A brown/grizzly bear with Bear Valley takeout/Nextdoor
See no evil, hear no…
Update:
A late-to-the party Alaska Department of Fish and Game has now added some new information to what happened in Bear Valley while managing to ignore the issue of what appears to be a garbage-habituated Bear Valley brown/grizzly bear that has been aggressive toward people.
The new information is that there were two unidentified hikers – not one – involved in the encounter which took place “on a narrow, switch-backed trail uphill from the Bear Valley neighborhood, in an area with heavy vegetation and low visibility.”
There are a variety of trails in Bear Valley that fit this description, as well as in the adjacent Paradise and Rabbit Lake valleys. It couldn’t be considered ”common” to run into bears on these trails, but it’s also not uncommon. A friend and I almost t-boned a black bear one day while mountain-biking down a trail coming off the top of the ridge south of the end of Brewster’s Road while making one hell of a lot of noise to warn any bears in the area.
As Fish and Game is reporting this case, that “bear came out of the dense alders.” The agency says it “made brief contact with one of the hikers, and left the scene.”
What “brief contact” means is anyone’s guess. The sexes and ages of the unidentified hikers were not disclosed, although the injured hiker has been identified elsewhere as a 57-year-old woman. A smallish, aging woman run into by a bear could suffer cracked ribs or other sorts of injuries, or she could have been bitten or clawed.
“High winds and inclement weather conditions at the time of the encounter may have increased the chance that the bear was surprised by the hikers and their dogs, even if they were making noise,” the Fish and Game statement said. All of that statement can be read here: https://nextdoor.com/p/hD3N7_bXfbdQ?ct=hIQz9Qw2vmfss99z3vhTA-N0BwUiJ4IIDkHf1sgxdhtapgptgYgYs0VlTEW-zgkj&ec=qvcg0QMSzxDctYMCWePFXg%3D%3D&link_source_user_id=16526737&mobile_deeplink_data=eyJhY3Rpb24iOiAidmlld19wb3N0IiwgInBvc3QiOiA0OTY2NzIzMjF9&post=496672321&s=dv2§ion=post_1
“A single brown bear was later spotted by APD’s drone on a nearby hillside,” the statement said. It made no mention of whether the agency thought that bear might have been involved or not. Any number of bears, both brown and black, range into Bear Valley as Fish and Game noted:
“Reports of brown bears and black bears in this area, which borders Chugach State Park, are received every year.”
These reports are many. Anyone interested in them might want to bookmark the Anchorage Bear Tracker site on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AnchorageBearTracker. You can there see plenty of photos of bears in Anchorage every day.
“At least one moose kill has been reported nearby (in Bear Valley) and there is the potential for bears to cache and defend food sources,” Fish and Game added. It did not say whether the moose kill was of an adult or a calf, or whether the agency had cleaned up the kill in the name of public safety, as it has sometimes done in the past with the adult moose. A grizzly can usually clean up a calf in a day by itself, thus eliminating the attraction.
The agency did not mention whether it found any ripped-up garbage bags in the of the attack. But the attack took place in a brushy area between two distinct parcels of development in the valley. This is the sort of terrain into which a bear might drag that garbage to be out of sight while dining.
“There are multiple trails in this area crossing through private and municipal lands,” Fish and Game said. “ADF&G is placing signs and flagging at trailheads warning people of recent bear activity.”
Whether the signage went up because the agency has some reason to believe there is a food source keeping the bear in the area or simply for public-relations value was not revealed. Unless there is such a food source, the likelihood is that the bear is long gone, and hikers should treat all the trails in Bear Valley and adjacent valleys, and in Bicentennial Park, the Campbell Tract, or Chugah State Park as if they have signs and flagging warning them of bears.
Bears can be encountered pretty much anywhere in Anchorage, including bears with “food sources.” Earlier this week, there was a report of a bear and two cubs on a moose kill in an undeveloped tract of land around Alaska Pacific University near Midtown.
Fish and Game did confirm that an “off-leash dog” that had originally been thought to have been killed by the Bear Valley bear was safe. It did not say where the dog or other dogs were at the time of the bear attack.
Dogs can be a liability in bear encounters. Some have been known to charge at bears only to bring a pursuing bear back to their owner.
