KUAC - Fairbanks

The state Department of Fish and Game is warning pet owners in the Interior and Southcentral Alaska about a recent spike in reports of tularemia – sometimes called “rabbit fever.”

The disease is treatable, but it’s essential to get an animal to a veterinarian as soon as possible when they’re showing symptoms, like high fever.

Alaska Department of Fish and Game veterinarian Kimberlee Beckmen said her office is getting the word out about tularemia after a recent rash of reports of animals sickened by the disease around Fairbanks and Palmer.

“Just in the last two weeks, there’s been a very significant increase in the number of reports,” Beckman said. “In fact I had five reports in just two days, earlier this week.”

Beckmen advises pet owners to keep a close eye on their animals for any signs of the disease, because it can kill quickly.

“Many people, if their dog is just acting lethargic, maybe has a little fever, they might wait a day or two to go in,” Beckman said. “We wanted people to know this is really an urgent matter, to get on antibiotics, sooner rather than later.”

Beckman cited the example of two household cats in North Pole that died last week, soon after their owner noticed one of them was sick.

“The first one died and was diagnosed,” Beckman said. “Yet, in the same household, the second cat became ill, and wasn’t treated in time. So, they lost their other cat.”

State Veterinarian Bob Gerlach said pet owners should look for symptoms that may not be so easy to detect, especially in younger animals.

“Generally, pets can show mild infection and show no symptoms,” Gerlach said. “Or may show some fever, lack of appetite, lethargy and just not feeling good.”

Beckmen said cats and dogs usually contract tularemia by eating the flesh of a sickened animal – usually, the snowshoe hare.

She said humans, in turn, can come down with the disease through their household pets. She said it doesn’t happen often; the most recent reported case in the Interior was two years ago, when a North Pole man got sick after skinning an infected hare.

“It can be very, very serious,” Beckman said. “I know of one case where a person who got it from taking a hare out of their cat’s mouth had some serious, permanent heart damage.”

Beckmen said hares, rabbits and other small mammals come into contact with the bacteria that causes tularemia through ticks that latch on to them.

She said the growing number of tick species in this part of the subarctic contributes to the increase in reports of animals contracting the disease.

“The hare ticks and vole ticks are normal and we’ve always had those,” Beckman said. “But what’s new is that we have dog ticks. And for about the past 10 years probably those were introduced and they’ve become established.”

Beckmen also said there are a lot more snowshoe hares this year because the species is nearing the peak of its population cycle.

“There’s a very high number of hares, which happens on a 7- to 10-year cycle,” Beckman said. “We expect to see a lot more tularemia during a ‘hare high.’ ”

Gerlach said livestock usually aren’t susceptible to tularemia.

But he said they can come into contact with the bacteria, especially in the wild, where it can live for long periods in the soil.

The Fairbanks Police Department remains understaffed, despite a recently approved hiring bonus.

Police Chief Eric Jewkes told City Council members this week the substandard pay is driving high turnover and making recruiting difficult.

Jewkes said the short-staffed department must deal with a spike in violent crime while a new labor contract is being contested in court.

Jewkes told council members in Monday’s meeting that statistics show the rate of violent crime in Fairbanks is well above the national average.

He said his officers have been on the receiving end of that violence several times so far this year. Like when they confronted a heavily armored man on June 19, who charged at them firing an assault rifle after they’d cornered him in a field on the city’s south side.

“A gunman (wearing) soft body armor, rigid hard plates over top of that, covering his torso; body armor taped around his arms, taped around his legs and a ballistic or bulletproof facemask,” Jewkes said.

Police shot Matthew Stover, 20, to death, and the case is still under investigation.

That was one of four officer-involved shootings so far this year, including one that followed the fatal shooting of Sgt. Allen Brandt.

In another, Jewkes, himself, was among four officers who returned fire on a man who led police on a high-speed chase around South Fairbanks and east of town on May 25, until he was blockaded at the Mitchell Expressway onramp to the Richardson Highway.

“That’s the environment in which we’re asking them to work,” Jewkes said.

