A father who was killed this week by a polar bear on a small island in Hudson Bay in Canada is considered a hero for to be thrown without weapons between the animal and his three young children.

Aaron Gibbons, 31, was shot dead Tuesday on Sentry Island, about six miles from Arviat, a hamlet of about 2,600 people on the west shore of Hudson Bay at Nunavut

"My qangiaq died as a hero," said Gordy Kidlapik . Twitter, using the word inuinnaqtun for nephew.

Kidlapik, director of an association of hunters and trappers in Arviat, says that the bear surprised Gibbons and his school-age children who were apparently hunting Arctic tern eggs. a delicacy by humans.

Kidlapik tells the W innepeg Free Press that "the bear started tracking down or charging one of his children, and told his kids to go back to the boat and get in between his kids and the kids. bear. "

Kidlapik said that he could hear the children calling for help on the CB radio while they were returning to their boat.

The report of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Arviat indicates that the victim, who was declared dead on the scene, was not armed and that the bear was shot dead by another adult who was armed and close

Kidlapik, 60 years old. Activities in the area like "walking with bears" that he said on Twitter make large carnivorous animals lose their fear of humans

"You will see photos of tourists touching a bear through the fence, Kidlapik told the Free Press by phone on Wednesday. "This is not correct."

"Bears lose the fear that they have humans," he said. "It's very different from 10 or 15 years ago, and from my experience and from other people I've talked to, the bears would run away from the sound of it." An ATV or a snowmobile, but today, they do not hang out. They will go on the track next to you. "

The Government of Nunavut and the World Wildlife Fund have worked together to try to reduce conflicts between bears and humans, including the construction of The Canadian Press reports.

Another factor is the continued warming of climate, reducing the ice used by polar bears as a hunting platform, reports CP.It is estimated that the western Hudson Bay loses up to five days of sea ice cover by decade.

Still, deaths caused by polar bear attacks are relatively rare.A 2017 report from the US Fish and Wildlife Service on bear attacks revealed 73 predatory attacks recorded and 20 deaths between 1870 and 2014. Although the list should be incomplete.

Nearly two-thirds of the attacks were perpetrated by young adult cubs that were beginning to starve. place between July and December, while the sea ice was the weakest.

The last polar bear attack in Arviat dates back to 1999, when a 64-year-old Baker Lake woman According to the Nunatsiaq News, the 250-pound bear should not attack her comrades.

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