Anchorage Backyard Bear

Seeing a bear had become my Holy Grail pursuit. By this time I felt like I was the only RVer in Alaska not to have seen several on the road by now. It had become a sore point with me and I was ready to slap the next person who bragged about their bear encounter!

But my prayers were finally answered today! As I was leaving for a hike on Flattop Mountain, my neighbor, Mike, asked if I had seen the bear in my backyard that morning. He said a black bear had gotten into the trash can containing bird seed that the RV next to him had on their front porch. As I was about to faint with disappointment that I had missed seeing him, Mike pointed him out to me. There was this beautiful black creature feasting on bird seed about 60 feet from our back doors!

We stood close to Mike's door on the ready to jump in if the bear moved, but were able to take some pretty good pictures. The pictures look like we were a lot closer than we actually were, (or at least as it seemed at the time) and we were always close enough to the door, (almost always) but it was pretty exhilarating to see a wild bear in the wild - especially since the "wild" is my current backyard!

Both Mike and I were concerned because he knew that collar around his neck meant it had been previously marked as a possible risk because he had gotten too close to humans. In general, once bears connect humans with food and they keep returning to populated areas, they are killed in order to eliminate a potential threat. There are signs everywhere warning about this and pleading not to feed the bears or to store food outside. The signs clearly warn "A fed bear is a dead bear" but as always, there are people who think the rules shouldn't apply to them and pay no heed despite what it means to other beings.