The Haines Borough Assembly is refining an ordinance specifying what constitutes a bear attractant in preparation for the upcoming bear season. Discussion at a meeting Feb. 9 focused on when a townsite property owner should be required to secure fruit trees with an electric fence.
“If somebody has an orchard that consists of a significant number of fruit trees, it might be wise for them to protect their orchard with an electric fence to keep bears out, but if you just have two, three, four, five fruit trees in your yard and they’re scattered around (it’s challenging to fence them),” assembly member Paul Rogers said.
Rogers proposed an amendment adding orchards to the list of bear attractants that must be secured via electric fence or other bear-proofing method, which the assembly unanimously approved.
In an interview Feb. 10, ordinance author and Bear Task Force chair Derek Poinsette said he supports making a distinction between orchards and stand-alone fruit trees when it comes to bear attractant code, but he said he thinks the wording of the ordinance might need refining at future meetings to achieve this goal.
“I like the idea of defining a threshold. If you just have one tree or random berry bushes, then I think it’s reasonable to exclude those (from the fencing requirement),” Poinsette said, adding that a tree laden with more than one-half gallon of fruit counts as a bear attractant under both current code and the proposed revisions.
“Under the current code, fruit on the tree or on the ground is a bear attractant. How most people in Haines deal with that is they pick the fruit. (If the ordinance passes,) people can continue to do that. They don’t have to put the fence up,” he said.
The assembly approved a second amendment on Feb. 9 that exempts cows, in addition to horses, from the list of livestock considered a bear attractant if left unsecured.
“The thinking of the Bear Task Force was to address what we identified as the major contributors to bear-human conflict, which are commercial dumpsters; residential trash cans; unsecured livestock, which were mostly chickens and ducks, but occasionally pigs and goats; fruit trees; compost; and unsecured outdoor freezers,” Poinsette said at Tuesday’s meeting.
During the Feb. 10 interview, Poinsette said the ordinance isn’t designed to make any big changes to what’s considered a bear attractant. Instead, the hope is to create a clear set of rules for property owners.
“(The existing code) is so vague. It leaves it all up to police officers’ interpretation to enforce. I’m hoping (these changes) will be helpful and will let people know what they’re supposed to do,” Poinsette said. He said he researched bear attractant code in other Alaska communities when drafting the ordinance.
The bear attractants ordinance is scheduled for a second public hearing on Feb. 23. The code change is part of the assembly’s efforts to take proactive steps to prevent a repeat of last year’s bear season. The past few years, the borough has experienced a rise in bear-caused property damage, and bears shot in defense of life and property. In 2020, at least 26 bears were shot in the Haines Borough outside of hunting season.