Dogs can also be an asset in bear country. They have far better noses and ears than humans, which allows them to detect a bear long before an owner is aware of the bear. Some dogs have also been known to drive off attacking bears.
But it all depends on the dog. Suffice to say that unless a dog owner knows specifically how his or her dog behaves around bears, it is best to keep it in sight and under control, be that on a leash or by voice command, in bear country.
Fish and Game’s statement did also offer a sensible safety warning: “There are many private and public trails throughout Anchorage and the surrounding area that are overgrown at this time of year with tall grass and leafed out shrubs, which can greatly increase the chances of surprise encounters with wildlife. Traveling in groups, making noise, carrying (a) deterrent, having control of your pets and carrying communication when out hiking are all important general safety guidelines to follow when hiking in bear country.”
There are, however, a couple of caveats to this warning.
“Making noise” when hiking into howling Hillside winds is pretty much pointless. It can be hard to even hear yourself yelling in such winds. A better idea, if it is very windy, is to hike in areas with good sight lines so you can see what is around you.
Bears, like most other wildlife, tend to seek shelter when the weather is especially bad and thus are unlikely to be in these areas to begin with.
The second caveat is that carrying a deterrent, whether it is bear spray or a firearm, is pointless unless you know how to use the deterrent. If you plan to carry a deterrent, learn how to use it. Inert bear spray for practice is available from Eagle Enterprises and 6th Avenue Outfitters in Anchorage, or you can use up an expired can of bear spray for practice.
In the latter case, just be sure to use the spray in an open area, where it will disperse widely and quickly, and shoot it downwind. The pepper in the spray is noxious. You don’t want it coming back into your face or sticking to brush along a trail where some might get it on their clothes, only to touch their clothes and eventually end up getting pepper in an eye. It burns like hell.
The original story follows:
What if a bear mauled someone in Anchorage and no one in officialdom said a word?
I spent much of my Sunday mulling this question after a mauling in the Bear Valley area of the Anchorage Hillside Saturday evening. “News” of this attack quickly spread on social media, but finding out what actually happened proved frustratingly difficult.
The Anchorage Police Department, the Anchorage Fire Department, Alaska Fish and Wildlife troopers, and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game all responded to aid someone described on Nextdoor, a social media website, as a 57-year-old woman attacked near Brewsters Drive.
Trying to find out more from authorites provided futile. Facebook messages, phone calls, emails and texts all went unanswered. It almost appeared that the news might never leak out.
The good news is that Anchorage’s mainstream media isn’t totally dead, and a bit of the story popped up late Sunday with KTUU-TV reporting this:
“First responders found the woman and took her to the hospital for treatment. APD said that the woman received non-life threatening injuries. Alaska’s News Source reached out to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game but did not immediately hear back.”
Maybe there is a reason KTUU didn’t hear back. Maybe the reason is that there is a whole lot more to this story.
Bear Valley has for weeks been home to a brown/grizzly bear that developed a taste for garbage. Residents of the area repeatedly turned to social media to post photos of this bear getting into garbage, with one of them describing it as a weekly issue.
But that wasn’t all.
More than two weeks ago, a resident of Bear Valley posted this on Nextdoor:
“Heads up for the Bear Valley neighborhood. We are the lone house on our side of Robert Drive. The Cinnabon (sic) bear has charged us three times in three weeks, the last being yesterday, trapping my housemate in her car for more than 30 minutes. Does not run from voice or from gunshots any longer. We notified Fish and Game, and it was recommended that we should shoot if he charges again. Please be aware of your surroundings and know he is now prone to charging. It breaks my heart that they cannot tranquillize remove him.”
The Cinnabon bear is a reference to a young brown/grizzly some Bear Valley residents have been having trouble distinguishing from a cinnamon-colored black bear.
A Nextdoor photo from July 2 of the bear causing confusion. The smallish, roundish ears and the blocky head are brown/grizzly telltales. The Greater Yellowstone Coalition might have one of the best online identification guides for those wanting to learn more
Big differences
A black bear conditioned to feeding on garbage is one thing. My Hillside neighbors once got a good laugh out of my rushing out of the house with broom in hand, wearing nothing but my running shorts, to drive off a garbage-curious black bear one garbage-pickup morning.
I wouldn’t encourage anyone to do this, but I’ve long been of the personal view that if you can’t intimidate a curious black bear with a club, you probably shouldn’t be running around in the Alaska wilderness, as I often did and still do.
