Two polar bears kill worker at remote Canadian radar site in rare attack

Nasittuq Corp., which operates and maintains radar sites for Canada’s government, confirmed the death in last week’s polar bear attack on Brevoort Island, Nunavut.

By Victoria Bisset
August 13, 2024 

Two polar bears killed a worker at a remote radar site in Canada’s Arctic region last week, the facility operator said — promising a thorough investigation into the circumstances of the exceedingly rare fatal attack.

The Nasittuq Corporation, which operates and maintains radar sites for the Canadian government in the north of the country, confirmed in a statement the death of an employee in last week’s attack on Brevoort Island, in the far-northeastern territory of Nunavut. Other workers responded to the scene and killed one of the bears, the company added.

Nasittuq, which did not release the victim’s name, said the “safety and well-being of our employees is our highest priority.”

“We are working closely with local authorities and regulatory agencies to conduct a thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding this incident,” the company said.

There are estimated to be more than 17,000 polar bears in Canada, making up two-thirds of the global population, according to the Canadian government.

The United States has designated the polar bear as a threatened species because of its shrinking habitat; in Canada, the polar bear is listed as a species of special concern. The loss of sea ice is considered a primary threat to polar bears as scientists warn global warming is melting their hunting and breeding grounds — although authorities in Canada say the “forecasted timeline and severity associated with this threat differ” in different parts of the country.

Last year, in a separate incident, a polar bear chased residents near a school in a small village in Alaska, killing a woman and her 1-year-old son.

Other polar bear attacks have taken place in the vast, mostly empty Arctic territory of Nunavut in recent years, including on a 70-year-old man and his daughter who were injured in an attack in 2023 and three adults who survived an attack in 2021, according to Canadian media reports. In 2018, officials said a mother polar bear and her cub killed a man and injured two others in Nunavut, leading authorities to destroy a number of bears, CBC News reported at the time.

There were 73 documented attacks by wild polar bears across Canada, Greenland, Norway, Russia and the United States between 1870 and 2014, resulting in 20 human deaths, according to a 2017 study by researchers from wildlife and polar institutes from several countries.

Ellen Francis and Dino Grandoni contributed to this report.