Michael Soltis’ death is the second fatal bear attack in the Anchorage municipality in two summers.
A total of 94 brown bears, five black bears and five wolves were killed in the program that began May 10 and ended June 4, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said this week. That’s more than four times the number biologists predicted would be taken. State biologists also say disease and changing food supplies might be a bigger factor overall.
FAIRBANKS — Michael Houx was driving Tuesday evening between Eielson Air Force Base and Salcha when he saw an animal that he at first thought was a caribou.
Biologists say they’ve been unable to confirm several reported sightings, including one from a resident who’s sure a cougar showed up in his yard.
The man was walking his dogs on a well-used trail when he came across a sow with two cubs, a Fish and Game assistant area wildlife biologist said.
Patrick Jones, wildlife biologist for the state Department of Fish and Game, said he has heard of dogs killing moose, caribou and a days-old musk ox calf, but nothing like this attack.
Alaska transportation officials believe there’s a low risk that anyone could be harmed in an outburst, but they say they’re acting swiftly to prevent another road closure.
A family of five black bears is roaming an Alaska neighborhood, toppling trash cans as the group rummages for food and scaring some residents who believe the animals are the same ones seen in the area last summer.
The Bering Sea island is breeding habitat for millions of seabirds, including rare migratory species. A “strike team” had been searching for the rogue rat for 10 months.
Black bears have taken over a Juneau arboretum, shut down a fish-cleaning facility in Cordova and added to an unusually high year of bear kills in Anchorage, prompting one wildlife authority to call this summer the "craziest" year of bear encounters he's seen.
If high temperatures melt snow and that leads to a bear’s den getting flooded, that’s another reason the bear might head outside. It’ll likely try to find another den, Farley said.
“The fact that an otter attacked a person was certainly surprising,” said a wildlife biologist with Fish and Game, who added that it’s hard to know what the motivation behind the otter’s “unusual behavior” was.
A Fish and Game biologist urges people to give the animals space.
Chris Flickinger says the number of animals killed by bears is way above average, causing a sizable financial loss.
“If black bears are starting to stir, brown bears could be, too,” a state Fish and Game official said.
Mountain lion sightings have been reported in far Southeast Alaska for years, and one sighting has been confirmed.
Alaska is considered to be outside the range of cougars (also called mountain lions and panthers), but with cougar populations increasing in many western states and Canada, that could change.
Canadian researchers learned that local Inuvialuit hunters had spotted beavers in the region in 2008 and 2009. Those sightings are the first documented signs of North American beaver occupancy on the Beaufort coastal plain.
In New England where ticks have decimated moose, the average tick load is 40,000, and some have been found with 90,000.
Is climate change reducing the quantity and quality of Alaska's Dall sheep habitat? That's the hypothesis being tested by two researchers.
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