Bears at bird feeders can create significant danger. The city assembly of Juneau in Alaska almost banned bird feeders until bird enthusiasts protested. William Toothacker

Last spring I looked out my window just in time to see a young black bear sitting at the base of a tree in my yard, eating suet from the twisted remains of my aluminum pole-mounted bird feeder. I scared the bear away by playing Scottish bagpipe music from a CD at maximum volume through an open window. When it appeared safe, I went out and took down all of my feeders.

Some may think that being subjected to loud bagpipe music is a fate worse than death, but for bears here in Alaska, visiting a bird feeder can amount to a death sentence. Once a bear has shown that it is "hooked" on birdseed or garbage, it is usually killed; hence the slogan, "A fed bear is a dead bear." The Alaska Department of Fish and Game and our local newspapers routinely issue warnings to take feeders down in spring because they attract bears - warnings that I had disregarded because I'd never had a problem before.

Throughout spring, summer, and fall, reports of bears at bird feeders appear almost weekly in the local media around Anchorage, a city with more than 260,000 people, many of whom feed birds. One article described how a two-year-old boy was standing a few feet away from a grizzly bear at a feeder before he went inside and asked his mother, "What's that?"

Between 30 and 40 black bears and about a dozen grizzly bears live in proximity to residential Anchorage, and many more live in the Chugach State Park just east of the city. After hibernating, bears come out of their dens extremely hungry in spring. If they have trouble finding food in the woods, they roam through Anchorage neighborhoods looking for something to eat. Almost anything edible is fair game, including garbage, pets, pet food, and birdseed. Some homeowners have witnessed bears sucking sunflower seeds right out of their feeders.

And it's not just bird feeders at ground level that cause problems. Black bears are excellent climbers and have almost no trouble reaching hanging bird feeders. In one instance, an Anchorage home-owner watched as a black bear climbed up to her 25-foot-high second-floor deck to get to a suet and sunflower seed cake mounted on the deck railing.

It doesn't take long for bears to associate bird food with people's homes. They go through neighborhoods looking for birdseed and when they run into people, the confrontation creates significant danger. If the bear is lucky, it will be darted by a biologist and relocated to a more remote location. All too often, though, the bear is killed to protect human life and property, either because it is endangering someone or someone's property or because it is a repeat offender. Over the past four years, two grizzly bears and between nine and twelve black bears have been killed each year in Anchorage.

Incidents with bears habituated to bird food have reached the point that many Alaskan towns are considering curbs on bird feeders. In May 2001, the city assembly of Juneau, the state's capital, passed an ordinance that levied fines for improper storage of garbage. In its original form, the ordinance included a ban on bird feeders. Although the assembly dropped that provision after impassioned testimony by several residents who feed birds, continuing problems with bears and feeders are sure to result in some form of restrictions on bird feeding.

As the Project FeederWatch volunteer ambassador for Alaska, my recommendation to Feeder-Watchers in Alaska is the same as the one issued by biologists at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game: take down your bird feeders from mid-April to mid-October each year. You'll still be feeding birds during the most difficult winter months and can continue contributing valuable data on North American bird populations to the Lab of Ornithology.

Feeding birds gives us a lot of enjoyment, but we must make sure that by feeding birds we're not endangering other wildlife.