Are the bears green with envy? Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day? Trying for a punk rock look?
Two green-splashed bears puzzled Haines locals and tourists alike along the Chilkoot River last week.
“It’s really a complete crazy mystery,” said Carl Koch, a wildlife biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
So far, no one has figured out what happened. Or admitted to doing the deed.
Although Haines locals are used to seeing brown bears, black bears and the occasional glacier bear, green bears are a rare sight to behold.
Koch said the green-colored sow and her cub were first seen at 6 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 31 in a Haines resident’s yard. Tom Ganner, photographer and bear monitor at Chilkoot, took photos of the bears near the river later that day.
Ganner’s photos shared on his photography Facebook page, Time & Space, and on the Friends of Chilkoot Facebook page show the cub was solidly covered in green from its face and head to its waist and down one front leg. The sow had green on her head, neck and shoulders.
“They were so well covered,” Ganner said. “Would there be that much paint in one can?”
News about the green bears quickly circulated, and the photos generated speculation about the painted bear mystery.
On Facebook, some people thought the bears may have accidentally got into a paint-filled dumpster, or bit into a spray paint can that exploded.
Others speculated the paint job could have been intentional to make the bears less attractive for tourist photos.
Koch theorized that the bears may have startled someone who could have sprayed them with an industrial paint sprayer.
Koch also wondered if the paint also could have fallen from above to cover the bears. Bears will happily dig through trash unless it’s a painful or negative experience, he said.
Pamela Randles, president of the Alaska Chilkoot Bear Foundation, said in a Facebook post that she and long-time Haines resident Richard Buck went looking for any trace of green paint in Haines and found nothing.
Some Facebook commenters were worried that the bears would ingest the possibly toxic substance or it would injure their eyes, especially for the cub. But Koch said both bears “are acting like bears” with no obvious signs of sickness.
He and Ganner said after a week it looks like the color is fading. Koch said he’s never heard about other painted bear incidents in the state, and said he doesn’t expect to learn an answer to this mystery anytime soon. “I may never know,” he said.
Turns out it’s not easy being green.