Dillon versus Goliath — Huge brown bear shot in Soldotna

By Joseph Robertia

Photos courtesy of Keain Dillon, via the Soldotna Police Department. A large brown bear was killed by Soldotna Police Officer Victor Dillon on Thursday in a residential neighborhood. The bear had been reportedly causing problems in the area for days.

Redoubt Reporter

In a modern-day version of David versus Goliath, played out in Soldotna on Thursday night, David was a Soldotna Police officer with incredible aim and even better luck, while Goliath was a 1,000-pound behemoth of a brown bear that had strode into a residential neighborhood midday like he owned the place.

Officer Victor Dillon was patrolling along Banner Street around 1:30 p.m. Thursday when he spotted the bear crossing into a residential yard, said Soldotna Police Chief John Lucking.

The bear was no stranger to police officers, Alaska State Troopers or the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, as they had all received numerous calls during the week about a huge brown bear that walked with an unusual swagger and was becoming a nuisance.

“The bear had first been noticed in Soldotna on Sunday evening when it tore the lid off a chest freezer at a residence on South Fireweed,” Lucking said.

It was later seen scavenging in Dumpsters in the area around South Fireweed and Kobuk streets. The bear had been reported as acting aggressive, and a police officer and sergeant attempted to locate it.

“At one point it made a short charge in their direction, but they were not able to safely fire their weapons because of low visibility and nearby residences,” Lucking said.

Do visas work out? Concerns of exchange program on the rise

Editor’s note: This is part two in a series of stories examining J-1 student visa workers on the Kenai Peninsula.

By Jenny Neyman

Redoubt Reporter

The most easily referenced image of foreign workers in the U.S. is of adults, working minimum-wage, menial-labor jobs, seeking a better life in America or escaping some kind of economic or political difficulties in their home countries. Hoping for U.S. citizenship or at least to make some money to support themselves or send to family back home. Taking American jobs, as one side of the immigration debate goes, or being all-too-easy victims of exploitation, says the other.

The image doesn’t usually involve university students, from stable-enough financial and societal situations to obtain an education and participate in a travel-abroad program, spending their summer break in the U.S. in order to see the sights, experience the culture and improve their English before returning to school.

But more and more these days, it should, said Stephen Boykewich, communications director with National Guestworker Alliance, an advocacy organization based in New Orleans. Though the university students and adult guest workers are in the U.S. through two different visa programs with two different purposes, their experiences can be similar.

“Increasingly companies have figured out this is the ultimate way to source cheap, exploitable labor for three to four months at a time with very little oversight,” Boykewich said.

The J-1 is a nonimmigrant visa allowing visitors to work in a select range of jobs —factories, fast food and the hospitality industry, for example — and travel in the U.S. for a limited period of time. The program was established by Congress in 1961 during a Cold War-era effort to improve international relations.

“It’s a cultural exchange program that’s supposed to bring students from around the world to experience American culture, have a great three or four months and then return to their home countries to win hearts and minds about what a great place America is,” Boykewich said.

Almanac: Chipping away at a mystery — Scientists ponder possibility of woolly mammoths once roaming the Kenai Peninsula

Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part story concerning the possibility that mammoths once roamed the Kenai Peninsula. Last week, part one recounted the search for fossil evidence and the public involvement in that search. This week’s story describes the mammoths themselves and their habitat, and the science that attempts to connect them to the Kenai.

By Clark Fair

Photo courtesy of Richard D. Reger, Ph.D. With his right index finger, Soldotna geologist Dick Reger indicates the site at which Homer dentist, Dr. Edward Todd, extracted a sample from this fossilized mammoth molar.

Redoubt Reporter

Soldotna geologist Dick Reger is quick to point out that what he and Homer field archaeologist Janet Klein believe about the possibility of woolly mammoths once roaming the Kenai Peninsula is a hypothesis and not a theory.

“The magnitude of evidence that we have is pretty damn small, compared to what we need to have to make it a theory,” Reger said. “It may never be a theory — probably won’t — and that’s OK. That’s the way science works. That’s the fun of it.”

The Random House Webster’s College Dictionary defines hypothesis as a “provisional theory set forth to explain some class of phenomena, either accepted as a guide to future investigation (working hypothesis) or assumed for the sake of argument and testing.”

Both Reger and Klein have stated that they believe that mammoths were once here, but they want to know when, they want to know where, and they want to be sure. In other words, they want more proof.

