Second bear attack in the Chilkat Valley

The Jones Point trail was blocked off after a bear attack on Monday, in Haines, Alaska, on September 22, 2026. (Lizzy Hahn/ Chilkat Valley News)

By Rashah McChesney and Lizzy Hahn

Chilkat Valley News

Haines resident Sue Libenson surprised a bear while hiking on the Jones Point trail on Monday afternoon.

Libenson is getting treatment in Juneau for injuries, including broken ribs and wounds on her back, that she got in the resulting scuffle. Haines police and Alaska Wildlife Trooper Josh Whitby have closed the trail and are searching for the bear. 

Both Haines police chief Jimmy Yoakum and Libenson shied away from calling the incident a “mauling.” 

“The bear was not stalking me. I didn’t have something that it wanted. We just ‘boom’ came upon each other,” Libenson said from a hospital room on Wednesday. She said she was hiking north on the trail from her home on River Road. “It jumped on me, like ‘one, two’ and it was gone. It didn’t try to kill me. It wasn’t an attack.” 

Libenson said her adrenaline was so high she did not realize at first that she had been injured. “I remember that I yelled, I started yelling. Then I put my hands over my head and got down on the ground and rolled,” she said. 

A few seconds later when the attack was over, she figured she had gotten all beat up from rolling into nearby logs. She got up, noticed her hand was bleeding and went down to the river and washed it out.  She then walked the rest of the trail along the beach, past the pavilion and up onto a road that leads to the Takshanuk Watershed Council building. She ran into someone along the way who planned to go sit and do yoga and watercolor at the pavilion. 

“I said, ‘maybe not,” Libenson said. “Then I saw someone I knew and got a ride home.” 

She said she called the police soon after. 

Police recorded an initial call at 4:30 p.m. saying a bear charged at a hiker, who jumped in the bushes. Later at 8:30 p.m. they got another call saying that the bear had actually made contact with the hiker, and that the hiker hadn’t just jumped in the bushes to escape it. The bear had swiped at Libenson.

Yoakum said he, along with officer Max Jusi and Trooper Whitby spent Tuesday morning in the woods around Jones Point, in an attempt to locate and identify the bear. They believe that it was a sow with a cub who attacked Libenson, based on information she gave them. 

When asked directly if they would kill the bear if they found it, Yoakum said it was “situationally dependent.”

If a cub is with a sow who is shot, Alaska Department of Fish and Game supervisor Anthony Crupi said that it could be placed somewhere like a zoo, if they have an opening. If there is no opening at a zoo or wildlife facility when a sow is killed, the cub will also be killed.

Yoakum said that police don’t want to kill the wrong bear and are working with the ADF&G and troopers to figure out their next steps.

“We’ve got barriers up on both ends of the Takshanuk watershed (property), we’ve got a barrier where the trail starts and on the other end of River Road,” Yoakum said.

But it might be difficult to identify the responsible bear. As was the case with the last bear attack in Haines, Fish & Game requested DNA evidence from Libenson. She said her partner dropped an item of clothing she was wearing at the police department early on Tuesday. But Crupi said that it takes “awhile” for those results to yield anything. Emily Reed, a regional invasive plant coordinator who works with the Takshanuk Watershed Council, said she has seen as many as 10 bears out on the mud flats while walking the Jones Point trail last week.

Crupi said that in situations like this “we often do not have a lot of tolerance.” He said that Fish and Game has not “specifically authorized they [police] kill these animals.” If the bear is a risk to public safety, “the police do not need [Fish and Game] authorization to kill the bear.”

Crupi said, however, that this did not appear to be a predatory attack, and was likely more of a defensive attack.

“This is not the normal situation,” Crupi said. He said that in other parts of the state, bear attacks are a lot more common. He called this attack an “atypical event” that comes down to unique circumstances, like the high bear activity as they continue to bulk up for winter.

And that’s how Libenson described it too. 

“It happened in a really constrained place. So neither myself nor the bear had a line of sight. We came up on each other immediately and at close distance,” she said. “The bear just let me know that I should get off the trail.” 

Crupi explained that ADF&G often sees a lot of bears in the Jones Point area when conducting research.

This is a popular area for bears, Crupi said, because they can easily catch fish when the river is low. The trees around the Jones Point area also provide nice bedding for the bears during the day.

“This is a place where bears congregate,” Crupi said. He said it is also a place where people should be very vigilant.

Libenson said, however, that she hopes the police do not kill the bear and regrets telling them she saw a cub with it.  

“I don’t want them to go on a hunt for this bear,” she said. “That would really make me mad. This wasn’t a garbage bear, it wasn’t all of the things that make a bear dangerous to another person.” 

Instead, Libenson, a 30-year resident of the River Road area near the trail, said she’d like to see the borough close the trail in September when the silver salmon are running and there is more bear activity in the area. 

• This story originally appeared in the Chilkat Valley News.