity along the river.
The issue of how best to manage the site had persisted for about 15 years. More than a year of meetings resulted in a 45-page “Report on the Chilkoot River Corridor Strategic Planning Project,” in 2003 that included 13 goals for the corridor. They ranged from requesting Fish and Game seek alternatives to the salmon weir, to recommending hire of a “bear monitor” and providing a “no-stopping zone” lane for bears to travel undisturbed between the river and woods.
The state at one time employed a seasonal “bear monitor,” but that position went away “because of hierarchy questions of who’s in charge of what,” said Mike Eberhardt, regional parks superintendent.
“There’s no way we’re staffing it 24-7. We can’t control all the situations out there,” he said.