August 28, 2014 – Five brown bears killed this month

Two weeks after the Celebration of Bears festival promoted safe coexistence with the animals, wildlife troopers report five brown bears were shot in Haines this month.

On Aug. 9, a 48-year-old Haines man shot a large, male brown bear in self-defense on his FAA Road property. Instead of reporting the incident, the man buried the bear in his yard with a backhoe.

Troopers say the man failed to report the defense of life or property incident and failed to salvage and surrender the bear to the Department of Fish and Game. He was issued a summons for a Sept. 4 arraignment.

On Aug. 10, a 23-year-old Haines man chased a sow and two cubs away from his residence near 7.5 Mile Haines Highway. The man followed and shot all three bears, hiding their carcasses in the woods farther down the highway.

The man was issued a summons for three counts of taking a brown bear during a closed season and three counts of unlawful possession of game. His arraignment is Sept. 4.

Another brown bear was shot at a 6 Mile Haines Highway residence Monday after it charged a man trying to enter his house. After investigation, troopers determined the shooting by Gary McConnell was justified under provisions allowing taking bears in defense of life or property.

None of the shot bears were tagged, wildlife trooper Ken VanSpronsen said, though the carcasses of the sow and cubs have not yet been located.

The bear killed on FAA Road was about 8 to 9 feet long, VanSpronsen said.

It was shot in the chest with a rifle, he said.

VanSpronsen speculated the bear was possibly a repeat offender from last year. “If I had to guess just from looking at pictures, this is the bear Mike (Dorris) at the dump had problems with last year,” he said.

VanSpronsen speculated the man buried the bear because he didn’t want to deal with it. “You don’t want it to smell. You get rid of it.”

Even in cases involving defense of life or property, people are required to immediately report such incidents to state authorities. They also are required to salvage the hide and skull and surrender them to Fish and Game.

“It’s a lot of work to skin a bear. It’s hours and hours of stinking nastiness,” VanSpronsen said. “You do all the work and get nothing from it.”

Trooper Sgt. Aaron Frenzel, who worked on the case when VanSpronsen was out of town, said he wouldn’t elaborate on the circumstances behind the shooting. “We can’t comment too much on it right now, because it’s still in the criminal proceeding. He did claim it was to defend his life,” Frenzel said.

Troopers found out about the buried bear via an anonymous complaint. “Haines is a small community. Word got around and we received a complaint about it,” Frenzel said.

Juneau troopers traveled to Haines a week after the shooting and exhumed the bear for examination.

Frenzel said troopers found out about the 7.5 Mile Haines Highway shooting of the sow and two cubs with help from social media.

“We received a complaint from an individual in Haines that provided us Facebook photographs of the (23-year-old) subject with the bear,” Frenzel said. “We had received information that one bear was killed. Investigation revealed actually three bears had been killed.”

VanSpronsen traveled up the highway to look for the bear carcasses Monday after speaking with the 23-year-old shooter, who gave him directions to the carcasses.

“I spent all day looking for the carcasses, but I couldn’t find them,” VanSpronsen said. “He went through some effort. He drug them up there, drug them under a big tree away from the road and walking trails so no one would ever find them.”

Frenzel said the carcasses may have been moved, or taken by other animals. Anyone with information regarding the location of the carcasses should call troopers at 766-2533 or 465-4000.

Frenzel wouldn’t comment on why the 23-year-old decided to follow and shoot the bears after they left the area. “Since it’s an active case, we can’t comment on that right now.”

VanSpronsen ventured a guess. “There are still certain families in this town who believe you shoot everything you see. They have an inability to deal with bears,” he said.

Of this month’s shootings, Gary McConnell was the only one who handled the situation correctly. “He did everything he was supposed to do,” VanSpronsen said.

Dorothy McConnell said in an interview Wednesday the ordeal started Monday when she saw the bear sitting in the yard breaking trees. Her husband Gary was outside in a garage with a friend, about 150 yards down the trail, so Dorothy tried to get the bear to leave. She yelled, blew an air horn the couple keeps in the house for such occasions, and threw items on the deck, including chairs, five-gallon buckets and bug spray.

“He didn’t flinch,” Dorothy said.

When Gary returned from the garage with their dog, the bear charged the dog twice. Gary ran into the house and grabbed a shotgun and shell crackers, which make a loud noise similar to an M-80 firecracker explosion. He fired several shots over the bear’s head, and still the bear didn’t leave.

The McConnells called troopers and police, who responded and shot the bear with rubber bullets and more shell crackers. The bear still didn’t respond.

“That bear was scary,” VanSpronsen said. “He had absolutely zero fear. Even after I shot him with a rubber bullet, he just sat there and looked at me.”

The bear finally made its way back into the woods and appeared to have left. Troopers and police departed. Gary went back to the garage with two dogs to continue his work, but took a handgun with him as a precaution.

