At about 10:15 a.m., Anchorage police responded to a report of a woman running after a bear on Yellow Leaf Circle. The neighborhood is on the east edge of Muldoon next to Fort Richardson land that is habitat to bears, wolves and moose.
Resident Diana Casey, who has four children including a toddler, saw the chase and called police.
"I see the bear running and I see her running, yelling, 'Stop! Stop! Give me him!' " Casey said. "I didn't know what the bear had. I didn't know if he had a child or what he had."
The owner heard her rabbit's cries and chased the bear across several yards in her stocking feet, police said. She went down an alley before the bear turned and confronted her. But the bear didn't give up the rabbit.
George was known in the neighborhood because his back legs were paralyzed and he scooted around with the help of a two-wheeled cart fashioned by the owner, police said. The owner has a number of rabbits, said police Lt. Dave Parker. George was in the front yard inside a wire and wood fence that the bear jumped, Parker said.
Efforts to speak with the owner were unsuccessful. Police didn't release her name.
Casey said a black bear has been hanging around the neighborhood, even sitting in her yard, and she suspects it was the culprit. She worries for the neighborhood children, including her own, and wants the bear taken care of.
"I feel they should shoot him and be done with him," Casey said. But another neighbor, Terri Wynn, said she didn't want to see a bear shot over a rabbit.
Find Lisa Demer online at adn.com/contact/ldemer or call 257-4390.
Important warning about e-mails purporting to be from the adn.com staff.