A polar bear chasing residents around a small Alaskan town attacked and killed two people before being shot Tuesday, authorities said.
According to a report from the Alaska Department of Public Safety, the attack took place in Wales, a small community on the western tip of Alaska’s Seward Peninsula.
“Initial reports indicate that a polar bear had entered the community and chased several residents,” the Ministry of Public Security wrote in its statement. “The bear fatally attacked an adult female and a young male – he was shot and killed by a local resident when he attacked the pair.”
The attack was reported to the Alaska State Troopers at 2:30 p.m. local time, according to the dispatch center.
The names and ages of the woman and boy have not been released. On Tuesday afternoon, the state Department of Public Security said “reports from next of kin are still ongoing.”
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Also as of the Tuesday afternoon dispatch, state troopers and the state department of fish and game were planning to travel to Wales as soon as the weather permits.
USA TODAY contacted the Alaska Department of Public Safety and the State Department of Fish and Game early Wednesday morning for more information.
Wales is a small, predominantly Inupiaq town of less than 200 people, just over 100 miles northwest of Nome.
According to Kawerak Inc., a non-profit tribal consortium based in Nome, Wales is “one of the oldest communities in the Bering Strait region”. The Inupiaq name for Wales is “Kingigin, named after the mountain that rises above it,” the group notes.
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In Alaska’s recent history, fatal polar bear attacks have been rare. A polar bear killed a man in 1990 in the village of Point Lay, further north in Wales. Biologists later said the animal showed signs of starvation, the Anchorage Daily News reported.
A 2017 study claimed that polar bear attacks are very rare around the world – but linked “increased concerns about both human and bear safety” to predictions of greater numbers of bears “diet-stressed” spending more time on land in away from humans due to the loss of their sea ice habitat. Alaskan scientists from the US Geological Survey have also pointed to a significant reduction in the sea ice on which polar bears depend.
Contributions: The The Bharat Express News
