Three members of a family, including a child, were injured in a rare polar bear attack in the far north of Siberia, Russian officials reported Monday.
Local police received a report of a polar bear injuring people about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the village of Nosok at a fishing spot, the regional interior ministry said on Telegram. Nosok is located in the Krasnoyarsk region inside the Arctic Circle.
The ministry confirmed that the victims, born in 1983, 2006, and 2015, were injured in the attack. The family was evacuated to safety and received immediate assistance. Officials did not specify the severity of the injuries but noted that one person may require hospitalization.
Polar bear attacks on humans are extremely rare, but experts say shrinking sea ice caused by global warming is forcing the animals closer to inhabited areas in search of food. Arctic temperatures have been rising at more than double the global rate since 2006, according to a NOAA report released last month.
Recent attacks highlight the growing risk: in August 2024, two polar bears killed a worker at a remote radar site in the Canadian Arctic, and four months later, a man in Northern Ontario was seriously injured protecting his wife from a polar bear. In 2023, a polar bear killed a woman and her young son in Wales, Alaska, marking the first fatal polar bear attack in the state in 30 years.