A Kodiak bear injured a woman yesterday, Aug. 18 near the Bells Flats area, just past the Coast Guard base. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game did not identify the woman. But in a Facebook post published today, Aug. 19, a woman named Katelynn Lane identified herself as the victim.
Lane declined KMXT's request for comment. According to an Alaska Department of Fish and Game press release, she was walking her dog off leash on a very brushy path next to a salmon stream when they saw two cubs.
Nate Svoboda is an area biologist with ADF&G in Kodiak. He said Lane was walking at the end of Panamaroff Creek Drive. A sow came out onto the trail and chased the dog back to her.
“She then turned around and started to run and climb a small embankment adjacent to the trail in an attempt to get away," Svoboda said. "As she climbed the hill, the bear swatted at her leg, and then bit her on the back of her leg and pulled her back down the hill a little bit.”
Svoboda said the dog distracted the sow while Lane played dead, and the bears eventually left. Lane was transported to the hospital for treatment and had no life-threatening injuries. Svoboda said she was not carrying bear spray.
Fish and Game biologists later went to the site of the attack to collect samples. Svoboda said they did not find the bears.
The last confirmed Kodiak bear attack involving a person happened back in 2020, when a man was mauled on a run up Pillar Mountain. There have already been several bear incidents in Kodiak this summer that locals have reported on social media: a bear broke into a food truck at the beginning of August, and a bear also broke into a house in the Spruce Cape area in late July.
Larry Van Daele is a retired wildlife biologist with Fish and Game and current executive director at the Kodiak Brown Bear Trust. In an interview on Aug. 17, he said that bears are having a hard time finding food this year, which could make human conflicts more likely.
“It's a horrible year for berries, and it was a very slow green-up," he said. "The reds were the first group of fish that the bears could go after, and they didn’t come in. And then you put the month of August on top of that.”
Svoboda said he recommends keeping dogs on leash and carrying deterrents like bear spray when out hiking, especially this time of year when bears are bulking up for the winter. And he said to make noise, especially in densely vegetated areas.
