Anchorage Daily News

Wildlife officials are reviewing what they call a questionable shooting of a black bear this week in a section of Muldoon with long-running problems involving garbage and bruins.

Residents reported a sow and two cub black bears had been nuzzling through trash in the area just off Fort Richardson in recent weeks, and several people, including the shooter, reported that they had been charged, Department of Fish and Game Anchorage area wildlife biologist Rick Sinnott said.

Then, late Thursday afternoon, after an adult sow allegedly charged Patrick Moore's landlord at 381 Bolin St., Moore shot it with a .44-caliber magnum handgun.

Reached at his home Friday evening, Moore said he and the landlord of the four-plex had been in the yard working on a fence Thursday afternoon. The landlord went into the shed and, when he came back out, saw the bear coming down from either a section of chain-link fencing between the home and Muldoon Elementary School or a tree against it. The bear was heading his way and he called out.

"I come running around and the bear was charging at us," said Moore, 54. "And so I just shot it. Got him right between the eyes."

But the landlord -- who declined to comment Friday -- was more ambiguous about what happened, Sinnott said. The landlord told officials he wasn't sure if the black bear was charging or if it was just moving toward him under the momentum of coming over the fence, he said.

"This case was pretty marginal, I would call it," Sinnott said. "The source was certainly garbage. The bear was coming back over the fence for, I'm sure, more garbage. It wasn't hunting people, it was after garbage. It may or may not have charged somebody. I strongly suspect it didn't. But there was a threat in someone's mind and someone with a gun showed up and the bear didn't immediately take off."

Alaska law allows people to kill bears in defense of life or property, but not simply because a bear is attracted to one's garbage, Sinnott said. And, though some residents now have bear-proof containers, the area continues to be notorious for its trash.

"That's in the northeast corner of Muldoon," Sinnott said. "There are always black bears in and near that neighborhood and there's always garbage out, all the time, 24/7. Lots of garbage."

Moore said the bear problems in the neighborhood this summer have been going on for about six weeks. The bears have been near his home in particular, he said, not because of garbage there but because until recently there was an opening in the fence that allowed the bears easy passage from the woods.

But the bears had become accustomed to people and were increasingly aggressive, Moore said. He said he's used cowbells and pepper spray to some effect, but the allure of sun-baked garbage in the neighborhood has drawn the bears back time and again.

The sow had charged people several times, including one run-in with his wife and granddaughter in which the bear veered off into the woods at the last minute, just feet away, he said.

All the problems prompted him to start carrying his .44 in a shoulder holster when he was out working in the yard, Moore said.

On Thursday morning, just hours before the fatal encounter, the bear showed up again, Moore said. It perched itself in a cottonwood tree between Moore's home and the schoolyard, having dragged a bag of garbage to the base of the tree. School officials called police.

When police with shotguns arrived, though, they found the bear not displaying any aggression, police spokeswoman Anita Shell said.

Sinnott said he plans to discuss the details of the shooting with Alaska Wildlife Troopers and consider whether charges are appropriate, although oftentimes borderline cases don't result in charges.

Moore said he knows he's under investigation but maintains he did what he felt he had to do.

"They just came here every single day. They just progressively got more aggressive," Moore said. "The kids were out here, and I'm not taking that risk."

Find James Halpin online at adn.com/contact/jhalpin or call him at 257-4589.

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