Brown/grizzly bears, however, are a different species, and they behave differently. You’d have to be braver than me, or dumber, to go after one with a broom.
These bears are well-known for being especially protective of what they consider ‘their’ food. After my wife was charged by a brown/grizzly near the community mailboxes on Goldenview Drive one morning, I loaded up the shotgun and trucked on down to the mailboxes to investigate for this very reason.
If someone had tossed out garbage there or salmon waste, problems in places on the Hillside especially during the salmon dipnetting season, there was a good likelihood a bear might have found these treats and decided to protect them, which creates a dangerous situation at a place that attracts people every day.
Thankfully, there was no food to be found anywhere. Thankfully, too, Robbie held her ground when the bear charged, made herself look as big as possible, and got to watch the bear stop, make the decision not to mess with her and depart.
This is usually what happens in surprise encounters with brown/grizzly bears in Alaska. But it is less often the case if those bears are defending what they consider their food.
The bear attacked and killed the 77-year-old Trent and Waldron, 45. Abel fled and survived. It was one of the rare instances of a brown/grizzly attacking a group of people, let alone killing two of them. Brown/grizzly bear attacks on people are rare, with attacks on groups of people extremely rare.
“The main profile of the involved humans and the main scenarios agree with what has been highlighted in previous studies,” they wrote. “In Alaska, for instance, (Tom) Smith and (Stephen) Herrero found that the majority of people involved in attacks by bears were adult males (83 percent), who were primarily engaged in hiking and hunting. The authors also found that interactions were usually initiated by humans (59 percent), such as people surprising bears, wounding them in hunts, or disturbing them while defending a carcass.”
Dangerous bears
The inherent risks posed by bears “defending a carcass” or any other food source was the basis for the state Fish and Game department’s long admonishment to Alaska residents that “a fed bear is a dead bear.” Often the dead part was the case because Fish and Game employees shot and killed bears, both brown/grizzly and black, that acquired a taste for human garbage or other human-related foodstuffs.
A photo with the website post includes a dead bear next to an overturned garbage can in an attempt to make it clear that letting bears get into garbage poses not just a threat to humans but to the bears.
The agency used to be very aggressive about dealing with these food-conditioned bears. It removed them with extreme prejudice, which is to say bears were often killed at the slightest hint of their becoming a problem.
Thus, me and my broom. I generally like bears, and it only made sense to try to condition them to avoid the tempting smell of garbage because doing so might save their lives and prevent problems for the neighbors. Over the years, my neighbors dealt with a number of food-conditioned bears
One got into a garage, opened a freezer and stole ice cream, a clearly learned behavior. That was merely funny.
Another broke into a house and had to be driven out with bear spray. That was not so funny. The pepper in such spray is noxious and hard to fully clean up. Hope you never have to spray a bear in your house.
Luckily, no one in our neighborhood had to deal with a seriously food-conditioned grizzly, although a new arrival did at one point try to make this an issue by raising chickens. Some in the neighborhood were relieved when that family moved and took their chicken ranch with them because chickens are something of a bear magnet.
So, too, garbage, which is why Fish and Game for a long time shot or trapped and eliminated a lot of garbage-eating bears. This attitude toward ”putting down,” as some say, problem bears seems to have softened in recent years as urban perceptions toward bears have shifted.
Or maybe it was result of the agency hiring one-time Anchorage radio personality Rick Rydell, aka Rick Green, as a spokesman, and thus ending his ranting about the risks of bears in urban Anchorage. His radio rant was pretty simple:
“There are plenty of bears living in Chugach State Park, a half-million-mile wilderness next to the city, and on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, which sprawls over largely undeveloped 130 square miles next to the state’s largest city. So why are we taking any risks with public safety when it comes to bears that move into the city?”
This view was obviously overkill, as well. There are bears that appear to have lived long natural lives within the city without causing anyone a problem. Not to mention that bears that might be about to cause a problem can usually be identified.
Schizophrenia
The latter is not to suggest that I, or anyone else, knows for certain that the bear engaged in the latest attack was a food-conditioned bear. But there are a couple of things that are known here.
The first of these is that a bear that grabbed a bag of garbage and dragged it off to dine in the brush between Brewsters Drive and Honey Bear Lane, where this latest attack is reported to have happened, could become a danger for anyone deciding to go for a walk there.
