As autumn approaches, while much of the contiguous United States continues to bask in sunny days, Alaska’s Susitna Valley has already welcomed the cooler, rain-soaked weather. Bright summer greens are fading from the birches and poplars, giving way to the dusty, muted tones typical of August, with the first hints of yellow dotting the leaves.
But there’s another interesting development brewing. Otters, those playful yet cunning creatures, have been spotted around Anchorage, seemingly adapting to city life with surprising ease.
In response to recent otter activity, wildlife experts are cautioning the public to steer clear of these animals following two attacks in Anchorage, one notably occurring in the Taku/Campbell neighborhood just this week.
An alert from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game was issued Wednesday, highlighting the risk of encountering aggressive otters. This warning came after an incident where an otter injured a man who was with a group of children along Campbell Creek near Taku Park.
Just a few weeks earlier, a child suffered a bite while paddleboarding after crossing paths with four otters on Sand Lake. Fish and Game authorities have noted that otters in the same area have also displayed aggressive behavior toward a dog, although the dog escaped unharmed.
This seems rather surprising, as otters are usually pretty inoffensive and even playful critters, although they tend to give humans a wide berth. When I was a kid in Allamakee County, Iowa, we’d see them now and again along Bear Creek, which flowed through my folks’ property. I can remember one late winter when they made a slide on a steep bank of the creek, and three of them, if memory serves, would slide down, run back up the bank, and slide down again. It was a lot of fun to watch them.
These Anchorage otters are apparently less playful.
River otters are found throughout Anchorage’s lakes and streams, often in groups, and can be territorial, biologists say. They can travel both overland and by using Anchorage’s connected bodies of water.
Fish and Game officials said in Wednesday’s statement that they had few details about the otters involved in the encounter this week, as well as their group composition.
Alaska Man score: 5 aquatic meat Slinkies. They’re just doing what they do.
Now then, here’s another interesting Alaska critter story, this one out of Kodiak Island. This gutsy woman repelled a charging brown bear, not with pepper spray, not with a firearm, but with jiu-jitsu.
Yes, really.
While walking her dog Vesper on a routine weekly route near Bells Flats — a small community about 10 miles from the town of Kodiak — on Aug. 18, (Katelynn) Lane suddenly found herself in a life-or-death confrontation next to a salmon stream.
Armed with no deterrents, she attempted standard bear safety protocols by making noise and standing her ground.
But when the sow kept barreling toward her, Lane made the decision to scramble up a vertical hill. It was during this climb that her dog Vesper intervened, momentarily distracting the brown bear long enough for Lane to reposition herself.
I know I said kung fu in the headline. Kung fu is funnier. Anyway, the martial arts tactic worked:
“You use one leg to kind of block and you kick with the other leg. I don’t know if that was what made that happen or if that was entirely instinctual, but if a person wanted to attribute it to some sort of training, then I suppose that would be it.”
As the bear returned to the hill, it grabbed Lane’s right leg. Lying on her back with her feet pointed downslope, Lane used the leverage to deliver a defensive kick directly to the bear’s face, halting the encounter.
Of course, Ms. Lane was fortunate indeed. She probably startled the bear, who was more concerned about getting her cubs away than pressing home an attack. But that kick to the snoot may have been persuasive. Bears have very sensitive noses, and not just where their sense of smell is concerned. If you have to fight a bear, direct your blows on its nose, especially since the rest of a huge Kodiak brown bear is pretty much bulletproof.
Alaska Man score: 5 bears with sore noses.
In closing, let’s talk about firewood, especially the virtues and shortcomings of various kinds of stove wood.
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