A man was mauled by a brown bear Thursday (9-22-16), on southern Admiralty Island. It’s the fourth incident of its kind in the region since August.
Megan Peters is a spokesperson for the Alaska State Troopers.
“At approximately 8:30 in the evening there was a guide and a client that were out walking, using headlamps,” Peters explained, “and it appears that they startled the bear that was a short distance away from them and then the bear mauled and latched onto the client.”
Peters identified the victim as 57 year-old Douglas Adkins from Jenkins, Kentucky. Adkins and his Juneau-based guide were hunting in Chaik Bay near Angoon, about 35 miles northeast of Sitka.
Peters described the mauling as “brief.” A helicopter from Air Station Sitka transported Atkins to Juneau for treatment of his non-life threatening injuries.
There were three similar brown bear incidents along streams in the Sitka area in August, including the serious mauling of a wilderness guide in Sitkoh Bay.
In September, the US Forest Service reported that a tour guide on Kruzof Island used pepper spray to deter a bear which may have been protecting a food cache on the Mud Bay road.
Emily Russell is the voice of Alaska morning news as Alaska Public Media’s Morning News Host and Producer.
Originally from the Adirondacks in upstate New York, Emily moved to Alaska in 2012. She skied her way through three winters in Fairbanks, earning her Master’s degree in Northern Studies from UAF.
Emily’s career in radio started in Nome in 2015, reporting for KNOM on everything from subsistence whale harvests to housing shortages in Native villages. She then worked for KCAW in Sitka, finally seeing what all the fuss with Southeast, Alaska was all about.
Back on the road system, Emily is looking forward to driving her Subaru around the region to hike, hunt, fish and pick as many berries as possible. When she’s not talking into the mic in the morning, Emily can be found reporting from the peaks above Anchorage to the rivers around Southcentral.
