Polar bear seen petting dog in viral video kills a husky in the same pack

The polar bear filmed petting a dog in Canada last week has killed another husky in the same pack.

That's according to the man who runs the Mile 5 Dog Sanctuary in Churchill, Canada, where the footage was shot.

Brian Ladoon says he feeds the polar bears to try to stop them eating his dogs.

"That was the only day we didn't feed the bears, the only night we didn't put anything out," he told Canada's CBC News

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Feeding polar bears is illegal in the Canadian province of Manitoba, where the attack took place.

Experts say wild polar bears shouldn't be fed and that giving them scraps can make attacks more common because the animals come to rely on the food source instead of hunting.

They also say that what looks like playful behaviour with dogs is more likely the bears playing with their food.

Three animals had to be removed from Brian Ladoon's property last week.

And a local conservation officer says it'll be polar bears which come off worse.

"Failure to cease the action of feeding/baiting polar bears will result in further enforcement action," said a Manitoba sustainable development spokesperson in a statement to CBC News.

"The protection of polar bears is of utmost importance and interfering with their natural behaviour will not be tolerated."

Brian Ladoon says there were nine polar bears on his land last week, when one of his huskies was eaten.

He says he feeds the bears because he was "tired of the bloodbath" at his old cottage, where he was breeding the endangered Canadian Eskimo dog.

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But Ian Stirling, an expert on Arctic and Antarctic ecology from the University of Alberta, says huskies are used by hunters to warn them about polar bears and aren't tied up.

"The dog was chained up and they're totally vulnerable," he said.

"Inuit [hunters] over the years in the high Arctic have told me that if you want a dog to act as a guard dog, you have to leave it off a chain.

Image captionChurchill in Canada is situated on the shore of Hudson Bay

"Because if it's on a chain it knows it's vulnerable and it won't bark.

"Any situation that brings bears in to feed in an unnatural situation in association with human beings, I think, should not take place at all."