EDMONTON—A concerned expert and a grieving family member have raised concerns over polar bear tours after a Nunavut father was killed on Tuesday while protecting his children.

Aaron Gibbons, 31, was killed by a polar bear Tuesday evening on Century Island, 10 kilometres outside the hamlet of Arviat, RCMP say.

Gibbons’ uncle, Gordy Kidlapik, said his nephew protected his girls by telling them to run to their nearby boat while he put himself between them and the bear.

Gibbons was out with his children for a walk at the time and some other families were with him, said Kidlapik.

“When they were on the island walking around… a bear surprised them,” he said. “The bear had started to stalk the children.”

The children made it to the boat and made a panicked call back home on the CB radio, he said.

“They were calling for help… and explaining what was happening.”

He said the girls were unharmed but were crying for their grandmother over the radio.

RCMP and medical professionals arrived on the scene and pronounced Gibbons dead. The bear was "put down," RCMP said.

Kidlapik also raised concerns over some polar bear tours that take place in the area, saying that their goal is to get tourists as close to the bears as possible.

“They have these excursions where they walk with the bears,” he said, referring to various tourism organizations that promote the outings.

He’s seen some organizations bring tourists right into the open where they can take pictures of wild polar bears and he also knows of a fenced-in lodge that bears come near.

“Personally, I’ve been raising that just as a concern, and that we’re noticing more bears who have lost their fear approaching humans,” he said. “It wasn’t like that before.”

In a Twitter thread, Kidlapik lamented the death of his nephew, and named Churchill Wild, one of the companies offering “On the ground. Up close and personal,” encounters with polar bears, according to its website. The company’s social-media photos depict people in close proximity to the bears, separated only by a few metres and a fence.

The Churchill, Man.-based company could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

Ian Stirling, adjunct professor at the University of Alberta and polar bear expert, said the biological sciences community has growing concerns over polar bear tourism.

Stirling said if these walking tours are to continue, more research needs to be done on how they affect the bears’ attitudes toward humans. He also said he has colleagues who believe the tours shouldn’t happen at all.

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“If a bear that’s gotten used to you, then also gets to be starving or hungry or whatever… I would think it would have much less reticence about attacking and killing a person for food,” he said.

However, he stressed that this is speculation on his part, because not enough concrete research has been done on how bears are affected by tours. He also said not enough is known about Gibbons’ death yet to say whether the bear may have been starving or if acclimatization to humans played a role.

Polar bears are also being adversely effected by climate change, he said. He added that especially along the western part of the Hudson Bay, where Arviat is located, bears are showing up skinny and hungry.

“What we do know about western Hudson Bay is that the ice is breaking up much, much earlier than it used to break up,” he said. “The bears are coming ashore lighter and lighter and they have been for many years.”

When bears come into contact with humans on a regular basis, such as on tours, they start to learn not to be concerned with the presence of humans, Stirling said.

Stirling is waiting for more information about the sex, size and health of the bear that killed Gibbons before he comes to any conclusion on the reason for its behaviour.

Daniel Pimentel, the director of policy planning and legislation with the territory’s Department of Environment, said conservation officers will investigate the circumstances of the attack and analyze the polar bear itself to determine its age, health and any factors that may have led to the attack.

The last time a polar bear killed a person in Nunavut was 18 years ago in Rankin Inlet, Pimentel said.

“It has been a very long time since the last polar bear attack resulted in human fatality,” he said. “They’re very uncommon in Nunavut.”

As to whether the rise in polar bear tours may have had a role to play in the attack Pimentel said the government won’t be commenting on whether those tours have had any influence on this attack at this time.

“Right now, we do not have a comment or position on the tours just because we don’t know if it is a direct result (or) what kind of impact it had,” he said.

RCMP are continuing to investigate with the chief coroner, the Nunavut Department of Environment and the wildlife division.

With files from Ainslie Cruickshank

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