Let’s live with Anchorage’s black bears, not shoot them

I’ve just returned from visiting family in Asheville, North Carolina, where I grew up. Asheville has become renowned for the black bears that freely roam the town, the mountains, the wooded parks and streams. But it was not always so. When I was a kid, we never saw bears in town. Rarely saw them in the parks and national forests. Only once, in the Joyce Kilmer Forest, did I see bears in the wild: two tiny cubs up a tree beside the road. Otherwise, the only live bears I ever saw were at gas station gift shops, chained up in the parking lot, a living roadside attraction in such distress that even I, as a little kid, knew it was not right. No wonder any remaining wild black bears hid from humans.

Now it’s different. Now when I visit, I see black bears slipping along the edges of woods outside my childhood friend’s house, and my sister tells me about bears that amble down her city street in broad daylight. These town bears, they’re left alone. No one thinks to shoo them away, much less shoot them in defense of life and property. In fact, Asheville residents are proud of them. The bears don’t charge people; they don’t harm dogs or cats or passersby. They just go about their lives, tolerating our cars and roads and industrial noises, learning how to find food and shelter among us.

Some Alaskans may claim these aren’t “real” bears because they’ve become habituated. But that claim is wrong. These are the same species of black bears that live around us here in Anchorage, the same black bears that come into our yards in springtime, searching for a bit of birdseed left from winter, the same bears that amble up and down our streams in search of salmon, woods in search of berries. Habituation is just a term we’ve thrown at wild animals who have learned how to tolerate our presence, who no longer run at the sight of us because they no longer see us as a mortal threat.

Black bears are smart. They learn, and quickly. Asheville’s bears have learned that people won’t intentionally kill them. And so the bears have likewise learned not to attack or threaten people. It’s a form of living in harmony with wild beings. Sure, it’s not the romanticized little-house-on-the-prairie model, but given the burgeoning human population and our increasingly industrialized, paved, developed world, it’s the best we can hope for right now.

It is, in fact, incredible that these bears are so smart that they’ve learned how to tolerate all the ways we have usurped and degraded and reshaped their habitat. They show incredible intelligence, amazing adaptability, astonishing tolerance. Why can’t we?

Instead, here in Anchorage, we shoot them if they come into our neighborhoods after we bait them with our unsecured garbage. And we go into their habitat and hunt them down. Yes, in Anchorage. The Board of Game, against the expressed wishes of the park superintendent and advisory board, has approved a black bear hunt at McHugh Creek and Rabbit Lake, in the front range of the Chugach State Park, our backyard playground, where we go to picnic, walk our dogs, mountain bike, hike. Right here. They’ve decided it’s okay to kill these black bears who have learned to tolerate us.

I don’t. Many of us don’t. It’s not only dangerous to humans—both having firearms discharged in areas frequented by recreational users, and having wounded and distressed bears in these areas—but it is, above all, entirely unethical. These black bears have learned that we are not a threat, and so they do not pose a threat to us. Yes, every now and then someone is hurt by a bear here, but we’re far more likely to be hurt by other humans. Any hunter worth his ammo knows that hunting Anchorage’s bears is not fair chase. It’s like shooting cows in a pasture. And it’s simply not fair to the bears who’ve learned to leave us alone. We can do better.

In Asheville, they have, and are profiting from it. Asheville isn’t the sleepy little mountain town I grew up in. Now it’s a world-renowned destination. Visitors come to Asheville for the mountains, the fall colors, the historic downtown full of music and fine restaurants—and for the black bears. For the chance to see wild bears up close and without fear. It’s a big deal, and the city knows it. They advertise it, market it. At the airport gift shop, they now sell souvenir bags of black bear scat.

Here in Alaska, however, we continue to shoot our economy in the foot. Take, for example, how we’ve allowed the famous Denali National Park wolves to be decimated by a few trophy hunters and trappers, taking down visitor spending with them. State studies report that wildlife viewing is twice as valuable as killing wildlife, but our state managers won’t read the memo.

Come on, Alaskans. At least here in Anchorage, can’t we just get along? Can’t we just show black bears as much intelligent tolerance as they show us? We’re trending better: fewer bears were killed in defense of property this summer than the previous two. So let’s keep it up. Let’s tell the Alaska Board of Game (kristy.tibbles@alaska.gov) and DNR Commissioner (corri.feige@alaska.gov), not in our backyard. Not our bears. Leave them alone, and they’ll leave us alone.

Marybeth Holleman is author of “Among Wolves” and “The Heart of the Sound,” and editor of Crosscurrents North. A 35-year resident of Alaska, she’s on the Board of Friends of Chugach State Park.

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