To solidify their evidence — 11 mammoth fossils so far, plus one steppe bison fossil, all found between Clam Gulch and the Homer Spit — they want to perform more radiocarbon dating. They also want to find more fossils, or have others find them. And they really, really want to find a fossil in situ, a Latin term meaning literally “in place.” More specifically, “situated in its original or natural place or position.”

Disasters can strike, ready or not — September is emergency preparedness month

By Jenny Neyman

Redoubt Reporter

As the saying goes, natural disasters can’t be prevented, but they can be prepared for. September, being emergency preparedness month, is a great time to do so.

To really be prepared, it takes more than just focusing on the emergency situation. A fire, earthquake, tornado, volcanic eruption, tsunami or other destructive event is certainly going to demand attention. But it’s surviving the aftermath that particularly takes forethought and effort toward preparedness, as victims could face days to weeks or longer without electricity, water, transportation or access to supplies.

“That’s what a lot of the preparedness stuff that we stress in September is: ‘Hey, OK, you got through the earthquake, but now you can’t live in your house until it gets repaired and you can’t get in there to get supplies,’ whereas if you had 10 days worth of stuff stashed in your garage, then you’d get by a lot easier,” said Jan Yeager, with the Kenai Peninsula Citizen Corps.

Living in Alaska, prepare for the worst and hope for the best is a common adage, applied to hunting, hiking, camping, fishing, boating and other outdoors activities, or just a winter drive from Kenai to Anchorage. It should also be applied to just living here in general.

Alaska is big, spread out, at risk of many disasters and vulnerable to the destruction and life-as-usual interruptions they could easily cause. On the Kenai Peninsula, as in most outlying areas, the transportation and supply link to the outside world could be quickly cut off and slow to re-establish, whether from a fire, avalanche or volcanic ash fall. Power can go out, natural gas service can be paused and access to clean water can be compromised.

It’s not a new message, but it bears repeating as even those who know better had better get prepared.

“I’m one of them. I don’t have an emergency kit either, as terrible as that is,” Yeager said. “I keep thinking, ‘First I need to clean up my garage to have a place to put one.’ I’ll be one of those people being sorry if something happens.”

A basic emergency kit includes a gallon of water per person, per day, a change of clothes and warm gear, nonperishable food that needs no or little cooking, basic medical supplies, necessary medications, a flashlight, provisions for pets, activities for kids. Basically, anything that will make life livable and more comfortable should residents be plunged into an impromptu camping trip.

“I hate winter camping,” said Barbara McNinch.

She and Charlie LaForge have given emergency preparedness some thought and actual effort, including looking into earthquake insurance for their home. It wasn’t the unexpected August quake that hit the East Coast, remembrances of Sept. 11 or any specific occurrence that spurred their action, they said. Just an awareness of the importance of being prepared.

“I grew up around tornadoes. And I was a Boy Scout and I was taught to be prepared, that was a big part of it. I always heard to keep water on hand,” LaForge said.

He’s got a disaster kit stashed away including water, dry goods, seven cases of canned fish, 5 gallons of kerosene, a gas stove and a small power generator.

“To keep the fish from thawing out, you know. That’s all we’d use a generator for — a light bulb and a freezer,” LaForge said.

“If you can’t get out of your house for a few days things could easily get real ugly for you. I heard if something ever happened to the Port of Anchorage, within a week Alaska would be depleted of food, so I’m thinking about getting more dry goods,” he said. “I try to keep those reserves up. If any major thing happened I’d want to have some extra for my neighbors, too.”

“For me, it’s heat,” McNinch said of her concern if disaster were to strike.

They’ve lived off the grid, with no running water or electricity, as many Alaskans have done. She could do it again if need be, though she would rather not have to in the winter.

So they’ve got a wood stove, just in case. But as is often the case, more preparatory work could still be done.

“That’s why we’ve got a wood stove,” LaForge said.

“But it would have to be hooked up,” McNinch added.

“And without a working stove, we don’t have wood just setting around to use,” LaForge said. “Right now, we’d have to split up the shed for some wood.”

Getting supplies in order is part of being prepared. Doing some mental work is another, Yeager said. People need to think about what could happen and be prepared by figuring out a plan of response. Have an escape and meeting plan for families. Have a way to communicate. Have a plan for what to do with pets.

