Problem Bears in Girdwood

Ken Smith/Turnagain Times This bear with its cub was hanging around downtown Girdwood across from the Mercantile earlier this summer. The bear eventually prodded the cub to come down from the tree and wandered off towards Glacier Creek. Bears have been prevalent around the community, attracted to open containers of garbage and other food left outside.

By Rachel Drinkard
Turnagain Times Correspondent

Rosey Fletcher’s recent run-in with Girdwood’s best known mama bear, a black bear with three cubs, may have been the highest profile bear encounter, but it certainly wasn’t the only one.
Fletcher had a close brush with the bear Saturday, Aug. 23 after leaving the Alyeska Blueberry Festival. According to officials and witnesses, the bear seemed unhurt but definitely scared as she scurried off Arlberg Road to join her three cubs who had garnered plenty of attention in their own right after climbing some near-by trees.
The same bear and cubs have been roaming the area between Chair 7 and Glacier Creek all summer and are but a few of the bears sighted countless times by residents and visitors as they raided garbage cans and scavenged pet food, well on their way to what many call “Yogi bears” after the infamous cartoon picnic basket bandit.
But the problems these desensitized bears face are all too real as evidenced by the population in Valdez where no fewer than five black bears have already been shot this year by officials who have adopted a policy of destroying all bears wandering into town.
According to local wildlife biologist and bear expert Rick Sinnott, there have already been two bears destroyed in Girdwood and surrounding areas this year, including a black bear shot by a resident on Mt. Hood Road in Girdwood and a brown bear killed earlier this summer by a resident in Indian.  
A report by the security agency hired by Girdwood officials and Heritage Land Bank to patrol the area during Fourth of July weekend included a startling 15 bear sightings through the course of three days. The report included recommendations that next year’s security detail insure all officers be well trained to deal with bear run-ins.
“Most of the bear encounters in Girdwood are due to people attracting black bears with garbage, pet food, and bird seed,” said Sinnott. “Keeping garbage and other attractants away from bears is the single best thing we can do to minimize the number of black bears in the community.”
This may be easier said than done, especially with the increasingly innovative maneuvers by enterprising bears seeking to beat bear-proof containers.
After a summer of learning new stealth dog food burglarizing and dumpster raiding moves, even the fall may not bring relief as poor berry crops threaten to bring the bears back down from their usual forage in the mountains.
“Usually most of the black bears concentrate on berries beginning in August,” said Sinnott, “but the berries are ripening late this summer and I’ve had several reports of scarce berries in alpine areas.
The number of reported bear incidents has dropped off, a little later than usual, but I suspect we’ll see the black bears again in a month or so if the berry crops are poor.”