By Lorraine Taylor | Fox News Alaska State Troopers say a polar bear attacked and killed a woman and a boy in a remote western Alaska village. KTUU reported the attack happened around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday in Wales, on the western tip of the Seward Peninsula. Troopers said the bear entered the village and chased several residents before fatally attacking the woman and boy. As the attack unfolded, troopers said a resident shot and killed the bear. The victims have not yet been identified as authorities work to notify family members. Wales is a small, predominantly Inupiaq town of about 150 people, just over 100 miles northwest of Nome. According to the Anchorage Daily News, fatal polar bear attacks have been rare in Alaska's recent history. In 1990, a polar bear killed a man farther north of Wales in the village of Point Lay. Biologists later said the animal showed signs of starvation. Alaska scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey in 2019 found changes in sea ice habitat had coincided with evidence that polar bears’ use of land was increasing and that the chances of a polar bear encounter had increased. The Associated Press contributed to this report. _____________________________________________________ Less sea ice = more stressed & hungry bears on land. I fear these encounters will only become more frequent.
NO link thus worthless post. First recorded deaths for the town in its history by a Polar Bear attack thus you have nothing to build a case with. Meanwhile the Sea Ice maps shows a lot of CURRENT ice through the Bering strait region which the village of Wales is located at all along the shoreline too. NWS Alaska Sea Ice Program (ASIP) LINK
Oh look! A large, vicious carnivore did what large, vicious carnivores do. And that's supposed to be more proof of climate change. Riiiiiggggghhhtttttt.
Yes. The bears do not concede that humans are the top of the food chain. Two dead in fatal polar bear attack in Alaskan village of Wales on the Bering Strait Posted on January 18, 2023 | Comments Offon Two dead in fatal polar bear attack in Alaskan village of Wales on the Bering Strait Two people tragically died yesterday afternoon after an attack by a polar bear in the village of Wales on the Bering Strait. Few details are available and bad weather apparently hampered officials getting to the village immediately. As expected, virtually all news reports are implying that a generic ‘lack of sea ice’ can be blamed for the incident. As usual, the specifics of this case show this claim is not only nonsense, but dangerous. With the loss of sea ice and the ocean staying open later in the year, polar bears have been spending more time on land, which increases the chance of human encounters, said Joseph Jessup McDermott. Polar bear attacks in winter are almost always associated with a bear that has not been able to resume feeding in the fall. More bears and restricted hunting means more young bears (as well as old bears or sick ones) become food stressed because they can’t compete with big mature males for food. Mature bears often steal any seals that young bears are able to kill, making the youngsters desperate for food. The Chukchi Sea polar bears are currently thriving and numbers may still be increasing (AC SWG 2018; Conn et al. 2021; Regehr et al. 2018; Rode et al. 2014, 2015, 201. More details to follow on this horrific incident as they become available. UPDATE 18 January 2023, 5:30PM PT: According to an Associated Press account, the victims were a 24 year old woman and her one-year old son: “Summer Myomick of Saint Michael and her son, Clyde Ongtowasruk, were killed in the attack, Alaska State Troopers said in a statement.” No more details were provided on the state of the bear involved (sex, age, body condition). Regarding the blame-game, even though recent studies have shown that ringed and bearded seals in the Chukchi Sea are doing very well (Adam et al. 2019; Crawford and Quakenbush 2013; Crawford et al. 2015), Geoff York from Polar Bears International suggests there may not be enough seals for polar bears or the something may be wrong with the sea ice: In this case, even though there is ice in the Chukchi and northern Bering seas, the quality of that ice is not known that well. More importantly, York said they don’t know what’s going on under the ice — or what the availability of seals and other prey is for polar bears. The changes are also happening in winter, when people assume they are safe from polar bears being on shore. “Communities may no longer be,” York said. Continue reading →
