CNN
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A woman and boy have been killed by a polar bear that had been chasing residents in a tiny, distant group in Alaska, state troopers mentioned Tuesday.
The bear had chased residents after coming into the western Alaska town of Wales earlier than attacking the woman and boy, an Alaska State Troopers dispatch report mentioned.
The bear was shot and killed by one other resident because it attacked the 2 victims, in line with the report.
The victims have been recognized as Summer Myomick, 24, and her 1-year-old son, Clyde Ongtowasruk, Austin McDaniel, communications director for the Alaska Department of Public Safety, mentioned in a assertion Wednesday.
Troopers and Alaska Department of Fish and Game personnel have been working to journey to Wales following the assault, however have been waylaid by climate.
“Poor weather conditions in the region and the lack of runway lights in Wales prevented Troopers and Alaska Department of Fish and Game personnel from making it to Wales,” McDaniel mentioned Wednesday. “Troopers are continuing to make efforts to fly to Wales today.”
Wales is on the coast of western Alaska and has a inhabitants of 168, in line with the US Census.
Reports of polar bear assaults on people are extraordinarily uncommon, a 2017 research printed by The Wildlife Society discovered. “From 1870-2014, we documented 73 attacks by wild polar bears, distributed among the 5 polar bear Range States (Canada, Greenland, Norway, Russia, and United States), which resulted in 20 human fatalities and 63 human injuries,” it discovered.
But melting ice as a result of local weather change has led to a corresponding change in bear habits and made human encounters with bears extra possible, CNN previously reported.
Residents of Churchill in northern Manitoba, Canada, generally referred to as the “polar bear capital of the world,” advised CNN in 2021 that bear encounters have been turning into extra widespread. Thousands of vacationers go to every fall in hopes of catching a glimpse of a bear.
Bear season in the world peaks in October and November, simply earlier than Hudson Bay refreezes and bears start migrating north and congregating close to the shore.
In current a long time, bear season has been lasting longer due to local weather change, residents say. The ice is melting sooner and freezing later, retaining the bears on land longer.
But assaults on people stay uncommon. The final one was in 2013, in line with the Reuters information company, and there hadn’t been a deadly assault because the early 1980s, CNN reported in 2021.