A brown bear was shot and killed Friday in Sitka after authorities received a report that the bear had just killed a homeowner's dog.
Alaska Wildlife Troopers and the Sitka Police Department responded to a home on Rudolph Walton Circle "and located a partially consumed dog behind the home with a male bear located nearby," according to a dispatch on the troopers' website.
The homeowner told authorities Friday afternoon that "they believed their dog had just been killed by a bear that had reportedly been in the area throughout the day," according to the trooper dispatch. Garbage was "likely a factor in attracting the bear to the neighborhood," troopers said.
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The Karelian bear dog had chased the bear into the woods near the home and "wasn't seen again" until authorities found its body, said Stephen Bethune, a wildlife biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
He said troopers shot the bear once to kill it. Its skull, hide and claws were given to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
“The area that this happened in — we get calls in this area on a regular basis,” Bethune said.
A month before Friday's attack, troopers shot and killed another brown bear in Sitka when it attacked a dog.
This has been “a fairly mild year as far as bear stuff in town,” Bethune said.
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