Two state scientists captured a female brown bear who has been seen with a snare around her neck along the Haines Highway.
Regional research coordinator Anthony Crupi and wildlife biologist Stephanie Sell were in the Haines area servicing trail cameras that are part of a multi-year brown bear research project.
The two also spent more than 10 hours over two days looking for the injured bear between mile 13 and 21 of the highway.
“This was in addition to the time other wildlife staff tried to find her during the moose hunt; we got lucky,” wrote Sell in an email.
Fish and Game regional supervisor Tom Schumacher said they knew about the bear because a lot of people had reported it.
The two biologists saw it on Oct. 14, darted it and were able to get the cable snare off the three- or four-year-old female.
“By all appearances it was a wolf snare that somebody likely set last winter,” he said. “We don’t know if the bear got into the snare last season or if it was one that was left out.”
He was not sure how long the bear had been dealing with the snare.
“It was long enough to cut into the skin but, you know, that could happen in the first few days,” he said.
Schumacher said he was told that the wound was fairly clean, but there was a bit of infection toward the underside of the neck. Crupi put a few sutures in the lower part of the neck wound to help close it up.
Schumacher said the bear appeared to be in good body condition and eating well.
“They gave it antibiotics and hoped for the best,” he said.