A man in Canada has incurred significant injuries to his arms and legs after jumping onto a polar bear that charged at his spouse.
Authorities in the First Nations community of Fort Severn, Ontario, reported that the couple was assaulted outside their residence during the early hours of Tuesday.
They had exited their home prior to 5 AM to search for their dogs when they encountered the bear in their driveway, according to the Nishnawbe Aski Police Service.
The creature then lunged toward the woman, who fell to the ground, as per law enforcement officials.
The man reacted by jumping onto the bear in an effort to prevent it from attacking her, but instead, it turned its aggression toward him.
He sustained serious, yet non-fatal, injuries to his arm and legs, and is anticipated to recover.
“A neighbor came with a firearm and shot the bear several times. The bear retreated to a nearby forested area, where it succumbed to its injuries,” police stated in an announcement.
Officers were deployed to the scene following reports of gunfire.
The announcement further noted that police patrolled the vicinity “to ensure that no other bears were wandering throughout the community”.
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Attacks are uncommon
In August, two polar bears ended the life of a worker at a distant Arctic radar facility. Nevertheless, such attacks by these creatures are infrequent.
A 2017 investigation by the Alaska Science Center, published in the Wildlife Society Bulletin, recorded 73 incidents of wild polar bear attacks from 1870 to 2014.
During this timeframe, there were 20 fatalities reported in Canada, Greenland, Norway, Russia, and the United States, primarily caused by “nutritionally stressed adult male polar bears”.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has classified polar bears as a “threatened species” due to the decline of sea ice resulting from climate change.
“Polar bears are increasingly spending extended periods on land, often drawn to regions inhabited by humans,” it stated.
