Bear barrier funds corralled

Constructing electric fences to keep out bears of Peninsula farms will receive funding from the Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service starting in October.

The program, which is part of the Wildlife Habitat Initiative Fund, will fund enclosures around farming structures that normally attract bears, such as beehives, livestock pens and chicken cops, according to local conservation service coordinator Meg Mueller. The program is designed to reduce bear and human interactions, and the potential death of all mammals involved.

Department of agriculture state biologist Bill Woods said that the service will conduct site visits, develop management plans with the farmers and pay approximately 75 percent of the fence's cost and 90 percent for historically underserved groups such as Alaskan Natives. The budget is yet to be determined, but Woods said that there will be less competition within the program because it's only available on the Kenai Peninsula. The program will fund fences that enclose between 50 square feet and a full acre.

Priority will go towards farms in close proximity to areas of high bear activity, like salmon streams, known bear travel corridors and large undeveloped tracks of land.

Woods said that fences must be approximately four and half feet in height with nine electrical strands running across them. The electric fence must maintain between 7,000 and 15,000 volts. Woods said that the conservation service will only fund electrical wire made of a highly visible material as well. Woods said that the fences will be made out of an inch thick white polyplastic and include signage to warn people.

Department of Fish and Game wildlife expert Larry Lewis said that visible fences alert people to keep a safe distance, and provide a visual barrier to Kenai's larger and furrier residents. When a bear is shocked, its natural inclination is to rush forward if it does not know the source of the attack. This will help teach a bear to stay away from the enclosed area.

Pennsylvania bee-keeper and farmer Craig Cella recommends farmers help the large mammal understand the shock value of the fence. Highly visible fences act as a visual barrier, but tieing bacon to the wires will cause the mammal to sniff it. The highly conductive moisture on its nose will create a closed electrical circuit thereby producing a sufficient electric shock to scare the bear away.

"Any animal - cow, goat, or sheep - you have to train them what a fence is," he said.

Cella uses galvanized metal livestock panels attached along fiberglass posts or oil field rods to enclose his beehives, none of which would receive funding from the Peninsula's program.

Kencove fence salesman Pierce tells customers to smear peanut butter inside a pie tin and hang it on the fence to produce a similar result. He said that just 4,000 volts of electricity through the bear's tongue is usually enough, but more always helps.

"They don't hang around very long," Pierce said.

Lewis discouraged these practices because they could be misconstrued as illegal bear feeding.

"It's illegal to attract bears outside of the bear baiting season," he said. "That could be construed as negligent feeding."

Wyoming Game and Fish bear program coordinator Tara Teaschner said that once a bear is shocked once, they'll usually stay way. The conservation service won't fund temporary fences because of the agency's emphasis on permanent structures, but Teascher said that most farmers in her area use temporary fences because the large animals are active for a few months each year. Most of the fences in her area are powered by solar chargers because of a lack of electrical infrastructure. The Peninsula program will fund fences with both types of power sources.

Regardless of the type of fence, however, there's no complete safeguard against foraging bears. The coordinators said that farmers need to clean up and eliminate bear attractants as if the fence wasn't there.

"You wouldn't take a bunch of garbage bags that haven't been taken to the dump in a month, put a fence around it and expect everything to be OK," said Lewis.

Teaschner said that farmers can turn off the juice to enter a fenced area's gate and forget to turn it back on. The bear can also dig under the fence and potentially become stuck inside.

According to Lewis, a bear can charge into the fence and plow through it if it's determined enough. Some brownies will back into the fence to cushion the impact. The large mammals have also been known to dig under fences, or climb over them if they're too short.

Without a fence, Cella said that bee-keepers can lose an entire year's crop. He recalled an occasion when a bear destroyed six beehives in one night.

"It can't eat all of the hives, but it'll taste each one to see which it likes the best," he said.

He said that bears are known to tear up the hives and destroy any equipment in the area.

"They'll drag it into the woods a couple hundred feet," he said. "I don't know why."

"I can't feel sorry for someone who has a bear problem because it's so easy to take care of."

The Kenai brown bear was designated an Alaskan Species of Special Concern in 1998.

Tony Cella can be reached at tony.cella@peninsulaclarion.com.