Polar bear killed by paddler along Hudson Bay coast

WINNIPEG — Manitoba wildlife officials are investigating after a polar bear was shot and killed near the mouth of the Seal River on Friday by a paddler.

The province confirmed Tuesday the incident occurred along the Hudson Bay coast, roughly 50 kilometres west of Churchill.

Few details about the shooting have been released. Officials have not publicly identified the paddler involved or provided information about the circumstances leading up to the encounter.

Polar bears are designated as a threatened species in Manitoba and are protected under provincial legislation. It is illegal to hunt the bears in Manitoba.

Douglas Clark, a University of Saskatchewan professor who studies human interactions with polar bears, said he was not aware of a paddler or hiker being forced to shoot one of them in Manitoba in recent history.

“Defence kills of polar bears are pretty rare (in Manitoba),” Clark said, adding they are more common in Nunavut.

While attacks on people are uncommon, predatory actions toward humans is a recognized part of their behaviour, Clark said.

He said the animals are highly curious, which can make it difficult for people to determine whether a bear approaching them is simply investigating or becoming dangerous.

“If you lived in an environment that was entirely ice and snow, anything that isn’t ice or snow would be worth checking out to see if it’s edible,” Clark said. “Because of that curiosity, they will approach people and human infrastructure much, much more often and more closely than a black or a grizzly bear would under normal circumstances, and that proximity raises the risk.

“If you’re a paddler and you’re camping on shore, you’re potentially in a fairly high-risk situation in the Arctic.”

A senior staffer at a non-profit conservation organization also said defensive killings involving polar bears are uncommon across the Arctic.

“We definitely have more interactions, but most of those don’t end in people being injured, or bears being injured or killed,” said Geoff York, vice-president of research and policy at Polar Bears International.

York said there are two broad circumstances in which encounters between people and bears can quickly become dangerous: a surprise, close-range meeting and a situation in which a bear becomes predatory toward a person.

Rather than trying to determine whether a bear is “friendly” or aggressive, York said people should focus on creating distance and being prepared to respond if the animal approaches.

» Winnipeg Free Press