For years, Michael and Shannon Gribbon's llama Ande was a woolly alarm system: When wildlife wandered on to the family's Rabbit Creek Road property Ande would make a noise that sounded like a hiccuping foghorn.
"Whenever we heard that, we knew there was a bear in the neighborhood," Shannon Gribbon said.
But in the 13 years the couple had lived on their two-acre home and barn spread with a menagerie of domesticated animals that has included full-size and miniature horses, the llama and a goat, they'd only encountered black bears.
On Sunday, three grizzly bears ended up on the Gribbon property.
By the end of the day, one of the bears was dead and so was Ande the llama.
The Gribbon's three-bear day started at about 7:30 a.m. when Mike Gribbon saw a brown bear sow galloping away from the house and across the road, where a covered bridge leads into Goldenview Park, a neighborhood of about 400 upscale homes with inlet and mountain views.
When Mike returned home, his wife Shannon noticed their 14-year-old llama was nowhere to be found.
She went looking for him and found tufts of hair and half-buried, disemboweled remains in violently uprooted soil beneath a tree in a fenced arena-like area.
Two miniature horses in a nearby barn were nervous and whinnying.
"We knew it was a bear," she said.
They removed the remains of Ande, who was a favorite at children's birthday parties Shannon hosts as a business, and was a regular at Bastille Day petting zoo celebrations hosted by Jens' Restaurant.
"He was just a really cool llama," Shannon said. "He didn't spit and he loved to go different places."
In the early afternoon, what Mike describes as a 250- to 300-pound, 1- or 2-year-old bear came back to the site of the kill.
It was snorting, pawing dirt and generally seemed disgruntled that the carcass was gone, Shannon said.
The Gribbon's tenant, a construction firm intern from Oklahoma who had just arrived in Alaska a week earlier, stood on the porch of a cabin he is renting on the property about 100 feet away.
"I had a gun in one hand and a camera in the other," said Scott Hirstein.
Meanwhile, five or six onlookers in cars had piled up on busy Rabbit Creek Road, watching the bear.
The bear began moving quickly toward the barn, Mike said. Miniature horses Trigger and Cinco, each about the size of a large dog, were inside.
Mike shot near the bear with a 300 Winchester Magnum rifle.
"I though I'd scare him off," he said.
But the bear didn't stop. He shot twice more, this time aiming at it.
"We killed the damn thing," he said.
"We like wildlife and everything," said Shannon. "But this is obviously a problem bear. It was coming back."
Police had arrived on the scene and Mike was filling out paperwork for killing a bear in defense of life and property when a third brown bear that looked to be the same age and size as the one Mike had killed ambled up.
"You should have seen the look on the officers' faces," Mike said.
Police officers drew firearms but scared it off without killing it, he said.
The Gribbons, who have lived in Alaska for more than 30 years, believe the trio was a sow and her two cubs.
They say they know bears live in the area and have taken some precautions to keep their domesticated animals from attracting bear, like fencing.
"We know bears live on the hillside and if they're not in our yard they're in someone else's yard," Shannon said.
But the brown bear surprised them, they say, adding that they think the bears' presence along the Rabbit Creek Road corridor is related to the increasing population density of the area.
No one from the Alaska Wildlife Troopers or Alaska Department of Fish and Game was available to comment on the incident or whether other neighborhoods in the area have been reporting brown bear problems on Sunday evening.
Wildlife biologists say that bears are attracted to domesticated animals from chickens to dogs to llamas.
They also regularly remind Anchorage residents that their neighborhoods are often smack-dab in the middle of brown and black bear habitat.
The Gribbons said they'll sleep lightly Sunday night and will remain armed.
They feel sure that the third bear -- the one police scared away -- will be back.
Reach Michelle Theriault Boots at mtheriault@adn.com or 257-4344.
By MICHELLE THERIAULT BOOTS
Anchorage Daily News