People, Bears Struggle To Share Habitat Human Encroachment Creates Conflicts On The Last Frontier

The brown bear hunting season was canceled last year to protect bears struggling to survive the onslaught of development on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula., But bears are being shot anyway in self-defense incidents that are becoming more frequent where urban and wild Alaska are locked in a confrontation as old as the American frontier.

Biologists say the rising number of bears shot in defense of life or property will probably mean closing next fall’s bear hunt, the second cancellation in a row.

“Mankind is slowly and methodically encroaching on the bear’s habitat,” said state Fish and Game biologist Chuck Schwartz.

The cubs of a sow bear that had been shot last summer had a rough autumn. Some people started feeding them salmon scraps, drawing them toward boats and houses.

Then on Sept. 26, one of the cubs showed up in a subdivision. The father of a 15-month-old girl shot the bear near his yard, citing the potential danger to children in the neighborhood.

As recently as the early 1990s, the Kenai saw only three or four defensive shootings a year. From the summer of 1994 to the summer of 1995, eight bears were killed. From July through December, another eight defensive killings were investigated.

The Kenai Peninsula’s brown bear population is considered stable at nearly 300. But biologists are alarmed by the sudden increase in defensive killings.

The bear population, isolated from the rest of Alaska by mountains and glaciers, can sustain the loss of 15 bears a year, including no more than five or six females, biologists say.

But they report that the rapid spread of new logging roads, the expansion of sport fishing along bearfeeding salmon streams and the general growth of housing will put the bears increasingly at risk.

“It’s amazing, with what we’ve learned (through history), that we’re doing the same thing,” said Rod Arno, a hunting guide and president of the Alaska Outdoor Council.

“As more and more people are getting out there, there will be more conflicts. We haven’t set a limit on how much development the Kenai’s going to take.”