A pair of polar bears attacked and killed a worker at a remote government radar site in the Canadian Arctic, the facility’s operator said, marking at least the second fatal attack since last year.
The attack took place Thursday at the outpost on Brevoort Island, in Canada’s northeastern Nunavut territory, Nasittuq Corporation saidthe logistics company contracted to operate the site.
“An attack by two polar bears has resulted in the loss of one of our valued employees,” the company said on Friday. “Nasittuq employees responded to the scene and one of the animals was put down.”
The site is one of dozens of North Warning System outposts located along Canada’s far north, forming a tripwire for surveillance against aircraft intrusions or cruise missile attacks.
Radar coverage extends over 3,100 miles from Alaska to Labrador in eastern Canada.
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family, friends and colleagues affected by this loss,” the company said, adding that it was providing support to the victim’s family and counseling to other employees.
Polar bear attacks on humans are rare, but the incident marks at least the second fatality since 2023.
Last year a polar bear emerged from the impenetrable snow village and killed a woman and her young son in Wales, Alaska, just below the Arctic Circle. It marked the first fatal polar bear attack in 30 years in Alaska, the only US state home to the animals.
2018 was a 31-year-old father was killed in a polar bear attack while protecting his children in Canada. In the same year, Norwegian authorities said a polar bear shot and killed after it attacked and injured a guard leading tourists off a cruise ship in an Arctic archipelago.
The polar bear species is declining due to disappearing Arctic sea ice. In 2021, researchers in Norway found that polar bears were inbreeding when the species struggles to survive. A study found that in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, polar bear populations have seen a 10% loss in their genetic diversity from 1995 to 2016.
A 2020 study found that the melting sea ice is starving polar bears, and that within the century could be extinctand decreasing genetic diversity increases the risk of extinction.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.