Biologist shoots motherless bear cubs; neighbors upset

The cubs' mother was killed about three weeks ago when a resident shot the animal to protect his property, said Jessy Coltrane, Anchorage area biologist with the Department of Fish and Game. Without their mother, the cubs would have eventually been killed by another bear or died of starvation, Coltrane said.

"The most humane thing is to put them down," she said. "It is hands-down the least favorite part of my job."

Coltrane received numerous phone calls about the cubs in the weeks after the sow's death, she said. But the calls always came in too late to provide accurate information on the cubs' whereabouts. Then, Wednesday morning, Coltrane said, a caller reported the cubs were in a tree near his house in a subdivision south of Rabbit Creek Road and above Golden View Drive.

First, Coltrane said, she checked Fish and Game records to see if any qualified caretakers wanted the animals.

"Unfortunately, because black bears are very common in the Lower 48 and up here, there's not a lot of facilities that want them," Coltrane said. Any facilities that might have taken the cubs were already full, she said.

So Coltrane grabbed a shotgun, hopped in a truck and drove south to the bears.

Lisa Hoffman, who lives in the area on Big Mountain Drive, said she was at a neighbor's watching the cubs in a tree. Hoffman said she'd seen one of the cubs days earlier when it ran across the road. This time they were together, and the neighbors watched the bears with binoculars and took pictures, Hoffman said.

"They were just kind of snoozing up there, like five feet from the top branch," she said.

After a while, Hoffman's neighbor called Fish and Game. "I thought maybe they'd take them to a zoo or a rehab place," she said.

Later, Hoffman was back at her house gardening, she said.

"All of a sudden I heard this big gunshot, and I thought, 'What the heck?' "

Hoffman and her daughter heard another shot, she said.

"I yelled, 'Don't you go after those baby bears!' " Hoffman said. "I didn't know who was shooting, and my neighbor yelled, 'They're already dead.' "

"There are a number of people in the neighborhood not real happy right now," Hoffman said. "They were just tiny little defenseless babies. I really didn't think they'd come out and kill them. I really thought that they'd be collected and taken somewhere safe."

Another neighbor, Ron Ashcraft, said he didn't think shooting the bear cubs was necessary.

"It's upsetting to me that Fish and Game decides, arbitrarily, to go out and kill two baby cubs, rather than letting them survive on their own," said Ashcraft, who described himself as conservative and a hunter.

"I understand the obstacles to survival. I'm a survivalist myself," Ashcraft said. "But I'd much rather have the chance to survive on my own than have somebody shooting me."

But Coltrane says the decision was not one she made lightly. Sow bears get killed from time to time, and they often have cubs, she said.

In 2010, a sow bear with three cubs was shot after it broke into a house in Stuckagain Heights. Anchorage police had to euthanize the cubs, Coltrane said.

The year before, someone in Girdwood shot a mother bear in the stomach and left her to die. Fish and Game put down her two cubs as well, Coltrane said.

On Wednesday, Coltrane explained to the neighbors why she'd shot the cubs: out of mercy. Most of them understood; some apparently did not, she said.

"It's an unfortunate thing, and I hate to have to do it," Coltrane said. "But it's better for the cubs in the end, because they would suffer if I didn't."

Reach Casey Grove at casey.grove@adn.com or 257-4589.