newsminer.com

FAIRBANKS — Just call them hairy Houdinis.

A sow grizzly bear evidently freed one of its two cubs from a trap early Sunday morning at a home in Salcha, once again thwarting efforts by Alaska wildlife biologists who have been trying to trap and kill the family of bears for the past week.

“That’s speculation,” said Tom Seaton, assistant Fairbanks area biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. “All we know is when we got there the trap was sprung and some of the bait was gone.”

It was the second time in a week that the bears, which have been roaming around the Johnson Road area 35 miles south of Fairbanks for the past two weeks, have triggered the trap but escaped. The bears triggered and broke the trap last Tuesday without going inside.

While the evidence is circumstantial, fellow biologist Tony Hollis said it seems to indicate there was a bear in the trap. A bag of bait in the back of the trap was ripped open and the barrel trap had been rolled over several times.

“We’re pretty sure the bear was in the trap,” Hollis said. “It ripped a bag open in the back of the trap, and there’s no other way to do that.”

Greg Garrels, who owns the home 40 miles south of Fairbanks where the trap is set, also believes one of the cubs was trapped for a short time before the sow freed it.

It was just after midnight early Sunday morning when infrared motion detectors set up in Garrels’ yard alerted him to the presence of the bears. Garrels looked out the window and could see the sow near an outbuilding about 80 feet from the house.

The cubs came closer to the house and were wandering around the yard, but Garrels said he didn’t feel justified shooting any of the bears because they were not posing a threat or doing anything wrong.

Garrels watched as the bears made their way over to the trap, an oversized barrel with a trap door on one end.

“Suddenly, I heard a bang and a bunch of commotion,” Garrels said.

Shining a high-powered flashlight from his house, Garrels saw the sow standing over the trap with her front paws on the barrel, rocking it back and forth.

“Then I saw her roll it right over,” Garrels said.

Garrels’ wife, Sage Patton, called biologist Don Young to alert him that one of the cubs had been caught. After an initial ruckus, Garrels said, things fell silent.

A few minutes after notifying the biologists of their catch, Garrels saw all three bears in his yard again. The trap was empty and the door was open when biologists arrived at 1 a.m.

If the cub was indeed inside the trap, it may have escaped when the sow rolled the trap over, Hollis said. A spring-loaded latch that holds the door shut could have got pushed in when the sow rolled it over and released the door, he said.

“I think she’s more lucky than she is smart,” Hollis said of the sow.

Biologists wired the handle down so the same thing wouldn’t happen again, and they also positioned the trap between two trees so it can’t be rolled over. The trap weighs approximately 200 pounds, Seaton said.

If biologists are successful in catching them, the bears will be euthanized because they have become too dangerous, Hollis said. The bears have ransacked two homes, getting into some sugar and oatmeal at one home and busting down a bird feeder and pounding on the door at Garrels’ house.

On Saturday, the bears evidently returned to the home where they had eaten sugar and oatmeal, and they damaged a truck camper and a trailer, Garrels said. The man living on the property decided it would be safer to stay with friends until the bears are gone, he said.

Whether the bears will enter the trap if they return remains to be seen.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen now,” Hollis said. “I think we’re going to have a hard time getting them in the trap after that.”

Biologists have toyed with the idea of setting foot snares for the bears, he said.

Seaton would be happy if the bears decided to den up for the winter.

“What we’re hoping right now is that they’ve gone to den up with all this snow and cooler weather,” he said. “Maybe they’ve given up on getting some last dinners before going to bed.”

But the three grizzly bears in Salcha don’t appear to be the only bears still wandering around.

A resident at 8 Mile Chena Hot Springs Road, Mark Stringfellow, said he saw fresh grizzly bear tracks in the snow in his yard on Friday and tracked a large grizzly bear for about a mile up Robert’s Roost Road. The bear’s tracks crossed Chena Hot Springs Road from south to north and disappeared into the timber at the top of the hill headed for Smallwood Creek.

“His hind foot was longer than my foot, and I wear a size 14,” said Stringfellow, who said he knows enough about bears to know this was a big grizzly. “The front paw was 7 1/2 to 8 inches wide. It was a pretty good-sized bear. I estimate him at an 8-footer.”