Troopers ruled the deadly force used against Shawn Buck, 23, was justified, because Buck reportedly was shooting at police and ramming their vehicles with the stolen truck he was driving.

That case also remains under investigation.

Jewkes said the recent spike in violent crime locally is reflected in the seven murders in Fairbanks that’ve occurred through July, compared with eight in all of last year.

“In seven months, that puts us on par to have 12 this year,” Jewkes said.

Based on that calculation, Jewkes said 12 murders in a city of 33,000 would greatly exceed the national murder rate, according to data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, which annually lists the rates of crime in cities and states per 100,000 population.

“That equates to 36.4 per 100,000, or 7-and-a-half times the national average,” Jewkes said.

Jewkes said the report shows violent crime occurs twice as frequently in Alaska compared with the national average, even more so for assault and rape.

“The U.S. average for aggravated assaults per hundred thousand people (is) 237; the Alaska average is 497,” Jewkes said. “The U.S. average for rape is 38.6; the Alaska average is 122.”

The chief told council members he’s trying to fill six vacant positions.

He said most of the other 40 or so officers must work mandatory overtime to help staff those and seven other positions that’ll be filled once the new recruits graduate from the academy. That means the department also is hard-pressed to deal with lesser offenses, he said.

“Lower-level crimes are often a struggle to investigate, because of the limited number of officers who are inundated with more serious calls,” Jewkes said.

Council members thanked Jewkes for his talk, but couldn’t offer much more than encouragement. That’s mainly because the city is awaiting a decision from the Alaska Supreme Court on a dispute over a new contract the council approved in 2014 that would’ve boosted pay and benefits.

The council later rescinded the contract over a concern it was too generous.

The Public Safety Employees Association, which represents the police, then sued claiming breach of contract. Most observers say a ruling on the case isn’t likely anytime soon.

Almost 50 years ago, The Fairbanks area was deluged by unprecedented rainfall.  The precipitation channeled from surrounding hills into the Chena River resulting in an epic flood that devastated the interior city.

Five decades later, signs are going up around Fairbanks to remind people of what happened.

Standing by the Chena River in downtown Fairbanks, National Weather Service hydrologist Ed Plumb explained how an already wet streak in August 1967, culminated with intense precipitation as the remnant of a typhoon pushed across the interior.

“Some places had 6 to 9 inches of rain during that period of time,” Plumb said.

All that rain flowed down the Chena, Salcha and Tanana rivers resulting in the great flood of August 1967. The high water displaced thousands of people, and did tens of millions of dollars in damage, a history Plumb is leading a project to share with the public.

”There’s been more than a generation that’s passed since the flood, and so a lot of people… we’ve run into some people who didn’t even know there was a flood in ’67,” Plumb said. “That piece of history is already being lost.”

The project includes placement of informational and high water mark signs around town.

Plumb and U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist Matt Schellekens are making measurements for installation of a high water sign near an historic downtown cabin along the Chena.

“Some locations like here, near the river, were looking at about 5 feet of water above ground level,” Schellekens said. “Most places throughout downtown Fairbanks were 1-and-a-half to 3 feet of water.”

Shellekens and Plumb underscore that it wasn’t just the depth of the flood water, but the huge area it encompassed.

”The Tanana was flowing approximately 250,000 cubic feet per second, when 100,000 is considered flooding,” Plumb said.  

“It’s hard to estimate because the Chena and the Tanana were one in Fairbanks — one continuous area under water,” Shellekins added.

Shellekens unfolded a flood map in the in the back of his pickup.

“We’ve got Birch Hill here, UAF here and this is Chena Ridge behind the pump house,” Shellekens listed. “The airport which is barely above flood elevation. You can see the blue numbers are the approximate water depth. Over by the library, 2-and-a-half, 3 feet deep.”

Areas of higher ground served as gathering spots for flood evacuees.

Plumb pointed to the bluff near the entrance to the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

”That was sort of a boat landing spot for people evacuating town and getting up onto the higher ground at the University,” Plumb said. “There’ll be a sign there showing how high the water was.”

