By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
A yearling brown bear believed to be an orphan was shot and killed by authorities at Sandy Beach on Friday evening.
The young animal’s mother was likely struck and killed by a car earlier in the week, Department of Fish and Game biologist Steve Bethune told the Sentinel.
Because it was on its own, Bethune said, it was euthanized to spare it from a prolonged death.
“That’s kind of standard procedure if we don’t have placement for cubs, then orphaned cubs will get euthanized. And this one being a yearling, it’s too old to give to a facility anyway... It’s morally considered more humane to euthanize them than to let them starve to death,” he said.
“Because of the houses nearby and the close-by rec area we tranquilized the bear and then euthanized it,” Bethune said.
Its hide will be sold at auction, and the carcass has been disposed of, he said.
When skinning the bear, Bethune noticed that the animal had suffered a recent bullet wound prior to the shot that killed it.
“We did find that the bear had a gunshot wound after we skinned it, and it likely would not have lived anyway... We didn’t know that, though the bear was acting lethargic at the time I darted it,” Bethune said.
In a dispatch on the Department of Public Safety news line, Alaska Wildlife Troopers said the wounding of a brown bear in a populated area creates an additional public safety concern and could constitute criminal activity. It asked anyone who heard gunshots in the area between August 18 and August 20 to contact the troopers at (907) 747-3254 or anonymously via Alaska Fish and Wildlife Safeguard at 1-800-478-3377.
In further comment on the Friday incident, Bethune spoke of another orphaned bear near town that died a slow death of natural causes over the winter.
“We saw an example, when there was that cub wandering around town for a large part of the winter... That cub was being seen a lot in the Price Street area and then eventually I found it dead in the woods in the spring,” the biologist said.
Overall, he said, bear activity “is really high all over town right now,” he said.
