AR-News: Experts: Link between bears, fires unlikely

[jim robertson]

Experts: Link between bears, fires unlikely

By TIM MOWRY, Staff Writer

It's possible, but not likely, that the huge wildfires north and east of 
Fairbanks could be chasing more bears into urban areas.
That's what bear experts at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said 
after three bears were reported in the Gilmore Trail area about 10 miles 
north of town Tuesday morning.

"There's not probably going to be a mass exodus of bears into town because 
of fires," said wildlife biologist Harry Reynolds, a bear expert at the 
Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Fairbanks, referring to the 
312,000-acre Boundary Fire north of Fairbanks and the 200,000-acre Wolf 
Creek Fire at the end of Chena Hot Springs Road.

But Dale Harris, who lives off Gilmore Trail, said he and his wife, Joyce, 
saw three bears--two blacks and a grizzly--near their home within a span of 
a few hours Tuesday morning.


Joyce Harris saw a black bear on Gilmore Trail as she was driving to work 
and Dale Harris said he saw a black bear in front of his house off Gold Mine 
Trail about an hour before spotting a grizzly bear in the back of his 
property below his horse pasture.

The sightings north of town came a week after a bear killed a dog in a yard 
on Esro Road at 4.5 Mile Chena Hot Springs Road.

While it's "possible" that some bears may be displaced by the fires and the 
activity associated with fighting them, biologists said there have been 
fewer reports of bears around Fairbanks this year than in past years.

"It's possible bears are moving and we could see more bears outside the burn 
area, but at this point I don't think we've had any more bear incidents than 
we normally do," state wildlife biologist Tom Seaton said.

Instead, biologists chalk it up to natural bear behavior. There are lots of 
bears roaming the woods around Fairbanks. Gold Mine Trail is on the outer 
edge of the urban area, Seaton said.

For the most part, bears, especially females, remain in the same home range 
most of their lives, Reynolds said. The only bears that wander much are 
young males that are striking out on their own after being weaned. A bear's 
home range is huge, ranging from 50 to 300 square miles.

"That's a big chunk of country," Reynolds said, noting that the larger 
figure amounts to 192,000 acres, nearly as big as the fires that are 
burning.

Chances are, Reynolds said, if a bear's home range was burning, it would 
attempt to relocate to a part of the area that wasn't.

"If their whole home range burned, it's logical they could move outside the 
home range until things get better," he said. "They certainly wouldn't stay 
in the wall of fire."

Harris said his dog, an American Eskimo named Christopher, alerted him to 
the black bear in front of his house when it began barking.

"An hour later the horses started raising hell and snorting," Harris said. 
"I went out there and I could see (a grizzly bear) at the end of the 
pasture. He could have come up if he wanted to."

While he wasn't necessarily skeptical that Harris saw the bears Tuesday, 
Seaton said such a sighting would be rare.

"He's a pretty lucky guy to see two different species of bears in the 
Interior on the same day," Seaton said.

While they aren't common in the neighborhood, bears do occasionally pass 
through the area, Harris said. The back of his property butts up against the 
trans-Alaska oil pipeline and black bears travel along the pipeline 
corridor.

Harris didn't report the sightings to Fish and Game and the department had 
not received any other reports of bears in the area Tuesday, said wildlife 
technician Tony Hollis, who handles the front desk at ADF&G. Likewise, there 
had been no further reports of the bear that killed the dog on Esro Road, 
Hollis said.

Staff writer Tim Mowry can be reached at tmowry at newsminer.com and 459-7587.

http://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1413,113~7244~2257592,00.html

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