CLOSE ENCOUNTER

When I worked as public information officer for Alaska’s Division of Wildlife Conservation, I routinely addressed reporters and public in the wake of situations involving bear attacks of all types. Hapless hikers, hunters, and anglers seemed to regularly bump into individual bears or encounter sows with cubs at close range. And rare as predatory attacks are, I once faced news cameras and print reporters two days in a row after a fatal attack occurred near Anchorage one day only to be followed the next by a second predatory mauling in the Interior hundreds of miles north. Both of those fatal attacks involved black bears.