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Discover the heartbeat of Juneau's cultural and community landscape with 'Capital Chat.' This series explores the vibrant world of the community, arts, and dynamic cultural and social events happening in Alaska's Capital City. Tune in to 'Capital Chat' for your essential guide to the pulse of our community, where every story is an adventure and every voice matters.
Good morning. Eight forty. Joining me is Abby McAllister from, Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Abby, good morning. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Good morning. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:So, long weekend. I hope you had a good long weekend. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I I sure did. And you?
Speaker 1:Excellent. Excellent. I did a little fishing on Friday.
Speaker 2:Amazing.
Speaker 1:Made sure I got my license, which is very important. Didn't catch anything, but we had a great time, and the weather was perfect.
Speaker 2:It really was. That's why they call it fishing. You know?
Speaker 1:Right. So, let's start with our bear report and how we're doing so far. And by the way, before we get into that, you and I were talking off air here just a couple of minutes ago, because everybody's aware of the woman that was attacked by Baron Haines, and she's here in Juneau recovering. And what's her status as far as you know?
Speaker 2:Well, we we know that she's recovering. We know that, you know, she's she's on her way, and, you know, we're just we're just thankful that that things weren't worse. And what we what we can say is that, you know, we took, evidence from the scene, and, we we know that Haynes has dispatched a bear that was seen in the area, and we took evidence from that bear, and we're just waiting for results back to see, if it was the same bear that was involved in the attack. That's what we know.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That was a a brown bear.
Speaker 2:That was a brown Okay.
Speaker 1:So our bear report card for us here in Juneau, it it feels like they're more active this year, or is there just not have the salmon not come in to the extent that that the bears are used to at this time of the year?
Speaker 2:Sure. Sure. So we we feel the same, you know, but as far as bear calls go, like, monitor, we take every call that comes into our offices. We take stock of the calls that come into JPD and and also the Alaska wildlife troopers, and we we compile them into our database. And from what our numbers are saying is that we're kind of on par with what we've seen in the past year, so we're not we're not seeing an excessive amount of reports coming in.
Speaker 2:So that's positive. But that's also just what people are saying to us. So maybe people are seeing more than they're letting us know about. But but right now we're trending, kind of on par with what we've seen in the past. Things aren't out of control.
Speaker 2:And so that's that's good. You know, as far as that's what people can keep doing is like, if they see something that's really, really out of control or they're seeing, you know, something that shouldn't be happening like a bear that's getting into garbage repeatedly in an area, or maybe it's it's damaging things. That's something we do wanna hear about. What we don't wanna hear about necessarily if a bear is just doing bear things, just walking through a yard, eating berries, fishing in a stream, that's that's what a bear should be doing. So that's a okay.
Speaker 2:I monitor, you know, the the Juneau bear, sightings page on Facebook. That's a great place for people to share information like, hey, there's a bear in my yard and it's heading up this street. That's a really great place for people to share information. And I do monitor that and that that is a place where people might be like, woah, there's a lot of bear sightings around town. But sometimes it's just bears doing bear things.
Speaker 1:Is there a hot spot?
Speaker 2:Yes. There are hot spots. And I wanted to share a little bit about what we're seeing based on our reports. Because this sometimes when we have hotspots in town, it does give an opportunity for Juneau residents to say, maybe this is an opportunity for me to tighten things up a little bit, to secure our attractants, to secure our, trash a little bit better, or like tighten up our, chicken, electric fence coop situation, or maybe, harvest the fruit off of our fruit trees, or maybe just, make our neighbors are doing the right thing. And it's okay too to get our community service officers involved.
Speaker 2:Maybe that's their job, right? To come into the neighborhood and, do a little knocking and talking to our neighbors and say, Hey, this is actually a violation of our CBJ ordinance. And so, that's a place where they can be contacted and have them come in. Okay, let's talk hot spots. So, you know, so far this year, one of the hot spots has been I'm gonna start from lowest to highest.
