Claire Stremple

A bat in Juneau has tested positive for rabies. State biologists say that’s a first — and that people are not at risk.

Protocol for a suspicious bat is this: without touching it, you put it in a box and leave it overnight.

“If it is a normal bat, we would expect it to fly away over that period,” said state wildlife biologist Roy Churchwell.

He got a call from animal control about a suspicious bat outside an apartment building on Douglas Island in late June.

“It was still there in the morning, which indicated to us that something was wrong with it,” he said.

Churchwell went and collected the bat, which had to be euthanized. He sent it to state veterinarian Dr. Kimberlee Beckmen in Fairbanks, who tested it for rabies.

“This is the first time a bat on Douglas Island or in the Juneau area has tested positive, but that doesn’t mean we expect more cases,” Beckmen said in a press release. “This detection in a different location just highlights that the risk of bat rabies is always present in southeast Alaska.”

This is only the sixth bat to test positive for rabies in Alaska over more than 45 years of testing, according to the state’s Department of Fish and Game. All six of them were found in Southeast Alaska, but this is the first in Juneau.

“So far it’s just the isolated case,” said Churchwell. “We have sent a couple other bats up that haven’t tested positive from the Juneau area, so it’s not something we’re too worried about yet.”

Karen Blejwas identified the bat as a silver haired bat. She’s a wildlife biologist with ADFG’s Threatened Endangered and Diversity program.

“This is actually only the fifth or sixth specimen of silver haired bat that we’ve ever collected in Alaska. So that was unusual,” she said.

They’re distinct from the brown haired bats that are typical in the region because they’re bigger and have rounded rather than pointy ears. They’re usually recognizable by silver hair.

She said their numbers seem to be increasing in Southeast Alaska, but they’ve proven so difficult to catch that biologists have resorted to tracking them acoustically. Silver haired bats have a distinct call, but you can’t hear it.

“All the echolocation calls are above the range of human hearing,” said Blejwas. “We have special ultrasonic microphones that we use to kind of eavesdrop on the bats.”

Biologists take recordings of the bat calls and lower the frequency so that it’s in the range of human hearing. Blejwas is currently working with data from a citizen science tracking project to try and determine regional bat populations.

She and Churchwell agree that the most likely route of rabies exposure would be if an unvaccinated pet tangled with a rabid bat and then passed it to a human.

“The key is to make sure that your pets are all up on their vaccinations,” he said.

Churchwell says he only gets called to check out three or four bats a year, and it’s usually because they’re hanging out in the eves of a home.

A Juneau man died Tuesday evening after colliding with a tour bus while riding a motorcycle.

Juneau police say they got a 911 call at 5:44 p.m. about a crash at the intersection of Egan Drive and Whittier Street and responded with Capital City Fire and Rescue.

Cramer Marquez Sexton, 48, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Desiree Evans went to high school with Sexton. She said they’d been friends for 30 years.

“Always laughing, cracking jokes, making people around him comfortable,” she said. “He taught me how to drive a stick shift when I was 16 in his yellow, I believe it was a Dodge Dart.”

She said he would stick up for her if she was getting picked on at high school parties, even though she was taller.

Nathan Johnson says he saw Sexton, who went by HB, minutes before the crash.

“He waved at me. I waved back,” Johnson said. “And then like, not even five minutes later, I can hear sirens going. And I just prayed.”

Johnson says he’d served Sexton a few meals at the Glory Hall and was used to seeing him around town.

“Just being around the homeless community. I seen him go check on people. I seen him give money to people who needed money. I seen him help people who were broken down with automobiles,” he said.

Johnson made a condolence post on social media that drew more than 100 comments from family members and the community.

“You could tell all of Juneau is pouring their heart out onto this post,” he said. “You could tell how much people loved him. You can tell how much people love his family, and how much people are standing with him and his family.”

Police say Sexton was traveling away from downtown on Egan Drive when he collided with a Glacier Express tour bus that was turning left from Egan onto Whittier Street.

There were no injuries to the bus driver or passengers. Police say the accident is under investigation.

This story has been updated with comment from Desiree Evans.

In this newscast:

• Alaska’s health department splits into two parts;
• Chinook and chum salmon runs are under average in the lower Kuskowim river, but reds are running above average;
• The commercial Dungeness crab fishery in Southeast Alaska will close early because the start of the season has been so slow;
• Alaskans are wrestling with the concept of ranked choice voting;
• Pro-choice supporters crashed the Anchorage Fourth of July parade over the weekend.

The state’s Department of Health and Social Services — by far the largest state agency — has split into two smaller departments, effective last Friday. State officials say the reorganization will result in two more wieldy departments.

“Alaska should not notice that any change has occurred. Our websites are updated, but services that Alaskans receive should not see any changes,” said Adam Crum, formerly the DHSS commissioner. Now Crum is the commissioner of the new Health Department.

The other new department is Family and Community Services. Marianne Sweet is its Assistant Commissioner. She said the split will mean each department will be more efficient.

“We’re going to be able to have a more central focus on the programs that we’re supporting within our departments’ support services,” Sweet said.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy made an executive order in March to split Health and Social Services. The Department of Health will take care of health care services, public health, behavioral health, senior and disabilities services, and Medicaid. The Department of Family and Community Services will support the child welfare system and other direct services like Alaska Psychiatric Institute and state-operated assisted living homes.

Crum said department leaders have cleared their schedules this week to make sure the transition is smooth and respond to questions.

 

In this newscast:

• Juneau’s 4th of July fireworks will go off despite supply chain issues;
• Filipino dance groups are making a comeback in Juneau;
• Juneau School District’s Board of Education held a special meeting to discuss a third-party investigation into what’s being called the “floor-sealant incident.”

The Juneau School District Board of Education held a special meeting Thursday night to discuss a third party investigation into what’s now being called the “floor sealant incident” — that’s when 12 students at Sitʼ Eeti Shaanáx̱ Glacier Valley Elementary School were given sealant instead of milk to drink at breakfast in mid-June.

City and Borough of Juneau lawyer Robert Palmer told the board he is looking at three areas of investigation.

“One is in the food safety side, so you might think of that as an environmental health or industrial hygienist. The second is in the emergency notification-public communication side. And then the last is somebody to compile all those different reports and present a final product to the board,” he said.

Palmer estimated the cost would be roughly $10,000 per topic but said it could cost less if he could hire locally.

Board member Brian Holst said he’d like to see a report that has a broad enough scope to be applicable elsewhere.

“I think of all the things that are likely to happen in the future, floor sealant poisoning is not one of them,” he said. “I want us to learn what we can so that we can apply it to other situations.”

Holst said he would like insight into how to better monitor and maintain safety systems.

Board member Amber Frommherz wanted the board to get a better understanding of how the grants around the district’s after-school program could affect any changes the district wants to make.

“Grants, they dictate a lot of the practices, and some of those are cumbersome,” she said. “Is it that these grants are also just creating these obstacles or barriers?”

Juneau Police, the state Department of Environmental Conservation, the District Attorney’s office and NANA are all investigating the incident.

The board directed Mr. Palmer to look into options for third party investigators. The board will consider the results on the week of July 4 and vote at a subsequent meeting.