Familiar White-Eared Bear Fatally Shot In Sitka

From KCAW, a sow bear known around Sitka for her white ears has died in a shooting:

Wildlife Trooper Kyle Ferguson performed a necropsy on the animal later that afternoon.

“It was a female,” said Ferguson, “a younger bear. It was known to a lot of Sitkans. It was a sow that was distinctive for her white ears, and she had spent a lot of time out at Starrigavan.”

A picture of the bear standing in Starrigavan Creek is the cover image for the Sitka Bear Report, a social media page used by many Sitkans to report bear sightings.

Ferguson says that the sow had been killed by a single shot from a small-caliber firearm, most likely a rifle. He adds that no one in the vicinity had reported gunshots, either on November 8 or the previous day, so the bear may have been wounded elsewhere.

The Sitka Bear Report’s Facebook page made an image of the brown bear its cover photo.