A person who “leapt” onto a polar bear when it lunged at his spouse throughout a uncommon assault earlier this week was significantly injured however is predicted to get better, tribal authorities in Canada mentioned.
A neighbor fatally shot the bear throughout the Tuesday incident within the Fort Severn First Nation, within the far northern part of Ontario, the Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service mentioned in an announcement.
The couple encountered the bear at 5 a.m. after they left their residence to search out their canines, and the animal lunged on the girl, based on the assertion.
Her husband jumped on the animal to guard his spouse, who fell to the bottom, the police service mentioned. He had critical however non-life-threatening accidents to his legs and arms.
After the neighbor shot the animal, it retreated to a wooded space and died from its accidents, police mentioned.
Polar bear assaults are uncommon. A 2017 examine that surveyed greater than a century of battle between people and polar bears documented 73 incidents throughout the animal’s vary, together with 20 that had been deadly, in frozen seas and coastal areas of Canada, Norway, Russia, Greenland and the United States.
The researchers discovered that nutritionally careworn grownup males had been the more than likely to assault, based on the examine, which was revealed within the Wildlife Society Bulletin.
Retreating sea ice may immediate extra deadly encounters sooner or later, the researchers wrote.
Canada’s authorities has mentioned it’s residence to 17,000 polar bears, or roughly two-thirds of the world’s inhabitants, which the United States listed as threatened in 2008 underneath the Endangered Species Act.
Other current assaults embody a person who was killed within the distant Canadian territory of Nunavut and a mom and her 1-year-old son who had been fatally mauled in Alaska.
