Mild Weather Could be a Beary Mixed Package

A Kodiak bear. Photo by Yathin/Flickr

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

The last couple of summers have been warm and this winter may also be on the mild side, which is a mixed package when it comes to Kodiak’s bears. Nate Svoboda, the Kodiak area wildlife biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, says bears have benefited from the boost to their diets.

“The mild summers that we’ve had the last couple of years have been epic berry production years, so that’s really advantageous for the bears. There’s plenty of resources out there for them. We’ve had plenty of fish runs, so that’s been really good, but the berry production has been phenomenal the last two years, so that’s really been a good thing for reproduction and body condition.”

He says a warmer winter may mean that the bears will be out and about foraging further into the season.

“What we’ve found from previous research is there’s up to about 25 percent of the population, especially the male population, doesn’t den during the winter, and I would hypothesize that mild winters, like we’ve had in the past, that might be slightly higher. As long as there’s food resources available for them out there, they’ll have a tendency to keep eating and keep wandering around.”
   
On the other hand, if the warmer weather doesn’t provide those resources and the bears are still searching for food, Svoboda says it might affect people in town.

“Particularly if people don’t handle their waste responsibly, that’s when we have a tendency for bears, when there’s no natural foods available for them like berries and fish and whatnot, this time of year when the berry production is pretty much over and the fish runs are pretty much over, that’s when wandering into town, and people don’t handle their waste responsibly, that’s when we start to have issues.”

The last few months have been dry, the last few days fairly wet, and weather patterns so far are pointing towards another mild winter.