Here is an update...20 grizzly bears roaming around a city park...
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/452938.html
Attack risk high in city's bear-dense park
FAR NORTH BICENTENNIAL: Site of teen's mauling frequented by at least 20 bruins fishing for salmon.
By GEORGE BRYSON
gbryson@adn.com
(07/02/08 00:01:45)
There aren't just a couple of grizzlies that traipse through Far North Bicentennial Park at the eastern edge of Anchorage each summer.
At least 20 have passed through over a two-year period.
So says state wildlife biologist Sean Farley, who spent the past two summers gathering telltale DNA specimens from brown bears that frequent the mostly wild 4,000-acre park.
And Farley isn't surprised that the place where one such bear attacked and mauled a 15-year-old Anchorage girl early Sunday morning was near the intersection of the South Fork Campbell Creek and the Gasline Trail.
That's one corner of a three-sided zone -- a bear-dense triangle-like area bounded by the north and south forks of Campbell Creek and the gasline to the east -- where he either saw or found DNA-rich hair samples of nearly all those bears.
"From our collared (bear) studies, we had some that would swing on down the South Fork and turn the corner and go up the North Fork," Farley said Tuesday in a telephone interview.
"That triangle that's demarcated by the north and south forks and by the gasline gets a lot of brown bear use -- and black bears. But primarily brown bears."
During the last week of June and the first week of July, king salmon begin to enter the creeks and brown bears move in, Farley said.
Earlier in the summer, they're scattered far and wide. But when the salmon run begins, most of the collared bears he's tracked in recent summers are within 100 yards of the streams and adjacent creek-side trails. Rover's Run, where the attack occurred, is one of those, paralleling Campbell Creek's south fork.
Bears will stay there all summer until the salmon runs subside and they disperse in search of berries, Farley said.
COEXISTING WITH BEARS
A research biologist for the southcentral region of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Farley wonders whether the city might consider creating a trail-less corridor in areas where brown bears historically feed.
At the same time, he realizes those areas -- beside picturesque creeks and greenbelts -- attract people too.
"A lot of people like to walk along the streams and they like to see the fish, and so trails tend to be put in those areas," he said. "But unfortunately, the bears like those trails also."
The city parks department on Tuesday posted more signs near Rover's Run, warning park users to avoid the trail because of the current danger with brown bears in the area.
Meanwhile, the parents of mauling victim Petra Davis asked the media to "honor our request for privacy until Petra can tell her story in her own words."
"She is still being treated in the critical care unit, but she is expected to make a full recovery," Mark and Darcy Davis said, addressing the public in a written statement released Tuesday by Providence Alaska Medical Center.
A student at South High School, Davis was attacked by a bear shortly after 1 a.m. Sunday while competing in an all-night mountain-bike race.
In an earlier message to friends and members of the local biking community, the Davises detailed the nature of their daughter's wounds.
"She suffered lacerations and punctures to her neck, right shoulder, torso, buttocks and right thigh," they said. "Despite the severity, she is doing very well."
Davis underwent surgery Sunday evening to repair her carotid artery and was due to undergo additional operations on her trachea and possibly her esophagus on Monday, the family added. No other surgeries were expected.
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My local park is Kincaid, down by the airport. A grizzly was killed there last year.
Wildok44timeAlaska TM