Speaker 2:The Mendenhall Valley, we have a lot of people who live there, and, that's one of our hot spots. It always kind of will be potentially. And so folks who live there, as we head into the fall where bears go into hyperphagia, which just is a fancy word for saying really, really hungry, it's their last chance to put on fat that they need to successfully go through the denning season. So if you're in the Mendenhall Valley, just expect that like bears in that area are gonna be coming to transit through really, know that that's been one of our hotspots. Another one has been downtown.
Speaker 2:We've received in the downtown so far this season, about 97 bear calls just from the downtown area. Wow. So in comparison to the Minnehala Valley, that's about 52. Downtown, we've received about 97. So that's from the flats.
Speaker 2:That's from the downtown corridor. So, if you're in that area, just know, like, you really wanna tighten things up from down there. Coming in behind downtown, we have Lemon Creek and Switzer. So they're about 62 or so. We have removed some bears from that area, a couple families out of there.
Speaker 2:And so that's been another hot spot. All of these calls are really around unsecured trash. So these are all trash and the calls that we've gotten about trash totaled just in the month of August, about two twenty calls around trash. So really there's opportunities for improvement there, Juneau. We got this.
Speaker 2:But really I gotta say, you know, our biggest hotspot right now is is kind of is the is the landfill. The landfill's been doing an expansion project, which is great. We know that our landfill is in an aging process and part of that is expanding it, and making it so that it has more longevity for our town. And part of doing that project is, they took down part of their perimeter fence. And so since they took that down in June, that has been a big hot spot.
Speaker 2:Wildlife has been able to get in there. And so right now, that's been our biggest hot spot.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And so, they have a temporary fence up that they just got installed, which is awesome. And so they're working to make sure that, bears and other wildlife can't get in there right now. But that's been our biggest hot spot so far.
Speaker 1:Just as a reminder, what are the things you should never do with a bear?
Speaker 2:With a bear.
Speaker 1:Mean Or around a bear.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Sure. Absolutely. So, I mean, obviously, with a bear, the biggest thing is just, like, obviously, never run. But you also don't wanna surprise a bear.
Speaker 2:You know? You wanna make sure that you, move cautiously and calmly around a bear. In an urban setting, you know, sometimes bears can become what we call habituated, which means that, they're used to our presence. And in an urban setting, sometimes bears can also become food conditioned, which means that they learn to associate humans with a food source. Like, they think our trash is their food source.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And so when you combine those two things, you have a bear that isn't afraid of humans and also thinks that, like, our trash is their food source. Then you run into the situation where, like, they may not be scared off of your trash can or your neighbor's trash can or that food source easily. We see videos all the time of bears walking through Downtown Juneau when the bars are out, and they're walking right pie by people walking outside of the Alaskan. That is a habituated and food conditioned bear.
Speaker 1:Got it.
Speaker 2:Yes. Okay. And so, in those situations, when people are like, oh, this bear is not afraid of me. That is a situation where you do not want to get close to that bear. Right?
Speaker 2:You definitely want to still keep your distance because that is a bear that could react very unpredictably even though that bear looks very calm and collected. No. That's an actually a very dangerous situation.
Speaker 1:So, you know, it's interesting because we're we're talking to, you know, the folks that live here, and and we experience this, and then this is our day to day life. How challenging is it for your organization then to deal with influx of tourists every single day who don't have this kind of education and are going, I wanna see a bear while I'm here.
Speaker 2:Right. They have a box. They wanna check, and they're gonna check that box. You know, it can be a challenge because, yeah, they come to Alaska to see the bear, and then they're walking downtown. And there's a bear on the sidewalk, and they're basically all of a sudden mobbing this bear that's very used to be having humans around.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And they're a transient, audience that's, you know, here for six hours and gone, and then we do it all over again. Right. So it's a challenge, But so really the biggest thing is, right, don't give a reason for those bears to come into town in the first place. And and all of us can work together to do that.
Speaker 2:Business owners, residents, you know, tour operators, just to help spread the message and just really contain the that that food, that food source for bears. They are opportunistic. They will eat anything. They'll eat your leftover pizza over blueberries that they have to work really hard to get on the you know, on a bush or if it's a low berry year. If they have to chase salmon in a stream, they will eat like your leftovers any day of the week as opposed to having to expend calories to chase those fish in that stream.
