Police kill ‘aggressive’ black bear in East Anchorage

Police said they killed an "aggressive" black bear in an East Anchorage neighborhood Saturday.

The young, male bear had been eating garbage in the neighborhood and charged two elderly women, forcing them to run inside. The women called 911, according to Sgt. Nathan Mitchell with the Anchorage Police Department.

Police received the call shortly before 3 p.m. Saturday, according to a police dispatch supervisor.

Mitchell said officers arrived and located the bear, and "the bear basically laid its ears back, kind of puffed up, the hairs on the back came up and it appeared that it was getting ready to charge."

"It appeared very aggressive," he said. "That's when they decided it was a danger to humans and they dispatched the bear."

The police department said in a Nixle alert around 3:45 p.m. that officers put down a bear near the 5200 block of Chena Avenue after the animal got into trash cans.

The dispatch supervisor said there were no injuries.

Mitchell said the owner of the trash cans would be cited for not securing them properly.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game had not received reports of an aggressive bear in the area, according to spokesman Ken Marsh.

The bear killed Saturday was a 115-pound male, Marsh said.

The meat was collected by "an interested party for salvage," Marsh wrote in an e-mail Sunday.

Fish and Game biologists keep a list of people who have expressed interest in receiving black bears killed in defense of life and property or struck by cars. With permission, the bears may be salvaged for meat and hides.

"This has been a fairly informal process carried out by the Anchorage office only and because a relatively small number of black bears are killed in the Anchorage area each year, opportunities are limited," Marsh said.

To be added to the list, call the Anchorage Wildlife Information Center at 907-267-2257.