Haines should implement a bear policy, police chief says

The Haines Police Department is located in the Public Safety Building, as seen on April 7, 2026, in Haines. (Lizzy Hahn/ Chilkat Valley News)

By Lizzy Hahn

Chilkat Valley News

The Haines Borough police department is looking to create a bear and wildlife policy, as the department doesn’t have one formally written.

Currently, the department is supposed to follow guidelines from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game when officers respond to bear calls, said police chief Jimmy Yoakum. He said those guidelines are not written down, but came after a consultation earlier this summer with Fish and Game about how the department should respond when called to manage bears and wildlife. 

That lack of a written policy at the local law enforcement level is common said Fish and Game area management biologist Hannah Manninen because “you don’t know what’s happening ‘til you get to a scene.”

Instead, she said, it’s common for agencies like Fish and Game, Alaska State Troopers and police to talk amongst each other to figure out how to solve each issue. “Wildlife scenarios vary too much to have a step-by-step process.”

Yoakum said currently when a report is made to the station regarding bears, callers are told to stay away from it. Once police get to the site, police chief Jimmy Yoakum said their goal is to isolate the bear and prevent it from going to populated areas. They do this by yelling at it and using bear spray or shooting non-lethal beanbag rounds at it, if the bear continues to move towards populated areas.

Yoakum said if a bear charges at officers or someone else, “we may have to use the defense of life and property rule.” According to staff at Fish and Game, when police kill a bear, they are supposed to fill out a defense of life and property form. In 2020, Haines police sought out written permission from Fish and Game to kill bears, but this is not required. Fish and Game area biologist Carl Kochs said that the purpose of police filling out a defense of life and property form is to gather data on the bears killed by people outside of the department. Fish and Game collects the hide, skull and claws, which they measure and collect data on.

Haines police killed one bear this summer while monitoring a suspected food cache near the location where resident Toni Smith was mauled in August. They also went looking for another bear in September that injured resident Sue Libenson on the Jones Point trail. 

Yoakum said police kill bears as their “absolute last option,” with the bears usually moving away when officers use those first steps, deploying bear spray or beanbag rounds.

Southeast regional management coordinator Elizabeth Roberts said that when attacks like these occur, Fish and Game works with the police and troopers to “address the issue.”

“Our role is providing wildlife expertise during that incident,” Roberts said. Yoakum echoed this, saying the department follows guidance given by Fish and Game area management biologist Hannah Manninen. Manninen said that the police department does not need to get permission from Fish and Game to kill a bear.

After Smith was attacked by a bear in August, Manninen said she along with police and troopers investigated the site and “loosely talked about bears” visiting the site because of the food cache found. She said that these bears who did visit could be killed, which would also be up to the local police.

“A lot of it comes down to precautions before we even start having bear issues… we’re not going to ever completely stop them but there are things we can do to reduce them.” Manninen said installing electric fences around compost piles and chicken coops can help mitigate some of the bear pressure and stress on the community. “The bears will always come back if the attractant stays.”

Yoakum said that by bringing this in front of the assembly, he hopes they can put together a taskforce similar to the one created in 2020. In 2020, there were hundreds of bear-related calls to the police department and at least 49 bears were documented to have been killed in the Chilkat Valley. 

“The proposal is to get a group together so that we can talk about the bears in 2027 and how the borough wants to deal with those,” Yoakum said.

He’s said he’s envisioning a group made up of assembly members, borough staff, Alaska Wildlife Troopers, state park rangers, and representatives from Fish and Game and the Takshanuk Watershed Council. 

Yoakum said the goal is to have a policy in place before the bears come out of hibernation next spring, but that depends on how swiftly the group and assembly move.

“We’re here to support Fish and Game and the [Alaska Wildlife Troopers] in their management of the wildlife,” Yoakum said. “But we’re also here to protect the citizens of Haines if there’s a danger to the citizens and their property.” His goal with creating a policy is to also get to a “middle ground” so that borough residents understand “why we’re doing it.”

Another reason for the bear policy discussion, Yoakum said, is a larger effort to review all 190 of the department’s policies and procedures. 

The last time these policies were reviewed was 2021. Yoakum said that prior chiefs may have reviewed the policies, but did not document the review. He believes that policies and procedures should be “reviewed and documented every single year.” 

• This article originally appeared in the Chilkat Valley News.