Speaker 2:They absolutely will. So it's a challenge. But if I had to give Juneau, you know, how are we doing so far? Mhmm. I mean, I think we're doing good.
Speaker 2:I think we can do better. Not gonna lie.
Speaker 1:So on a report credit card scale then, where where are we? A b c d?
Speaker 2:I think I think depending on the part of town, you know, I think I think we got a b minus right now.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I think we can do better, guys. Yeah. And I think we have to do better because we're heading into hyperphagia. I think I because we're really and, and I know that people know because we have the research to prove it. I know that Juneau cares about bears.
Speaker 2:Maybe not everybody, but I think the majority of this town loves living in a place where we get to see wild bears walking through our backyard.
Speaker 1:No kidding. Right?
Speaker 2:I mean, how lucky are we?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Eagles above us, bears below us. You know, it's it's interesting. My wife and I love hiking, all the amazing trails that we have here. We were on East Glacier yesterday, and passed a tour group.
Speaker 1:There must have been 20 people hiking up, you know, East Glacier Trail. And, I'm going, how in this on this trail do we not see a bear?
Speaker 2:Right. Right. Right. Right. Well, probably because a lot of people transit that trail all
Speaker 1:the time.
Speaker 2:And it's very, like, well, if I don't have to be here. But, honestly, you know, too, like, how how do we wanna view our bears? Like, I would much rather watch a bear catching fish in Steep Creek all day
Speaker 1:long than From watching a distance.
Speaker 2:Right. Then eating trash in my backyard or my neighbor's, you know, backyard. For sure. I'd love to see that because also, a a a bear that's eating trash, it's so it's really not good for it. We did do, you know, I was we did do a site visit, recently in an urban setting, to a to a local neighborhood, and and we were walking around.
Speaker 2:And and it was kind of a a grim scene. We did see some some bear scat, and it did have, you know, like trash in it, and it was it was not what it was supposed to look like, and that was just a bummer. So, so, yeah, now's the time to double down. I I do think, one thing is, like, if folks do have trash that's repeatedly getting into, it's okay. Give us a call.
Speaker 2:We can talk you through your your your problems if you have them. If you're if you're having just like, gosh, I just can't seem to figure this out. We can help. Give us a call. We're happy to let you know.
Speaker 2:We we have a lot of ideas of of what might work. Ratchet straps, can sometime sometimes secure a can in ways, that might be helpful. If you have a can that just keeps getting into, if you don't have a secure garage to keep it inside, or another secure structure, we have solutions for that. We're always here to help. If you if you need to, like, borrow an electric fence, we have loaner electric fences.
Speaker 1:Really?
Speaker 2:Okay. Yeah. Absolutely. We have critter getters, which is basically just like, you're not gonna make friends with your neighbor with a critter getter, but it is a motion activated noisemaker. So you can put that up outside of, you know, any kind of structure.
Speaker 2:And if, it's triggered by motion, so if a bear is continually coming into your area, that will be triggered by motion and scare the bear off.
Speaker 1:Got it. Okay. Alaska Department of Fish and Game. What's the phone number and website folks, should have bookmarked somewhere?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So alaskabears.alaska.gov, is a great, source to go. You can go there and get all kinds of information because it has living with bears. It has how to recreate in bear country. It has kinds of resources and links, for how to, how to basically like use an electric fence, how to, how to, if you are gonna recreate in bear country, how to use bear spray, how to basically live in harmony with bears.
Speaker 2:And if you need to call us and you need to talk to us, 465-4265, that's 424654265. That's our Douglas office. And we're happy to answer any questions. That's also the same number that you would call if you need to make a report about a bear in your neighborhood that's doing things it shouldn't be doing. And then if you need to get ahold of community service officer with the Juneau Police Department, you wanna call their nonemergency line.
Speaker 1:Got it. Thanks for protecting the Bears and keeping an eye on us and, for the information this morning. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Thank you for having me.