A father has been mauled to death by a polar bear after placing himself between the animal and his children.
The tragedy occurred on Sentry Island, a popular hunting and fishing ground off the coast of Canada’s remote northern Nunavut territory, a vast Arctic expanse populated mostly by a handful of indigenous Inuit communities.
Aaron Gibbons, from the nearby coastal hamlet of Arviat, was gathering bird eggs on the island with his school-age daughters when a bear appeared and headed towards them, Nunatsiaq News reports.
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The 31-year-old urged the children to retreat to their boat, moored nearby, while he stood his ground between the animal and the girls.
Gibbons’ uncle, Gordy Kidlapik, said that his “qangiaq” (nephew) died a hero:
Although Gibbons owned a rifle and was said to be a good hunter, the Royal Canadian Mountain Police said that it appeared that he could not get to the weapon in time.
The bear attacked, mauling him as his young daughters frantically called relatives on the boat’s CB radio.
“We actually heard the call for help,” Kidlapik said. “It was terrible to listen to.”
An individual from another party nearby on the island shot and killed the bear, but Gibbons could not be saved. He is the first person to die from a polar bear mauling in the territory since 1999.
The tragedy has drawn considerable comment in the region not only because of Gibbons’ act of self-sacrifice, but also because of the incident’s wider implications for the growing problem of polar bears losing their natural fear of humans as a result of the tourist excursion industry.
The creatures’ in-built wariness of human settlements has long enabled bear and human populations to co-exist in relative harmony.
However, the proliferation of tours offering visitors a chance to get up close and personal with polar bears means that the animals have become used to the presence of humans, locals say.
Kidlapik told the Toronto Star that such excursions were a “concern” for Arviat residents.
“We’re noticing more bears who have lost their fear approaching humans,” he said. “It wasn’t like that before.”
The statistics appear to confirm this trend. In November 2017, the Kivalliq region’s Wildlife Board warned that “polar bear encounters with humans have increased significantly, especially near Arviat, Chesterfield Inlet and Whale Cove”.