Plumb noted that water will never reach such heights again due protection provided by the Chena Flood Control dam and levy built after the great flood.

The project in North Pole is the location of one of three interpretive panels marking the 50th anniversary of the ’67 flood.

Alaska Gov. Bill Walker is among officials and local residents scheduled to speak at a flood anniversary event in downtown Fairbanks August 15.

The state will limit caribou hunting in the eastern Interior, along the Taylor and Top of the World highways.

An Alaska Department of Fish and Game announcement says the no-hunt corridor prohibits harvest of caribou within a hundred feet along both sides of the road during a state hunt for Forty Mile caribou, which opens August 29.

Fish and Game spokeswoman Doreen Parker McNeil said the corridor addresses safety and conservation issues.

”Members of the public, as well as some law enforcement officials, have voiced a lot of concerns about hunters shooting from and across the highway, particularly on or near curves in the road and in areas with houses and campgrounds,” McNeil said. “We’ve had a lot of reports documenting hunters shooting into groups of caribou from the edge of the highway and that results in wounding loss.”

McNeil said the restriction also is aimed at limiting harvest when a large portion of the herd crosses the highway.

”It becomes difficult to manage the hunt in such a way that the hunt is open long enough for people to have the opportunity to hunt without exceeding our harvest quota,” McNeil said.

McNeil said the restriction hopefully will reduce the illegal dumping of gut piles and other caribou remains along the roads.

The no-caribou harvest corridor runs the entire length of the Top of the World Highway, and along the Taylor from milepost 75.5, at the South Fork Bridge, to mile 115.4, at the Alder Creek Bridge.

A Fairbanks man is dead following a hatchet attack at a local bar.

Fairbanks Police Department reports that Mark Allen Mitchell, 54, died Monday morning following the attack Sunday night at Club Manchu.

Police spokeswoman Yumi McCullough said its unclear what motivated the suspect, Brett Matthew Gilbert, 49.

”The initial investigation video surveillance show that without any warning or provocation inside the Club Manchu, the suspect struck the victim in the side of the neck and he fell to the floor,” McCullough said. “The suspect continued to strike him several times in the face and neck with the hatchet.”

McCullough said the attack was halted by another person, and Gilbert fled the bar.

Gilbert was later taken into custody without incident at his home and is charged with first-degree murder. McCullogh said it’s unclear whether there’s any connection between Gilbert and Mitchell, or if drugs or alcohol played a role in the attack.

This is the seventh murder in Fairbanks so far this year.

A mother grizzly was killed by the state after getting into human food in Deadhorse.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game reports shooting the bear Thursday, and capturing her two cubs, after repeated efforts to scare off the animals failed.

Fish and Game regional management coordinator Doreen Parker McNeill said the 10-year-old, 300-pound female had lived in the area its entire life without causing problems, but had recently begun feeding on food discarded in non-bear-proof bins.

“It doesn’t take much for a bear to realize that they can get food scraps out of an open dumpster,” she said.

McNeill said the bear, which had learned to open doors and gotten into kitchens and food storage areas, could not be deterred with nonlethal means.

“She couldn’t be hazed. She would walk into areas where there were people hitting her with rubber bullets, bean bags and the loud cracker shells. It just didn’t faze her.”

The bear’s cubs were flown to a zoo in Oakland, California.

McNeill said Fish and Game personnel regret having to kill the mother bear, which also was the subject of long running research by a state biologist.

“She was a radio-collared bear, and Dick Shideler had been studying her her whole life. We’ve lost that,” McNeill said.

Fish and Game officials have advised Deadhorse area oil field workers to properly dispose of garbage.

“We’re hoping that the support industry will really redouble their efforts to educate their employees that foods waste goes in food-waste bins that are bear-proof,” McNeill said.

McNeil said the North Slope Borough provides bear proof bins.

The incident Thursday was the first in the Deadhorse area since 2001-2002, when a total of seven bears were killed in the area.