The man suffered four scratches to the top of his head and near his right ear, and declined medical assistance.
The bear tunneled under the zoo’s perimeter fence and broke through the cedar split rail fence around the alpaca enclosure before killing Caesar, according to the zoo’s executive director, Pat Lampi. Another alpaca -- Fuzzy Charlie -- was found unhurt though wide-eyed and skittish.
“Right now the people who have dogs in their yards are very concerned. This is happening at night when it’s dark, so everybody is on edge.” - Tanana First Chief
The dog’s owner waded waist-deep into Taku Lake and was bitten on his hand while pulling the husky-mix away from the river otters,.
A Houston man was injured by a moose near his home, an unusual event linked to increased moose aggression due to harsh winter conditions.
Three young dogs were euthanized this week after testing positive for parvovirus, an Anchorage Animal Care and Control official said.
While Northwest Arctic residents encounter bears year-round, such sightings are not common in Kotzebue this time of year, Cantine said. Charlie Henry Jr., an Elder from Kotzebue, agreed: “That is so strange — brown bear in the middle part of the coldest months.”
Adding to the concerns are stories of increasingly aggressive foxes in Marshall and other villages. It appears to be a strong year for the fox population, a state biologist said. Marshall is shooting stray dogs to protect village residents.
Earlier on Monday, Maniilaq Association notified Kotzebue residents about the musk ox in a Facebook post, saying that the animal was “roaming around the Kotzebue area, last sighted near ‘old’ teacher housing on the lagoon.” Health officials asked residents to not approach or agitate the animal and to keep their dogs under control.
Coyotes have killed at least three dogs in Seward, and police are trying to trap the predators before they get more.
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.
Biologists struggle to single out a leading cause of the caribou population’s decline. Increased wolf predation, changed migration patterns and climate warming affecting food sources can all influence the herd. “It’s going to be another rough winter again this year without caribou,” Selawik resident Norma Ballot 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.
With few fish and limited berries, bear encounters are high in Alaska's capital city this year.
08-03-22 In response to declining numbers of Fortymile and Nelchina caribou, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is taking a more conservative approach to both harvests this fall.
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.
Lenny didn’t have a wound on him but hasn’t been the same since, his owner says.
The National Park Service said a 22-year-old Ohio man was salvaging moose meat when he was killed in the national park’s first recorded fatal bear mauling.
The Western Arctic Caribou Herd has been declining for years, and the migration patterns of the animals have been changing. In several locations in Northwest Alaska, caribou have been arriving later and later in the season. Friday last week, people in Kotzebue finally started seeing caribou — hundreds of them ― crossing the Kotzebue Sound north of town, coming from the Noatak riverside. Ice conditions are one of the reasons for the caribou’s late migration, said Thomas Baker, chair of the Northwest Arctic Subsistence Regional Advisory Council.
“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.
All Topics
All Countries
Any Date
Apply