Second bear attack in Anchorage park

ANCHORAGE — Another Anchorage resident has been mauled by a grizzly bear in a city park popular with joggers and bicyclists.

The woman was attacked by the bear Friday evening while jogging in Far North Bicentennial Park. She has not been identified. The woman was attacked by a sow with two cubs.

Rick Sinnott, the area's wildlife biologist, believes it is the same bear that chased a mountain biker earlier this summer and came within inches of harming a cross-country runner in late July.

Neither of those people was injured.

Anchorage police say this time the bear caused serious injuries. The woman was bitten on her torso, arm and neck.

The woman was able to go for help afterward. She hiked back down the trail and flagged down a passing car. She was taken to Providence Alaska Medical Center, where she is in serious condition.

"This is Alaska: big, wild life," said police Sgt. Pablo Paiz.

"You have to be careful when you're out here in the woods. There's always a possibility that something's gonna jump out and grab you. You get between a sow and its cubs, and a sow's gonna do what a sow's gonna do."

After the attack, police organized a hasty patrol down Rover's Run, toting shotguns and nonlethal weapons as they examined the scene of the attack. They found pawprints but no bear.

Fliers already posted warned of the potential danger, including one that said a sow and two cubs were in the area.

The woman ran into the bear along Campbell Creek not far downstream from where 15-year-old Petra Davis was mauled during a 24-hour mountain bike race on June 29.

The young Anchorage cyclist spent more than a week in the hospital and is still recovering from bite wounds to her neck, shoulder and thigh.

The mauling of Petra is the worst attack in the history of the 4,000-acre park on the city's east side.

The park is a wild area tight up against a spreading city. To the east, the wilderness of Chugach State Parks sprawls across mountains and valleys for miles.

Designed as a winter skijoring trail, the trail in the summer is a twisting, turning, single-track rut through thick patches of spruce forest, willow thickets and cottonwood groves close along salmon-filled Campbell Creek.

Recent studies by Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist Sean Farley have documented heavy bear use in the park and the adjacent Bureau of Land Management Campbell Tract.