The summer of the Grizzly continues. This time the bear loses.

The male bear came out of the woods from one of Anchorage’s many greenbelts. It was struck on the Seward Highway near Cal Worthington Ford. The collision pushed in the front end of Hawkins’ Land Rover. The vehicle’s air bags deployed, but Hawkins was uninjured.

“The poor animal just came from nowhere,” he said.

He called 911 and got out of his car to await police. The bear, now angry and in a lot of pain with a broken leg, was behind the Land Rover stumbling around, roaring and growling.

Officers arrived within minutes and advised Hawkins to get back in his vehicle; he did.
At one point, the bear charged the officers, police spokesman Paul Honeman said.

The grizzly made its way off the road and back into the woods, where officers found it and killed it.

I have lived here all of my life. I have dodged more moose then I can count in and around Anchorage. But I have NEVER seen a bear on the roads.

About twenty years ago we had a bear in town that got chased along the streets by a bunch of people who were being egged on by a radio station which kept giving updates on the bears' location. That bear also ended up dead.

This is the strangest summer for bears that I have ever experienced. There are way more, they are way more aggressive, and for some reason they seem to be getting bolder.

This is a sad summer for bears, and a frightening one for Anchorage citizens.