A brown bear ambling around downtown Anchorage has been keeping wildlife authorities busy this week.
The grizzly bear, believed to be a young 250-pound female, has been sighted wandering from densely packed older neighborhoods in Spenard to the industrial Port of Anchorage, making her way around town when most of the city's residents are fast asleep in the early morning.
The daily sightings have drawn the concern of state Fish and Game biologist Rick Sinnott, who is trying to trap the bruin and relocate it out of the city. "She's not a troublemaker," Sinnott said. "But this is not an appropriate place for a brown bear."
Biologists estimate some 60 brown bears and 250 black bears live around the Anchorage area, from Portage to the Knik River. But while the black bears are commonly seen within the city, brown bears tend to hide from people and are for the most part unnoticed, keeping to themselves in the mountains.
This year, though, there has been a bumper crop of grizzlies seen in the city. Healthy cubs born two to three years ago in the mountains around Anchorage have become big bruins away from their mothers this year. State biologists are tracking eight that seem to be wandering into human territories and getting spotted regularly -- all of them in Eagle River and the Hillside, areas that border the wilds and make sense for bears to be in.
But for a brown bear to meander into the concrete and industrial Port of Anchorage and the railroad yard is unusual. For a brown bear to do it and be seen every day for a week is highly unusual, Sinnott said.
This brown bear is not a Dumpster diver and is not showing aggressive behavior to humans. Not yet, anyway, Sinnott said. He wants to ship her to a new locale, probably on the Kenai Peninsula, before that happens.
BEHAVING LIKE A YOUNG BEAR
The omnivore has, for the most part, been acting like a young brown bear should, said Sinnott's assistant, Jessy Coltrane, who has been tracking the animal.
She has been eating grass, picking up salmon carcasses and fishing for salmon in local creeks, including Fish and Ship creeks. She is likely still finding her niche in the bear world and learning how to fish on her own, Sinnott said.
Sylvia Elliot saw the bear Sunday night on Government Hill as she walked her Labrador/American Eskimo mix, Annie, around 8 p.m. near the Suzan Nightingale McKay Memorial Park. The dog locked into a smell in the hedge near a tall chain link fence dividing the park from Elmendorf Air Force Base, and the bear popped up its head on the other side of the fence, about 12 feet away.
"We both sort of gasped and jumped back," Elliot said. Thankfully, that fence was there, she said.
Later on Sunday night, the bear was spotted at the downtown Bridge Restaurant on Ship Creek Avenue, Coltrane said.
RAILROAD ON ALERT
Al Storey, a security officer at the Port of Anchorage, said has received three reports of the bruin around the port and sauntering into restricted areas.
Tim Thompson, spokesman for the Alaska Railroad, said workers have been alerted to the bear's presence and told to be careful around the rail yard. The fact that it would stay in the area surprises him and others that work at the railroad.
"It's not the quietest area," he said.
"She probably thinks she's hit a bonanza down there," Sinnott said of her at Ship Creek sightings. "There are no other bears around and she's got the fishing all to herself."
But that could lead to trouble if not stemmed, he and Coltrane said.
"We don't need our own Russian River in downtown Anchorage," Coltrane said.