Two polar bears kill worker in rare attack in Canada

A man has been killed by a polar bear in the Arctic. Photo / Lisa LaPointe

Two polar bears have killed a worker at a remote Arctic radar station in northern Canada.

The employee, who is yet to be named, had been working for Nasittuq Corporation in a sparsely populated Arctic territory on Brevoort Island, Nunavut, 1931km northeast of Montreal.

Colleagues rushed to the scene in the aftermath of the attack, which took place last week, killing one of the polar bears.

“An attack by two polar bears has resulted in the loss of one of our valued employees,” the company said in a statement, without revealing any further details.

The logistics company operates long-range radar defence sites on behalf of the Canadian government.

Polar bear attacks on humans are rare, with 73 being recorded between 1870 and 2014, according to the Human-Polar Bear Conflict Working Group. Twenty of those victims died.

There are an estimated 17,000 polar bears living in Canada, making up around two-thirds of the animal’s global population, according to Canadian government figures.

Last week’s attack is the third recorded killing since the start of 2023.

In January last year, a 24-year-old mother and her 1-year-old son were killed after a polar bear chased residents in Wales, Alaska. And in July 2018, a Canadian man, 31, was killed in a polar bear attack on Sentry Island in Nunavut.

Earlier this month, local residents in Rankin Inlet, also in Nunavut, expressed concern about a polar bear spotted around the Diane River. The bear was seen heading towards an area known as Tent City, before disappearing into the water and reappearing later that day.

“It’s a threat and it keeps coming back…people don’t feel safe in Rankin”, Donna Adams, manager at Kangiqliniq Hunters and Trappers Organisation (HTO), told local media outlet Nunatsiaq News.

As a result, the HTO has decided to kill the polar bear, which would be one of the 12 it is allowed to kill in a year.