The latest report from social media, which is now more reliable than local or state agencies, is that this attack involved a woman out for a walk with her dog. The dog was first thought dead, but is apparenlty OK. And the report is that the woman is recovering from “non-life-threatening injuries,” although no one has said how serious those injuries.
An unidentified woman attacked in Kenai in 2025 and reported as “seriously injured,” eventually shed her anonymity to recount a nightmarish bear attack. Ariean Colton revealed nightmarish injuries that cost her most of the sight in one eye and left her in recovery for eight months, injuries that sounded like they could well have been life-threatening when she was helicopter medevauced to Anchorage.
The attack on Colton well illustrated how dangerous brown/grizzly bears can be, and yet, a state agency now involved in killing hundreds of them in Southwest Alaska in the hopes of growing the Mulchatna caribou herd to provide food for subsistence hunters, seems to have become hesitant to eliminate brown/grizzly bears poised to become a public-safety concern in Anchorage.
Public opinion appears to be driving agency decisions on both fronts more than public safety or wildlife management concerns.
Subsistence hunters in rural Alaska say they’re generally happy to have Fish and Game killing bears to help grow caribou, and there is no shortage of brown/grizzly bears in Southwest Alaska. Global warming has brought unprecedented returns of sockeye salmon to the region, and those fish are a prime source of food to support a large and highly productive bear population in the region.
Researchers studying grizzly bears have reported that those in Alaska with access to salmon grow faster and bigger, with measurable increases in “mean adult female body mass, mean litter size, and mean population density.
This research would indicate that a region that has consistently seen record returns of salmon is now almost certain to support record numbers of brown bears, all of which tends to support state arguments that its effort to remove bears from a 40,000-square-mile area in the region will have only a temporary effect because the area will quickly be repopulated by bears moving back into the unoccupied habitat from all sides.
This view is, of course, highly unpopular among urban Americans with little understanding of ecology but well-aware of how large predators – grizzly bears, wolves and cougars – were willfully slaughtered and rendered extinct in much of the Lower 48.
As a result, many are outraged at the idea of manipulating predator numbers in Alaska for any reason, and a fair number of Anchorage residents, maybe a majority, appear to share this view. They like the idea of having bears close by as long as they’re not having to live with them in the yard too much.
A few don’t even seem to mind having them in the yard on a regular basis, which might help explain the people who put out garbage even when they know bears are likely to get into it.
Hopefully this won’t end with another mauling – Anchorage has seen two so far this summer – in which someone dies, but that is always a possibility.
The risks of that remain low, if for no other reason than that most of the people chewed on by bears (the author included) survive.
Still, it is now abundantly clear that it is incumbent on people recreating in or around any large patches of undeveloped ground in Anchorage to be alert for bears even if their form of ‘recreation’ involves nothing more than walking the dog.
Carry bear spray. Take out the earbuds. Get off the telephone. Maintain situational awareness. Keep the dog in sight and under control. And maybe heed this advice from the researchers who examined brown/grizzly attacks globally:
“…Unaccompanied individuals were also observed to be more vulnerable to attacks than people in groups, which is in line with our findings, as well as findings for other bear species in North America. The reason for this is likely related to the fact that larger groups are more easily detectable and, consequently, avoided by bears, because groups tend to make more noise than a lone person. Additionally, when an encounter actually occurs, bears are more likely to flee than attack when confronted with a group of people.”
And, of course, there is an old adage in Alaska that dictates that although “you can’t outrun a bear,” you can avoid being attacked by a bear if you can outrun your hiking companion.
Categories: Commentary, News, Outdoors
Let’s be very clear about the unfortunate Marcie Trent and Larry Waldon incident in 1995. Contrary to Medred’s reporting they were not “hiking and stumbled” upon a feeding bear. It was reported they were running on a trail on McHugh Peak while training for an upcoming event. While running they surprised a feeding bear! Not a good way to encounter a brown bear. A cardinal rule about brown bears is do not surprise them – especially when they are feeding. Bears are instinctive. Surprise them and they respond in kind. It is how they are wired.
Let’s be perfectly clear. You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. It was indeed “reported” they were running. I happen to know the trail they were on pretty well and where the attack took place. I was also well familiar with 77-year-old Marcie’s running capabilities, having gone flying past her in many a 10K in Anchorage.
