Juneau Police say a juvenile brown bear was hit and killed by a car early Tuesday morning on Glacier Highway in the Lemon Creek area. Lt. Dave Campbell says the accident happened near Tyler Rental in the 5200 block. He says the driver was not cited, no one was injured and the car had minor damage.
Alaska Fish and Game wildlife biologist Ryan Scott examined the young male and said it appeared to be 2 to 4 years old. The bear weighed about 300 pounds, and based on the amount of fat in its stomach, Scott says, it was in pretty good condition.
“We didn’t do a full necropsy on him but we did examine the stomach contents and it was full of plastic and human food and things like that, candy wrappers, stuff like that. It’s another reminder to all of us that even right now we still have bears active in Juneau,” Scott says. “I know it’s late, everybody knows it’s late, but they’re not going to go away if they continue to get food.”
Scott says he’s had plenty of reports of black bears still out and about in the Mendenhall Valley and the downtown area. While it’s unusual to have brown bears in the more populated parts of Juneau, they are more prevalent out the road. He doesn’t think the brown bear killed on Tuesday was the same brown bear seen along the Mendenhall River in mid-November.
