Kodiak Island Borough plans bear hazing at landfill Monday

Kodiak Island Borough Manager Amy Williams told the borough assembly Thursday that the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is working with state troopers on a plan for the landfill. "We're going to try to do a hazing event at the landfill on Monday," Williams said, meaning an effort to scare bears away. She told residents near the landfill to expect gunshots.

At the same meeting, resident Brian Tosi told the assembly that a brown bear pressed its paws against his family's front door Wednesday night.

Tosi said his son had just come home from work around 10:20 p.m. when the family heard noise in the entryway. "All I see is a brown bear head at our front door licking our glass and paws on the door," Tosi said. He slammed his hands against the glass. The bear dropped down and left after he yelled from the doorway. The family has been moving in for a month, and the door often stood open or unlatched. He said a paw print sat inches from the latch handle.

"Sometimes I don't feel like it should land on the citizens' responsibility for these bears," Tosi said. He added that sometimes bears have to be shot.

Williams said crews are moving sections of the exterior fence closer to the maintenance road. Bears knocked over the new posts, which now must go deeper. When kept off the active face, the part of the landfill where fresh trash is being dumped, bears dig elsewhere, into trash three to four years old and eight to 10 years old. Bids for hazing during non-operational hours are due Friday at 2:30 p.m., under the borough's request for proposals for after-hours bear management at the landfill. The contract then goes to the assembly after a 10-day protest period.

At an August work session, Nate Sabota of Fish and Game said some of the "strongly food-conditioned bears" had been in the landfill more than two years.

Assembly member Jeremiah Gardner said he saw a bear near the school, across from his shop. He said others had advised a reactive strategy, and he disagrees. "I think we need a proactive strategy, and I'm going to hammer it every single week," Gardner said. He said he believes "something really bad is going to happen to somebody."

Assembly member Steven Ames called this an exceedingly bad bear year.

"We'll see how successful that is or isn't," Williams said of Monday's hazing.