She was a very good runner for a 77-year-old woman, but not someone who would be running on the trail where this attack took place. Fourteen-year-old Art Abel, who was with Marcie and Larry when they were attacked also wouldn’t be “running” in this area either if, in fact, he had done ANY running on the trail in question.
I would refer you to the reporting of the ADN’s Stephanie Komarnitsky in the wake of this bear attack. She interviewed Able after the attack. He clearly stated he and Marcie were hiking when she was attacked.
There was some “running” involved, but it came after the bear attack. Larry ran to his mother-in-law to try and save her. It cost him his life. Some other hikers who came upon the scene ran back to the trailhead to get help.
“Bear kills runner, musician
“Marcie Trent, Larry Waldron mauled on McHugh Creek trail
“By S.J. Komarinitsky, ADN 7/2/95
“A bear killed two hikers on the popular McHugh Creek trail Saturday, not far from a buried moose carcass. A third hiker, a 14-year-old boy, narrowly escaped by diving into a nearby ravine and climbing a tree.
“Marcie Trent, 77, long an institution in the Anchorage running community, and Larry Waldron, 45, a well known saxophonist and also a long distance runner, were pronounced dead after they were found just off the trail. Trent was Waldron’s mother-in-law.
“Trent’s grandson escaped unharmed after leaping off the trail into a brushy ravine. The boy, Art Abel, was airlifted out of the woods about an hour after the attack. He did not know exactly what had happened and did not know that his uncle and grandmother were dead.
“He said the three were on a day hike on the trail to Rabbit Lake. Abel was hiking just in front of his grandmother and some distance behind his uncle, who was training for a race.
“They were about a third of the way to the lake, Abel said, when he heard some bushes rustling above them. Then he saw something – he didn’t: know – what running through the brush. He heard his grandmother scream and he dived into a ravine. He said he ran up the trail and found his uncle. Waldron told him to climb a tree and wait, then went back for his mother-in-law.
“A hiker who was not identified, heard Abel’s calls for help from the tree, Alaska State Troopers said. Abel told the hiker he thought a moose had just attacked his grandmother, troopers said. The hiker started down the trail and heard moans from the brush. He found Waldron bleeding and alive. Waldron told the hiker that his mother-in-law was attacked first and that he was mauled when he went to her aid. The hiker then started down the trail for help.
“A group of six other hikers – who refused to give their names – ran into the hiker on their way up. Four of them went to help Waldron while the original hiker and two others ran down to the parking lot for help. By that time, Waldron was in deep shock and couldn’t speak it.”
P.S. I’m confident I’ve “surprised” way more bears than you have. All but one of them fled. That’s what they usually do. The one that didn’t flee probably would have if her two curious cubs hadn’t noticed me and followed as I tried to slip away from the family. The cubs managed to get close enough that mom made a bad decision in deciding that she needed to protect them from a human.
Ideally, bears should be averse to humans. Nothing good comes from them being unafraid of us. There is no shortage of bear biomass in the Anchorage bowl or Alaska. Bears are smart and trainable. I’ve seen them riding bicycles in the Moscow circus (which was very sad). Treating bears like the dangerous animals they are is better for bears and humans.
Thank you for this. A good reminder for everyone.
I have a lot of black bear encounters but there are no grizzlies here.
They are a lot more unpredictable and a lot more dangerous and,
they need a lot more care when dealing with them.
Carry bear spray and only travel in groups.
Thanks for the excellent reporting.
Make noise in the woods when hiking on trails…keep a packet of firecrackers in your pocket if getting off that boat and heading to your cabin. I remember years ago when a few stores in Anchorage sold the “hazing” rounds for 12 gauge…like a M-8 shot close to the bear. Not sure if they are still available, but I have seen them work well in the past for trouble bears.
Making noise is a generally good idea, but kind of pointless when hiking into Hillside winds blowing at a level that makes it hard to hear yourself yelling. Better on those days to take the dogs for a walk somewhere with good sightlines. Or hike with dogs trained to behave around bears, in which case they can be an asset. If you know how to read their behavior, they can be a telltale of “OK, they’ve detected some sort of animal nearby.” That’s usually a good time to make a whole lot of noise and get ready for whatever might happen.