When he tried to return to the house, the dogs refused to go down the trail. He saw the bear in the yard again, ran into the house and grabbed the shotgun and more shell crackers. By the time he emerged again to shoot the warning shots, the bear had wandered into the woods.

Gary walked back down the trail to get the dogs, and when he started back toward the house, the bear was back. He shot it with the handgun.

“The bear was right there,” Dorothy said. “The dog started growling at the bear, and the bear turned and started charging Gary and the dog. There was nothing he could do.”

“We subsistence hunt. We never trophy hunt. In the 26 years we’ve lived here, we’ve had a lot of problem bears and we’ve never had to shoot one. It was very upsetting that we had to shoot it. It was something that we definitely tried not to do, but we had no choice,” Dorothy said.

Troopers said the McConnells kept their property free of bear attractants, including by picking their cherry tree clean and securing garbage in a locked structure.

Dorothy referred to the experience as “unsettling” and “disturbing,” causing Gary to shake after killing the animal.

“It was a beautiful bear, and it was his place,” Dorothy said. “It felt terrible.”

Great Bear Foundation executive director Shannon Donahue said the McConnells’ situation was very unfortunate, as the bear likely had been habituated to expect garbage or food by others.

“You can have a case where the individual does everything right, but other people might not have,” Donahue said. “Sometimes, people end up in a difficult situation that they don’t deserve.”

A shift from individual responsibility to community responsibility would be one change that could address the problem of conflicts with bears. “If people are irresponsible with their garbage or bear attractants, it’s not just endangering them. It’s endangering the whole community.”

The Celebration of Bears festival, held Aug. 15-16, also tried to foster a general respect for bears, to avoid situations like the Aug. 10 shooting of the sow and two cubs for no apparent reason.

“Wildlife in general needs to be respected. There are certainly situations where bears become problem bears and may need to be put down, but those things are preventable,” Donahue said. 

August 26, 1999 – Eagle back on the job

The man who makes a most convincing eagle call once again has an outfit and routine to go with his shrill whistle. 

Raymond Sheppard, local jokester and boulevardier, is back to work as a professional eagle, now walking a beat on Main Street near Second Avenue on cruise ship nights. 

Sheppard, 52, greeted ships at the Port Chilkoot Dock for the City of Haines until about five years ago when he quit, citing low pay. He was making $10 per ship.

Sheppard got back into the business when his brother found an eagle costume in a catalog and gift shop owner Marilyn Josephson offered pay at twice the city’s former rate. 

“I enjoy doing it but I get paid for it, too. I have such a big mouth, I can’t stop talking to people anyway, “Sheppard said in an interview this week. 

His routine for tourist: “I just walk up to them, give them a big hug and tell them welcome to Haines and hope they have a nice time here.”

Josephson said the act is a hit. “People just love Ray. They respond to him. He’s gotten all kinds of addresses of people and he gives them his card (and address).”

It’s nice to give something back to Sheppard, who’s a regular candy customer and also brings treats to her employees, Josephson said. Plus she figures a man-sized bird out front helps business. “It probably makes people stick around a little longer.” 

Friends including Tom Clay and Pastor Pat Jeffrey, helped Sheppard find his own outfit, replacing one that’s owned by the city. “Raymond is a fun guy and it was fun doing it. It’s a good deal all the way around,” Clay said.

The new costume is okay, but the headpiece is “like an oven” inside and its leggings were yellow and black stockings he’s replaced with yellow socks, Sheppard said. 

“You don’t see an eagle with black stripes around their legs,” he said. He also said he takes breaks from the job to play bingo.

August 29, 1974 – St. Louis Jazz Quartet

The St. Louis Jazz Quartet, who had their Haines audience enthusiastically asking for more of their foot-stomping music during their appearance in March of 1973, will be back. 

The Quartet will open the 1974-1975 Haines Artists Series with a performance Saturday, Sept. 14 at the Chilkat Center. 

The group features the multitalented Jeanne Trevor, vocalist; Terry Kippenberger, bass and bass guitar; Ed Nicholson, keyboard instruments and Charles Payne, percussionist. 

“We’re interested in all forms of music as long as it’s good, and that includes blues, ballads, gospel, pop and rock as well as the most sophisticated sounds of Eastern and classical music,” says Kippenberger, “but our main interest lies in the jazz field and all the other sounds we explore have a jazz flavor to them.” 

The Haines Artists Series is sponsored in part by the Alaska State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. Locally, it is sponsored by the Lynn Canal Community Players, Inc., and many local residents and businesses. 

This year’s Haines Artists Series is expected to contain five performances, of which three have firm dates and the other two will be announced later. The St. Louis Jazz Quartet will open the series; in November the Pro Musica Early Music Touring Ensemble will appear; and in February the McLain Family Bluegrass Band will play at Haines. Arrangements are still being made for an orchestral performance and a solo instrumentalist. 

Season tickets this year for the series will be $15 single and $30 for a family. Tickets will go on sale sometime next week; location will be announced by poster and in the newspaper next week.