Two bear cubs fatally electrocuted fleeing up utility pole

Bears seen frequently in downtown neighborhood, would climb poles when frightened, residents say

Three bears climb a power pole in downtown Juneau. Two were fatally electrocuted on Monday, July 21, 2025. (Photo by Nancy Hemenway)

Two black bear cubs were fatally electrocuted Monday night after climbing up a power pole at the intersection of W. 12th and D streets in downtown Juneau. 

Riley Woodford said he had noticed the mother bear and her three cubs in his backyard around 10 p.m. Monday night. He went outside to make sure the bear had not gotten into trash and noticed the bears rummaging through garbage on Glacier Avenue. 

“They would kind of mill around and they would climb up the poles if somebody walked by, or a car drove past, and then they'd climb back down again really quickly,” Woodford said. “They're super agile.”

Tara Thornton, a resident of W. 12th Street, said that there had been frequent sightings of the four bears leading up to the incident. 

“We've seen them in the neighborhood many times and they've been seen climbing telephone poles before,” Thornton said. 

On Monday night, she saw the mother bear lingering on her street despite neighbors yelling to try to scare her away. 

“Then we hear like a zap electrical noise, and that's when the first cub fell from the top of the telephone pole onto a car with a loud thud,” she said. 

Thornton called 911 to alert authorities to the situation. She said the Juneau Police Department contacted the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. JPD was also briefly on the scene before Fish and Game arrived. 

“I was really panicked, like there were people gathering and Fish and Game was there, and one cub was injured, another one was also potentially injured,” Thornton said. 

She said that the sow began dragging her injured cub towards Evergreen Cemetery. 

“It was at this point making a noise, almost like a human in pain saying help,”  Thornton said. “It was really disturbing and loud and didn’t stop for a long time.” 

Roy Churchwell, Alaska Fish and Game regional management coordinator, was one of two department employees to respond. When he arrived, one of the cubs had fled back up the pole. 

“We tried to get folks to go in their houses so the cub could come back down the power pole and we were waiting there, hoping that it would come down, but for some reason it decided to go up the pole a little bit, and then it also got electrocuted, and that's when the power went out,” Churchwell said. 

Both Woodford and Thornton described hearing a loud noise when this cub was fatally electrocuted. 

“The third cub climbed up further up the pole and hit the transformer, and it sounded like a gunshot, and then it fell and it was dead instantly,” Thornton said. 

The noise was the fuse that protects the power system working as intended, according to Debbie Driscoll, vice president and chief people officer of Alaska Electric Light and Power. When the fuse opened, it cut power to the transformer, which served approximately a dozen homes and a handful of streetlights. Power was restored to these homes by 12:15 a.m.

“It'd be nice for the city, or AEL&P, or whatever combination, to have some type of preventable measures on telephone poles that have transformers, so this doesn't happen again to other bears, or specifically bear cubs,” Thornton said. 

Driscoll said that AEL&P has wildlife guards, such as visual deterrents, on power lines in high avian-prone areas and squirrel guards on some energized equipment. 

Churchwell said that in his seven years in Fish and Game, the department has not been alerted to a bear climbing a power pole and being electrocuted. Driscoll said that while avian and squirrel fatalities on power lines are fairly common, this is the first bear fatality from energized equipment she can recall in her 16 years with AEL&P.  

However, there are other fatal consequences for bears that become reliant on poorly protected trash in Juneau. 

Last summer, JPD responded to more bear-related calls than usual. Fish and Game euthanized two bears in downtown Juneau after they displayed aggressive behavior near garbage cans in July 2024. According to Churchwell, the bears are often drawn to town to eat trash when natural foods are scarce.  

“Last summer, there were quite a few attractants available, mostly garbage for bears, in downtown and this year, folks have done a better job of cleaning up, and so we've seen fewer bears this summer than last summer because of that,” Churchwell said. 

Thornton hypothesized the cubs were initially scared up the power pole by a barking dog in a neighbor's front yard. Churchwell said that bears often climb trees when they feel threatened. 

“That's their place of retreat, where they feel safe,” he said. 

Unlike the intimidation used to drive away bears in the wilderness, Churchwell recommends a more subtle approach for removing a bear from a power pole. 

“When a bear climbs a tree or climbs a power pole, if you want it to come down, you just need to leave it alone,” Churchwell said. “If there's dogs around, make sure the dogs are in the house and not barking and whatnot, and as soon as the bear feels calm again, it will come down and that's what we were trying to get to happen last night.” 

On Tuesday morning, Fish and Game received word from JPD that the grieving sow had chased someone to protect her last living cub. When Fish and Game arrived, the cub was in a tree. Churchwell said after the sow retrieved the cub from the tree, she led her cub across the cemetery and up into the woods past Evergreen Street. 

“Hopefully they will go up and up on the mountain and stay up there for a while,” Churchwell said. “Obviously, we have no control over that, but that's our hope.”

• Contact Natalie Buttner at natalieb@juneauindependent.com.