Alan Wilson - www.naturespicsonline.com
Living in Florida, we often
see human/animal conflicts with black bear and alligators. Western states also
have to contend with grizzly bears. These attacks are well documented and studied. Conversely, polar bear attacks
on humans are rare. Researchers state that concern for a rise in polar
bear conflicts is warranted due to predictions of increasing numbers of
nutritionally stressed bears spending more time hunting [closer to human
populations]. One cause of this is loss of sea ice habitat.
The study done by Wilder,
et. al., 2017 [Polar bear attacks on humans: Implications of a changing climate],
published in the Wildlife
Society Bulletin, found that “from 1870–2014, we documented 73 attacks by
wild polar bears, distributed among the 5 polar bear Range States (Canada,
Greenland, Norway, Russia, and United States), which resulted in 20 human
fatalities and 63 human injuries” (Wilder, et. al., 2017). They also
noted that attacks were mainly from stressed male bears looking for food.
Attacks by females were rare and were in defense of their cubs.
Increases in human/wildlife conflicts result in negative
public perceptions, which usually result in a negative outcome for the animals involved.
Management goals are to educate and develop methods for coexistence. Before
this study, there was no systematic data collected on polar bear conflicts. Folklore and incomplete data help fuel the anxiety over polar bear encounters.
The study, which is very detailed and
gives information about all recorded attacks, characteristics of attacking bears,
bear behavior and seasonality of attacks, and the role of humans in these
attacks, can be found from the reference below.
FAU library users can look up the article through Searchwise here.
References:
Wilder, J. M., Vongraven,
D., Atwood, T., Hansen, B., Jessen, A., Kochnev, A., York, G., Vallender, R.,
Hedman, D. and Gibbons, M. (2017), Polar bear attacks on humans: Implications
of a changing climate. Wildl. Soc. Bull.. doi:10.1002/wsb.783
Image credit: By Alan Wilson - www.naturespicsonline.com:
[1], CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38456823
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