“A lot of shelters are designed for people, they aren’t designed for pets, and so you’re going to have to have some kind of plan for how you’re going to take care of your critters. They’re not coming to the shelter with you, so where are they going to go?” Yeager said.

For business owners, there are resources online to help establish a business continuity plan.

“What are you going to do if an emergency strikes your business? What’s your cleanup plan? Do you have plans with your suppliers in terms of holding off on shipments or maintaining your inventory? How are you going to secure your business if you need to? Do you have earthquake or fire insurance on your business? Yeah, maybe it’s expensive, but if something happens you’re going to wish you had it,” Yeager said.

Don’t leave action to chance. Think ahead about what to do if the time comes. If an earthquake were to hit, for example, adults and kids should know how to be safe.

“If you’re out in the open you’re in the best place to be. If you’re right next to a building you want to try and move away from it. I saw pictures of bricks falling down from buildings on the East Coast during that quake. I don’t want one of those falling on my head. So move away from things that are likely to fall,” Yeager said.

If indoors, don’t try to get out of the building. Standing in a doorframe is better than next to a window, for example, but not ideal.

“The best thing to do is get under desk, get under a table or something sturdy and then hang on to it, because as the ground is shaking most things are going to move, and if that desk moves off of you then it’s not helping you any,” Yeager said.

A disaster could easily be a literal rude awakening, since people spend six to eight hours a day in bed. As such, keep emergency gear under the bed, Yeager advises.

“Preparatory things like having some sort of head protection, sturdy shoes, a flashlight, gloves — stick them under your bed and leave them there. That way you know exactly where they are. If you do have broken glass and stuff around you’re probably not going to have it under your bed, so you can put those things on and not worry about them. There are things that you’re going to need all of a sudden, and the best place to have them is right there at hand,” she said.

And put some thought into not making your situation worse. For instance, don’t hang heavy items precariously overhead.

“If you have a big, heavy, framed glass picture over your bed, that’s going to hurt if it falls on you,” Yeager said.

Beyond that, common sense goes a long way. At the Kenai Peninsula Citizen Corps, with the Kenai Peninsula Borough Office of Emergency Management, Yeager said they spend about as much time debunking poor advice as they do giving out good advice.

“It’s amazing how many people don’t know, or they see something on the Internet and believe it. I heard one about putting raw egg whites on people’s burns and they heal right away. No, please don’t do that. I’m picturing salmonella in an open wound kind of thing. Eew. Please don’t,” Yeager said.

There’s also a pernicious Internet rumor about the “triangle of life” theory to surviving earthquakes. It holds that people shouldn’t shelter under tables or desks, but should try to find spaces that are likely to become “voids” in a structural collapse, like next to a refrigerator. Again, not true, Yeager said.

“If you have a building come down there’s going to be these voids and the safest place to be is one of these voids. And there are going to be voids, that’s true. But (the rumor) claims you can predict where these voids are going to be. And that’s not true,” she said. “So it’ll say get next to a refrigerator because a refrigerator will create this slanted space next to it and you’ll live. But refrigerators fall over.”

There is plenty of good, reliable safety and preparedness advice out there. Yeager’s main advice is to heed it.

“People hear things once and they don’t check it out, they don’t think critically, and they don’t plan ahead,” Yeager said. “And I’m one of them. I need to get prepared too.”

 

Practice makes planning perfect

In recognition of September as National Preparedness Month, the Kenai Peninsula Borough Office of Emergency Management is spreading the word about the importance of emergency preparedness for every household.

Last week, an article discussed the importance of having an emergency kit and a “go bag” in the event of a disaster. The next step in preparedness is to have a plan. The middle of an emergency is not the time to start figuring out what to do. Professional emergency responders develop and test response plans for every situation they can anticipate and practice them over and over until they’re automatic. They also review them regularly to see what changes need to be made. Your family should do the same.

Disaster may strike when you’re all together, whether at home or away, or separated. Plan for each option. At home, practice evacuating the house and decide on a location outside, such as a driveway or mailbox, where everyone will meet. Choose a meeting place away from home if disaster should strike when family members are separated and returning home is not an option. Also figure out a couple options of places your family can stay if you’re away from home and it’s not safe to return. Make sure one of these is far enough away that it is unlikely to be in the disaster area.

