Polar bear kills woman and boy in a remote village in Alaska

[C0RI0LANUS]

Source: Sky News

The bear fatally attacked two people before being killed by a local resident.

Read more: https://news.sky.com/story/polar-bear-kills-woman-and-boy-in-a-remote-village-in-alaska-12789156

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Life is getting harder and harder for these poor, hungry polar bears. Now there is one less polar bear in the world and two people are dead.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

1. sad and tragic. RIP

[Warpy]

2. This was such a bad situation

I have to wonder why the bear was out and about this time of year, usually they hibernate longer than this and wake up hungry and grumpy. Did this bear have inadequate fat stores to survive winter hibernation? Was it disturbed somehow to the point of abandoning the den? Something untoward was going on with this particular bear.

I don't fault the guy for killing the bear. It's just sad that the woman and boy were already dead.

[Lasher]

8. Only females hibernate, and especially when pregnant.

They do so from about October or November through March or April. This could have been a male, but we can't tell from the article.

[Warpy]

13. Thanks, they're not native to NM so I didn't know the males stayed awake

but it makes sense, the females stripping the food supply in fall to support the end of pregnancy and weight gain for the cubs, the males left hungry and needing to forage.

Bear season here is either spring or fall, when they're hungriest. Here in the city, it's a call to animal control to get the bear darted, checked, tagged, collared, and released away from people. Outside the city, it's a warning shot to chase it away from the trash and only very rarely another shot if the bear is having a bad day and charges. Juveniles are the most frequent problems here. I don't think there has been a single death by bear since I've lived here, probably because we're too far south for grizzlies.

[elocs]

3. For polar bears, other creatures up North are just a meal.

I once read of a zoo that had polar bears and there was a little dog that would get in the zoo (having worked at a zoo, I can testify that happens). Well Fido got a little too close to the bars in barking at the bear who just reached out and with 1 slap it was chomp, chomp.
In the zoo I worked at, little dogs in the neighborhood could get under the fence into the deer enclosure and chase them, sometimes fatally for the deer who would run themselves to death.

[BigmanPigman]

7. Ewwwww....yuk.......

[C0RI0LANUS]

4. Global warming is impacting polar bears

harder than their southern cousins (e.g. Kodiak, Black, Brown) because polar bears are less adaptable than their camouflageable, tree-climbing omnivorous kin that deals with every specimen from wolverines, to bees, to salmon.

Global warmth is melting the ice that is their environment which is affecting both their hunting and mating practices.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/07/polar-bears-extinction-2100-new-study-climate-crisis/

[SunSeeker]

5. This story breaks my heart. 3 more victims of global warming.

[C0RI0LANUS]

6. Concur

And imagine the pain all three of those living beings suffered in their final moments.

[elocs]

9. Yes, global warming that will neither be stopped nor appreciably slowed.

Reality may suck, but it is what it is.

[sinkingfeeling]

10. So sad for all.

[melm00se]

11. No offense

but if you live where there are apex predators, you can become prey.

[cab67]

12. This might be related to climate change...

...or it might not.

Polar bears are among the few vertebrates that will pursue humans as prey. They're not as omnivorous as other bears, and they're not especially afraid of people. Incidents like this happen with some regularity throughout the polar bear's range.

Several of my colleagues do field work in northern Alaska and the Canadian Arctic. They're generally required to carry rifles to protect themselves against polar bears. More than one has had to fire their rifle. This has been true for decades.

I'm NOT saying climate change hasn't been catastrophic for polar bears, or for the people living among them. But not all polar bear attacks are a direct (or even indirect) reflection of those problems.

I agree that this is an incredibly tragic occurrence all around.


Added on edit - I'm also NOT saying that polar bears should be killed on sight. Sometimes, a shot fired in the air is enough to drive them away. Every polar bear death is to be mourned. But shots fired in the air don't always work.

[Bayard]

14. So sad....

Polar bears are one of the many species that are probably not going to make it because of climate change. This guy was just doing what a hungry carnivore does when he can't find anything to eat. A tragedy for the people of that village as well.

I remember an article a few years ago about a female and two cubs that were stranded on an ice floe when it broke away. She ended up having to eat her own cubs.

[dalton99a]

15. Kick

Alaska scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey in 2019 found changes in sea ice habitat had coincided with evidence that polar bears’ use of land was increasing and that the chances of a polar bear encounter had risen.

https://apnews.com/article/animal-attacks-bears-animals-polar-anchorage-d4269df76e01a894e86c7f2ea0c66711


The view from the front of the school in in Wales, Alaska, where a 24-year-old woman and her 1-year-old son were killed in an encounter with a polar bear on Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2023, is seen in this photo taken on Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023, by Chrissy Friberg, a traveling optician who was providing services in the village. (Chrissy Friberg via AP)


A walkway leading into the school in Wales, Alaska, where a 24-year-old woman and her 1-year-old son were killed in an encounter with a polar bear on Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2023, is seen in this photo taken on Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023, by Chrissy Friberg, a traveling optician who was providing services in the village. (Chrissy Friberg via AP)

[jpak]

16. When I worked in Arctic Canada doing research

We never ever went out on the ice without 2 massive bear guns.

They are completely sneaky and utterly dangerous.

One gun fired crackers the other was loaded for bear.

One tried to climb up the gang plank but got chased off by crackers.

Scary shit.

Yikes