From the Chilkat Valley News: A resident of a Haines mountainside who keeps goats and chickens on his property has shot his fourth bear since 2000. Wildlife troopers say the man's account of events appears to be valid and the shooting was probably legal.
Scott Hansen said he shot the bear at about 10 p.m. after wife Valina spotted it less than 25 feet out the open door of the family's greenhouse, which she was closing for the night. Valina screamed and the bear moved about 60 feet away from her, Hansen said.
"The dog was running after the bear, but the bear stopped. It was confronting the dog. That's why I chose to take action. When I came out of the house and saw it, the bear was not moving away. It was moving toward the dog," he said.
Hansen, who has 10 children, 10 goats and about 50 chickens at his mountainside property, maintains a double-stranded electrical fence around many of his outbuildings, but not the greenhouse. The bear was outside the electrical fence when he shot it, Hansen said, and his wife was "trapped" in the greenhouse.
Hansen was acquitted in 2008 on a charge of shooting across a roadway at a bear.
Anchorage