Authorities had to kill four bears in Sitka earlier this month in defense of life and property, so Bear Awareness Day on June 15 felt especially timely this year. The event took place at Fortress of the Bear in collaboration with The Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Defenders of Wildlife, Sitka National Historical Park and the U.S. Forest Service.
The bear-resistant trash can demonstration is the highlight of the now-annual event. The bears tried to break into a variety of trash cans filled with food, struggling with the bear-resistant models but dispensing easily with the regular trash can.
“You can see how easy it is for the bears to get into that and find food really quickly,” bear curator Claire Turner told the assembled crowd. “Whereas these other two cans are really giving them a run for their money.”
Turner is in charge of bear care at Fortress of the Bear which looks after orphaned bears in an educational environment. As dozens of visitors watched from the facility’s overhead walkway, a trio of resident brown bears pushed the trash cans around, clawed at them, tried to bite into the thick layers of plastic, and jumped up and down on them.
“We’re really fortunate our bears are willing to be testers and ambassadors for their species. This is great enrichment for them. It’s really good and physical for them in terms of exercise; it’s engaging mentally. You can see them trying to figure out the ways things might work,” Turner said.
After the bears had spent a while trying to break into the fortified cans, Turner asked the crowd to think about the real world implications.
“One of these cans that’s taking our bears in excess of 5, 10, 15 minutes to get into, it’s unlikely that wild bears would spend that kind of time without it getting any kind of reward. This is the kind of can we need all over town,” she said. ” It does help them learn that this is not a viable food source for them.”
Wildlife biologist Steve Bethune of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game drove home the same message.
“As you can see the cans are taking a beating and they’re not having any success,” Bethune said. “It’s a great argument for the City of Sitka someday going to a system with these cans.”
Switching all of Sitka’s trash cans to state-of-the-art bear resistant ones would cost an estimated 1.5 million dollars. But Claire Turner made the case for starting small.
“We’d love to see, even if we were not to try and replace all 3000 cans in town immediately, maybe we just buy a few and we test out in those areas that get higher bear traffic and see what kind of difference it makes.”
Even without bear resistant trash cans, the experts at Bear Awareness Day reiterated how important it is to stay vigilant about items that could attract bears. They suggested keeping trash inside until pick up day and even freezing it if need be.
“With no salmon quite yet or very few it’s a really important time of year to help teach bears an urban area is not a place to find a meal,” Fish and Game Education and Outreach Specialist Abby McAllister said. “They’re opportunistic, they’re omnivores; this time of year food is scarce and they’ll find a meal wherever they can find it. If they can’t find it in town they’ll find it elsewhere.”
The day also included presentations on bear spray, electric fencing and other information on how to prevent, avoid and survive encounters with bears.
“Everyone here is passionate about trying to keep bears safe,” Turner said. “If it keeps wild bears safe, it keeps us safe too; it keeps local dogs safe; it keeps kids safe.”
