A Juneau bear climbed into a Subaru and could not get out

Top photo: a black bear near the Meadow Viewing Platform on Steep Creek, at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center in Juneau, Alaska, in 2023. This is a file photo; the bear in this story has not been identified. USDA Forest Service photo by Victor Armijo, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

A black bear let itself into an unlocked Subaru in Juneau, Alaska, at about 12:30 a.m. on Monday, Oct. 26, the Anchorage station KTUU reported. The door apparently slammed shut, UPI reported. It could not get out.

A neighbour heard the car horn going off and saw the bear inside, sitting on the horn, Angela Harkins told KTUU. The neighbour called 911. Officers woke the family to get the keys. The bear had already ripped out the wiring, so the doors would not unlock.

Juneau, the state capital, has spent 2026 finding bears in places built for people. The family told KTUU that bear activity was especially bad this year, after more than 200 inches of snow and a late spring left fewer berries and fish. That figure is theirs.

"He actually puts his paw on the window at one point," Harkins said. Juneau police then used a rope to pull the door open. Within five to 10 minutes the bear was out, the family said, and it ran off unhurt.

The car fared worse. Michael Wilson, the owner, showed KTUU an interior that had been taken apart from the inside. The metal was bent and the seats were torn apart, he said. "All that plastic's torn off."

"So I got to hand it to Subaru. They made a good car," Wilson said. "It couldn't get out."

The bear got into three cars that night. Only the Subaru locked it in, the family said. They called it "the Goldilocks situation, except he got locked in the last car."

The repair bill is the family's. "We only had liability and didn't have comprehensive, so it's not covered," the family told the station.

Daniel Nore, a Juneau resident who filmed the rescue, said a bear had broken into his own car about a month earlier, UPI reported. He speculated it may have been the same bear. Nobody has confirmed that.

About two weeks earlier, on a Sunday, Briana Williams got a Ring camera alert at about 2:30 a.m. that a bear was crossing her yard, KTUU reported on Oct. 15. Outside, she found it in her family's Chevy Silverado. "He was huge," she said. "He was taller than the truck itself at that point."

The only things in the truck were empty coffee mugs, Williams said. A Fish and Game official told her the mugs may have been the draw. Police declared the Silverado undrivable, and the family's insurance does not cover it. It was not clear whether the same bear was involved in both incidents.

Bears in Juneau have also tried the hospitality trade. In July a black bear climbed through the open window of room 213 at the Alaskan Hotel, which is built into a hillside, and walked down the hall into room 208, KTOO reported. The guest in 208 had just checked out.

Queenie Lim, a housekeeper on a cultural exchange programme from Malaysia, spotted it. "I never expect that I will see the bear, like, in the hotel," Lim said. The bear left through a window it broke.

Bettye Adams, who owns the hotel, said the animal must have been as nervous as the staff. "It was having anxiety," Adams said.

The city has a record here. In August 2020 a bear climbed into a pizza delivery car in the Mendenhall Valley, the Juneau Empire reported. There was no pizza in it. "It's pretty totalled on the inside," said the owner, Andrew Fairchild.

Juneau Pizza took a firm line in a post afterwards. If the bear wanted a pizza, the shop wrote, "he has to call it in just like everyone else."

Carl Koch, then an assistant area management biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, told the Juneau Empire in 2022 that bears opening car doors had been a new problem in Juneau over the previous five years. Newer car designs might be the reason, he speculated.

"If they get stuck inside, they're eventually going to find a way out," Koch said. A trapped bear seldom leaves by the door, he added.

Wilson's advice to other car owners came five days before Halloween. "Lock your doors," he said. "Don't leave any food, no candy."