How will you contact each other if separated? Choose an out-of-area friend or relative who is unlikely to be affected by the emergency and can act as a point of contact for you. Everyone who has a cell phone should learn to text, as text messages use much smaller amounts of data and can often get through when regular cell phone calls can’t. If cell towers are down, cell phones won’t work at all. Know where landlines are that you can access in an emergency.

Plan how you will care for your pets. You should take them with you if you need to evacuate; however, most shelters will not accept pets. You may be able to keep them in a vehicle if the outdoor temperatures are moderate and you can tend to them regularly. Develop a list of hotels that will accept pets; some that normally don’t may make exceptions in emergencies. Arrange ahead of time for a friend or neighbor to check on your animals and evacuate them if necessary if disaster happens when you are away from home.

Once you have worked out the details of your family emergency plan, make sure everyone in the family knows the plan and has a copy. If you have children in daycare or school, know the emergency plans of the care providers and schools.

There is a planning tool at http://www.ready.gov that can take you step by step through preparing a family emergency plan. You will also find links where you can create versions of the plan designed to fit in your wallet or in a pocket of your children’s school bags. Once a year, review your plan and update it as needed. And continue to hold family emergency drills so that everyone will automatically know how to react in a fire, earthquake or other disaster.

It is easy to get caught up in the day-to-day rush of our busy lives and put off tasks like this one. But disasters almost always catch us off guard. Make your plan now. It takes just a few minutes but can save tremendous time and worry, and possibly a life, when an emergency happens.

Jan Yeager works with the Kenai Peninsula Citizen Corps. For more information, visit the Kenai Peninsula Borough’s Office of Emergency management webpage at www2.borough.kenai.ak.us/emergency.

Bag a ’bou — Kasilof hunter finds big game in open country

By Joseph Robertia

Photo courtesy of Kristy Berington. Kristy Berington, from Kasilof, and her first caribou, taken in the Tok area.

Redoubt Reporter

Kasilof’s Kristy Berington is no stranger to hard work. After high school she served four years in the Army National Guard. In summer she competes in marathons and mountain-running events, and in winter she runs sled dogs and is a two-time  Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race finisher.

So why should fall be any different for pursuing extreme labors of love?

Berington and fellow Kasilof musher Paul Gebhardt drew registration and permits to hunt caribou and Dall sheep up in the Tok area, two species of game in terrain that is not for the faint of heart to pursue.

Unlike leisurely canvassing to drop a nearly motionless roadside spike-fork moose, caribou and sheep are two restless species, regularly on the move in the search of food. They can be there one day and gone the next. Even when caribou are where a hunter expects, the animals may not be still long enough to line up a clean, broadsided heart-lung shot.

Caribou also have keen senses and are quick to run if they hear, see or smell something out of the ordinary. Once on the run, the rugged terrain they favor is thigh-numbingly humbling to two-legged climbers. And then there’s the weather around Tok this time of year, which on a good day is best described as a tempest of rain and hail.

None of these factors were enough to dissuade Berington. In the course of her other hobbies she has seen the best of the worst kind of terrain and weather. In terms of her hunting skills, they were honed long ago.

“I grew up in Northern Wisconsin and hunted white-tailed deer with my dad,” she said. “Down there everyone hunts. I remember being allowed to miss school if I brought in my deer tag, and if you didn’t have orange on in fall, you were some kind of misfit.”

When it comes to aim, don’t wing it — In fowl hunting, make sure gun shoots where you look

By Steve Meyer, for the Redoubt Reporter

Photo courtesy of Steve Meyer. Winchester is ready to retrieve, provided his owner gets a successful shot in such uneven terrain. Making sure a shotgun shoots true and is properly calibrated to its user is vital before taking to the field.

The shale rock was a few feet from my nose as I was trying to negotiate a slide where Winchester had found a whitetail ptarmigan. Setters think they can do/be anything, and on this day he decided to be a mountain goat. Not entirely his fault as I had set out to find rock ptarmigan. To do so, one must go to the rocks.

He had the bird on point up the 60-degree slope, near a large boulder that somehow had defied gravity and came to a stop, apparently to mess with ptarmigan hunters. Winchester was holding his point, feeling sheepish for busting the birds down lower and causing their current location, but he only has so much patience with his old hunting partner, so I was trying my best to flush the bird. I finally got up in the rocks to where I could see the bird’s head sticking up. He was looking around, knowing instinctually that something wasn’t right and evidently trying to decide his options. He decided the best time to fly was while I had one foot up on the next rock, gun in one hand and feeling like I was a misstep away from going down the slope.

