Alaska Wildlife Trooper Colin Nemec said two of the bears he and Haines Police officer Brayton Long shot last Monday near Small Tracts Road were in the process of tearing through the siding and insulation of a resident’s guest house.

As of Wednesday morning, 17 bears have been killed in the Haines Borough this year, 11 in the townsite and six outside the townsite, according to Alaska Department of Fish and Game data. Law enforcement have killed 10 bears including four cubs that couldn’t survive on their own. Three bears have been wounded, but are not confirmed dead.

Residents were surprised by gunfire last week as law enforcement officers killed four bears. Residents reported dozens of shots fired and one said an injured bear with blood on its head ran through her yard during the shooting. Nemec, who was unavailable for comment last week after the incident, told the CVN Monday morning that he and Long killed four bears that arrived at the scene and displayed aggression.

“They literally ripped a side of the building off,” Nemec said of the first two bears officers encountered. “They went through the 2x4s and the insulation and the siding to get through to the house. We got ten to fifteen feet away from the bears and tried to scare them away. They didn’t leave. They bolstered up to us. We agreed to dispatch them.”

Nemec said they shot one of the bears and the other ran off. They were unable to fire again because of an unsafe backdrop, Nemec said. When the officers returned to the original scene, two more bears had arrived.

“We shot one of those because they were displaying a possessive aggression toward that cabin, like it was their food source they were protecting,” Nemec said. “As we were taking care of those, we had others come back at us, getting back on their hind haunches. The bears were seeing the shed they were destroying as theirs, that they needed to defend it.”

One bear was wounded and the officers tracked it, but were unable to locate it because they lost the blood trail.

Nemec says eight bears approached the officers and that some of the gunfire residents heard was the sound of rubber bullets and “cracker rounds,” a shotgun type round designed to scare wildlife.

“We did scare several bears away,” Nemec said. “We fired cracker rounds and some rubber bullets to try and scare the bears away. (We shot) the ones that were either in the process of tearing down the building or the ones who weren’t scared away by our presence or by our shouting. We didn’t track these bears down. They came to us.”

Nemec said the police department received 24 calls related to property damage in the two weeks prior to the event, many of the calls from people living on Small Tracts Road and near 24 Mile Haines Highway.

“This weekend I’ve had reports of six bears entering property and three reports of bears charging people,” Nemec said.

On Monday morning, Nemec said he hazed a bear using cracker rounds on Young Road that promptly ran away because of the noise. “It was afraid of us and that’s what we like to see,” Nemec said.

Luck Dunbar’s storage facility was severely damaged by bears last weekend. Bears ripped the doors off eight storage areas. On Sunday, a week after the four bears were shot by police, the storage area was damaged again.

When asked if residents are leaving out bear attractants, Nemec said police aren’t seeing many citable offenses. Police have issued two such citations this year.

“There’s berries and fruit trees everywhere,” Nemec said. “There’s going to be bears in town because it is a food source for them. If (people) are leaving trash out, if they are leaving compost unattended and we have to respond to calls, those people will definitely be getting tickets.”

In Juneau, nine bears have been killed this year. Juneau Police Department officers have issued 33 citations this year, according to Community Services officer Bob Dilley, who said the department is receiving many reports of damage related to bears this year. The Juneau police department has five “community service” officers that largely respond to bear calls.

Shannon Donahue, executive director of the Great Bear Foundation, said the Haines townsite will always have bears passing through as they travel to various food sources. Whether those sources are from human or natural sources is up to the community, she said.

“If one person in a neighborhood is rewarding bears by leaving attractants out, they can cause trouble for everyone, and bears will stick around and get into our stuff,” Donahue said. “If they keep getting rewards, that’s when we get situations like what we’ve been seeing this summer–where bears find meals in enough people’s sheds that they start breaking into structures even when there’s not an overwhelming attractant, because they’ve had enough luck in the past.”

Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist Carl Koch last week said he’s seeing instances of sheds and vehicles with food and trash in them that might not always be considered nuisances, but should be secured to prevent property damage.

“When someone calls me, we go down this list: chickens, garbage, freezers. Often there’s something. It may be something that would not be illegal under statute, but I’m still very often going to ask them to secure it and suggest ways to do it.”

He said local police often choose to educate people about bear attractants.

“When I talk to the police and I say hey looks like there is trash involved, they have determined that the best course of action is education.”

Fish and Game provides electric fences to residents during bear season and a local group of volunteers have been volunteering to pick fruit trees for residents. Call the public library at 766-6420 for more information on fruit picking options.

Haines Borough code states that “material completely enclosed in a structure or container which requires hand tools to open” does not qualify as a bear attractant. That’s in line with Sitka and Juneau law except that those municipalities’ codes goes on to specify that such a container would be considered a nuisance if it has proven ineffective to withstand entry by a bear whether by design or improper use.