wildlife biologist is encouraging residents to lock their vehicle doors after myriad reports of a bear opening car doors.
“In the last five days I’ve been getting reports of bears that have learned how to open car doors and it’s happening in more than one location,” Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist Carl Koch told the CVN Tuesday.
Jayme Dozier said for the past three mornings she’s awakened to her Subaru’s doors wide open with paw prints covering the exterior. She also owns a Ford Expedition that a bear had damaged.
“It climbed all over the car and broke the back windshield wiper,” Dozier said.
Koch said he’s gotten reports of at least six accounts of a bear opening vehicle doors including a pickup truck at a residence near the landfill, and a vehicle near the Haines Senior Center.
“Several days ago, a person looked out in the middle of the night and saw two of their doors open and a neighbor had a pickup truck with two doors open,” he said. “We’re going to recommend keeping doors locked. If they climb in when they open the door and the door shuts on them, it’s a disaster. They can deploy air bags and really tear stuff up.”
Koch advised residents to remove any bear attractant from their vehicles.
“Keep them clean,” Koch said of vehicles. “If you have something that smells good and you lock your car, any bear might break in to get to it.”
Residents experienced similar problems beginning in October 2020, the year dozens of bears were shot by residents and police outside of hunting season. By October of that year police received a record 368 bear-related calls. Koch estimated at the time that one or more bears had broken into more than a dozen vehicles, many on Young Road. One bear had locked itself in a car and destroyed the interior.