There’s a part of Chanshtnu Muldoon Park in East Anchorage that locals can let their dogs roam off leash and even a separate park just for smaller dogs. But in February, Brad Muir, natural resources manager for Anchorage’s Park and Recreation Department, was hearing reports about other animals making appearances.
“A handful of incidents where the eagles had swooped down into the small dog park side, kind of swooping in after people's pets in the dog park,” he said.
As much as anywhere in Alaska, Anchorage is an interface between wild animals and humans, some of whom intentionally or unintentionally feed the wildlife that also call the city home.
There have been concerns for decades around residents allowing local bears to get into trash cans or bird feeders. But it was this series of eagle encounters that led Anchorage officials to recently add fines for those who feed wildlife in the city.
Eagles weren’t just going after pets, Muir said. He heard reports of birds fighting with each other over meat that had been left out.
“So I came out here, discovered many, many, many eagles and birds of prey here,” Muir said on a recent day at the park. “I actually witnessed someone feeding the eagles. And I, in that moment, I counted over 55 eagles and ravens here trying to feed.”
Muir said he hasn’t heard any reports of eagles at the park since March, but the safety risk posed by people feeding Anchorage’s wildlife led the Assembly to pass an ordinance on April 28 prohibiting it and adding new fines for those who do. The Assembly passed the ordinance 9 to 3, with members Chris Constant, Scott Myers and Keith McCormick opposed.
While the eagle encounters are what led to the ordinance and the new fines, the risk of feeding wildlife extends to other animals, like moose, said Cory Stantorf, Anchorage area biologist for the state Department of Fish and Game.
“Moose get extremely aggressive when they've been fed by humans in handouts,” he said. “And they start associating humans with handouts, and that next person that doesn't have a handout, that moose gets very aggressive with them and can stomp them and pretty severely injure them.”
Leaving out food or not securing trash cans can also invite bears, which, like moose, can become habituated to such food sources, Stantorf said. And bears are even more food-motivated, he said.
“It teaches them to come up and search that area for trash or whatever they had gotten rewarded with there,” Stantorf said. “That keeps them coming back into neighborhoods and not off into the woods feeding on natural forage.”
“There's plenty of natural forage for bears, moose, lynx, wolverine here in Anchorage,” he added. “We just need to help them stay on that and keep them out of neighborhoods.”
Under the ordinance, the penalties differ based on whether the feeding of wildlife is negligent or intentional.
The fines start at $100 and go as high as $500 if you negligently feed a bird of prey, wild animal or "deleterious exotic animal,” which includes invasive species or animals like ferrets or rabbits not under the direct control of an owner.
If you intentionally feed a wild animal, the fines start at $250 and still cap at $500.
The new rules are in compliance with a state ban on feeding wildlife. Other communities – like Valdez, Ketchikan, Homer and Adak – have similar policies.
There isn’t going to be a patrol out surveying the streets and parks of Anchorage, waiting to catch people feeding wildlife, said Muir, with the city’s Parks and Rec Department. Instead, the department plans to rely on reports from the community, he said.
“It's not about the fines. It’s about the actions,” Muir said. “We just want the feeding of the eagles and creating dangerous situations for our users, and for the eagles, to stop.”
The ordinance won’t penalize Anchorage residents with bird feeders, but the feeders should still get taken down in the spring, said Stantorf, the state biologist.
“The department recommends, come April 1, all those bird feeders, all the birdseed be cleaned up and brought back in,” he said. “Because during the summer months, a bird feeder is a bear feeder.”
As for trashcans and the bears who love to get into them, a resident would not be fined if a bear gets into their trash can, so long as they’re using the can “lawfully,” which in most cases means storing the trash securely inside the can, a city attorney said.
The new fines went into effect April 28, when the Anchorage Assembly passed the ordinance.
