A polar bear chased several residents in a small, isolated Alaskan whaling town and managed to kill a woman and her 1-year-old baby in an extremely unusual attack before being killed by another member of the community, authorities said.
The fatal attack, the first in Alaska in more than 30 years, occurred Tuesday near the main entrance to the school in Wales, an isolated coastal community on the Bering Strait in Alaska’s far west and about 50 miles from Russia. , where it is common to coexist with polar bears.
School officials rushed everyone into the building after they saw the polar bear, local administrator Susan Nedza told the Anchorage Daily News from her office in Unalakleet.
“The bear tried to get in with them,” Nedza said, but school principal Dawn Hendrickson “shaked the door” to keep him out.
School district officials lowered the school’s blinds and locked the building. They were finally able to get the word out that they needed someone to “take care of the bear.”
Alaska State Patrol identified the victims as 24-year-old Summer Myomick of Saint Michael and her 1-year-old son Clyde Ongtowasruk.
Like many remote Alaskan villages, this predominantly Inupiaq community of about 150 people in Wales organize patrols when bears are expected to arrive from December to May, said Geoff York, senior director of conservation at Polar Bear International. The last fatal encounter with a polar bear in Alaska had been in 1990.
Bad weather and a lack of landing lights on the runway at Wales airfield prevented police officers and wildlife officials from reaching Wales on Tuesday after the attack. New attempts were made on Wednesday.
When asked to describe the atmosphere Wednesday in Wales, Hendrickson called it “traumatic.” Classes were canceled one day after the attack. “The students are with their families,” he commented. The school made advisors available to the students.
It’s not clear if this attack was related to climate change, but it’s consistent with what’s expected as the Arctic continues to warm four times faster than the rest of Earth, changing the ecosystem in ways not yet fully understood. everything, York said.
However, this particular bear was a member of an animal population that is doing “pretty well,” said Andrew Derocher, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Alberta and an expert on polar bears.
In 2019, Alaska scientists from the US Geological Survey found that changes in sea ice habitat coincided with evidence of more frequent use of dry land by polar bears, increasing the chances of human encounters.
Polar bears are the largest bear species, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The males can weigh more than 770 kilos, they usually weigh between 270 and 545 kilos, and reach 3 meters in length. Females weigh between 180 and 317 kilograms. Polar bears often feed on seals, but also walrus and beluga whales.
Polar bears are at the top of the food chain and view humans as a food source, York said. Deadly encounters with polar bears often involve males that are hungry all the time, or older bears that are injured or sick and have a hard time eating enough calories, she wrote in a report.
Unlike brown or black bears, polar bears do not hibernate. Only pregnant females go into snow dens, and that’s just to breed.
All other polar bears are outdoors, usually on the sea ice, where their prey is available year-round.
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