That is the difference in wingshooting/shotgunning and precision shooting with a rifle or handgun. With a single projectile one takes pains to zero the gun and then waits for a reasonable chance to take a shot from a relatively stable platform. In wingshooting, shots are taken as they come and you can never be absolutely sure when that is going to happen.

Cranebrain? Goose has case of mistaken identity

By Naomi Klouda

Photo courtesy of Homer Tribune. A Canada goose pokes along the grass with sandhill cranes in the Homer area recently. The bird seems to have adopted itself into a crane flock, possibly by imprinting with crane parents when it was young.

Homer Tribune

A Canada goose has joined a sandhill crane flock, probably a situation of imprinting that apparently occurred early in the goose’s life.

Nina Faust and Ed Bailey of Kachemak Crane Watch received calls all summer from crane observers spotting the unmistakeable black neck mixed amongst the graceful ruby crests of the cranes. He ate corn when cranes ate corn. He bathed in ponds where they bathed. He flew in their flock when they took flight.

The Canadian landed at Inspiration Ridge Preserve with crane flocks this weekend and earlier as well. Faust caught him with his adopted flock on video last week and posted it on YouTube. It can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjGmT3iZDYI.

The question now is whether the goose will migrate with the cranes to Oregon and California farm fields when they take off any day now.

“We think there’s been a partial migration of maybe one-third of the flock,” Faust said Monday. “About 100 cranes left from here (to Inspiration Ridge Preserve) on Sept. 9, but it didn’t look like a true migration.”

Art Seen: Dragonflights of fancy — Gallery has whimsical appeal

By Zirrus VanDevere, for the Redoubt Reporter

“Live Oak” by Chelline Larson is one of many pieces on display at the Dragonfly Gallery in Soldotna.

The Dragonfly Gallery, tucked behind Jersey Subs in Soldotna, had an open house shindig July 16.

Much of the work tends toward the crafty, trendy or “giftish,” but interspersed you will find some really elevated pieces of art. Mary Whiteley has a couple paintings with salmon as a theme, and they are represented somewhat abstractly and with a kind of painterliness I cannot resist.

Plugged In: Farsighted: Choosing good telephoto lenses

By Joe Kashi, for the Redoubt Reporter

High-quality telephoto lenses are often the photo tool of choice here in Alaska. Good-quality telephoto lenses, while not inexpensive, can provide decades of service, so choose wisely.

No matter what camera brand you use, you’ll find some excellent prime telephoto lenses that should work for you. These can be surprisingly affordable.

Many single-magnification “prime” lenses from third-party vendors, like Tamron and Sigma, often do equally well as both close-up macro lenses and as telephoto lenses for distant work. Prime telephoto lenses tend to be lighter, smaller and sharper from corner to corner compared to zoom lenses covering the same magnification range.

However, only a few camera manufacturers offer an adequate selection of telephoto prime lenses. Third-party vendors often do better because they can sell the same lens for many different camera brands, thus benefiting from economies of scale.

While Canon and Pentax offer a nice range of high-quality telephoto prime lenses, Nikon and Sony offer few prime lenses in the telephoto range. As a result, Nikon and Sony owners often stick with telephoto zooms or look to third-party vendors Sigma and Tamron for prime lenses.

Drinking on the Last Frontier: Brewing their craft

By Bill Howell, for the Redoubt Reporter

Craft beer is a growth industry. And no, I’m not just talking about the growth of your waistline if you drink too much of it. Everywhere you look, interest in craft beer is booming and new breweries and brewpubs are springing up like weeds.

Take last month’s Kenai Peninsula Beer Festival, for example. Those of you who were fortunate enough to attend know that it was a smashing success, with more than 1,000 paying customers enjoying excellent beers, great music and delicious food. Who could have imagined such a successful event on the Kenai even a mere five years ago? Yet there it was.

Explosive growth characterizes the national craft-brewing scene, as well. The Brewers Association is the national trade group for craft brewers, and it tracks brewery openings, both actual and planned. It reports that, as of the end of June, there were 1,790 breweries operating in the United States, an increase of 165 breweries since June 2010. Even more amazing, there are reportedly another 725 breweries in the planning stages, up from 389 last year. We’ve still got quite a way to go before there’s a craft brewery or brewpub next door to every Starbucks, but that seems to be the way we’re headed.