A tumultuous several days in the Lutak area ended with a veteran Alaska Department of Fish and Game employee walking off the job and a dead brown bear cub.
A crowd of bear viewers near the Chilkoot River weir ignored warning signs and ventured too close to a bear, pushing it toward Fish and Game salmon counter Dave Folletti.
Folletti couldn’t be reached for this story, but Fish and Game commercial fisheries biologist Mark Sogge said Folletti was frustrated by the lack of crowd control occurring at the weir. Sogge said bears often get sandwiched between crowds of tourists and the weir worker. Weir counters usually bang a pipe on the rails to scare the bears away but counters are hesitant to do so when people are nearby, Sogge said.
Despite Department of Natural Resources signs telling individuals to not crowd the area, many tourists either ignore the warnings or don’t read them at all.
“People can’t seem to stop themselves,” Sogge said. “There’s signs there that say, ‘No stopping, no standing on the shoulder.’ You’ll see a person standing right next to the sign. There it is right there saying ‘no standing’ and they’re standing right there because the bear takes priority in their minds. I’m not sure exactly what the solution is for DNR but it affects our people in that it raises the risk level.”
Rainbow Glacier Adventures bear-viewing guide Byrne Power has been leading tourists on bear tours for the past three seasons and said he’s seen buses, RVs and people all choking the area.
“Having come from New York City there was a sign that said ‘Don’t even think of parking here,'” Power said. “You need something that intensely strong. It’s not worded that way. As soon as you enter the road, the Chilkoot Corridor road, there should be signs right there.”
Both Sogge and Power said congestion and individuals ignoring signage has been going on for years.
“It’s always changing and there’s no learning process that goes on,” Sogge said.
Alaska Chilkoot Bear Foundation board president Pam Randles said four more signs have gone up to try and make people more aware of the rules.
“If people could understand that the reason we don’t want people in the crossing zone is because we don’t want to get the bear trapped like that, that would make all the difference,” Randles said.
Another factor complicating the situation are the young cubs that fish that section of the river with their mother, but haven’t learned to find their own food source, Randles said.
“They haven’t realized mom isn’t willing to subsidize them,” Randles said. “She will run them off through the crowds and people aren’t expecting that. All the sudden there’s this gigantic kerfuffle with running bears and everybody gets all freaked out.”
The Department of Natural Resources, along with the bear foundation, employ bear monitors.
Monitors survey the area 12 hours a day every day.
In other bear-related news, on July 28 a visitor struck a cub brown bear with his vehicle near 9 Mile Lutak Road. The bear ran into the woods after it was hit and the driver called wildlife trooper Trent Chwialkowski.
Chwialkowski found the cub three days later.
“The bear was located on Monday afternoon dead, and I removed it from the area,” Chwialkowski said. “It was a male, last year’s cub.”
Randles said the vehicle also struck the cub’s mother before it hit the cub.