A police drone searched south Anchorage for a brown bear before dawn

Anchorage police flew a drone over a south Anchorage neighborhood early Tuesday, helping Fish and Game look for a nuisance brown bear.

The department sent a public alert around 5:30 am saying officers were near Sabine Street and East 142nd Avenue. It did not say whether the bear was found.

What happens next depends on where the bear is. State guidance calls for monitoring non-aggressive brown bears in less-developed residential areas, but says that "in general, nuisance brown bears in developed or residential areas will be destroyed." Fish and Game has reported roughly 50 nuisance brown bear calls a year.

The department recently added a drone deployment category to its website. Municipal policy bars recording while a drone is en route, keeps its camera pointed upward until it arrives, and purges footage after 14 days unless it is held as evidence.