A polar bear chased several residents around an isolated whaling village in Alaska, killing a mother and her one-year-old son in an extremely rare attack before another community member shot and killed the bear, authorities said.
The fatal mauling, the first in more than 30 years in Alaska, happened on Tuesday next to the front entrance of the school in Wales, an isolated Bering Strait coastal community on the westernmost tip of the North American mainland — about 80km from Russia — that is no stranger to coexisting with polar bears.
School officials rushed people into the building after the polar bear was spotted, Bering Strait School District Chief Administrator Susan Nedza told the Anchorage Daily News from her office in Unalakleet.
Photo: AFP / Polar Bears International / Steven C. AMSTRUP
“The bear tried to enter with them,” but school principal Dawn Hendrickson “slammed the door” to keep it out, Nedza said.
“It’s terrifying. Not something you’re ever prepared for,” she said.
School district officials pulled the shades in the school and locked down the building, she said, adding that they eventually got word out that they needed someone to “take care of the bear.”
Summer Myomick, a resident of nearby Saint Michael, and her son, Clyde Ongtowasruk, were killed in the attack, Alaska State Troopers said in a statement.
Myomick’s parents declined interviews when reached on Wednesday at their home.
“It’s very, very sad for Saint Michael right now, and Wales,” Saint Michael City Administrator Virginia Washington said.
She said Myomick split time between the two communities.
“She was a very sweet lady. She was very responsible,” Washington said.
Like many far-flung Alaska villages, Wales, a predominantly Inupiaq community of about 150 people, has organized patrols when the bears are expected in town, from about December to May, said Geoff York, senior director of conservation at nonprofit organization Polar Bear International.
The most recent fatal polar bear encounter in Alaska had been in 1990.
Poor weather and no runway lights at the gravel air strip in Wales prevented Alaska state troopers and wildlife officials from traveling there on Tuesday to investigate the attack, but they made it on Wednesday.
The investigation showed that Myomick and Ongtowasruk were walking between the school and a clinic when the bear attacked them, state troopers said in a statement.
The remains of the mother and son were transported to the Alaska State Medical Examiner’s Office for autopsy, troopers added.
Asked to describe the mood in Wales on Wednesday, Hendrickson called it “traumatic.”
Classes were canceled, and counselors were made available, Hendrickson said.
She said there have been no announcements for memorials for the two victims yet.
“We are still in the beginning phase,” Hendrickson said.
It is unclear whether the attack was related to climate change, but it is consistent with what is expected as the arctic continues to warm, changing the ecosystem in ways that are still not fully understood, York said.
However, this particular bear was a member of a population that is doing fairly well, said Andrew Derocher, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Alberta and an expert on polar bears.
Alaska-based scientists at the US 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.
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