Inuvik has a bear problem. And experts say the only viable solution may be deadly.
In 2025, researchers from the N.W.T. The Department of Environment and Climate Change captured 3,936 bear detections on trail cameras, with up to 13 bears in a frame at one time. DNA analysis found upwards of 40 bears were regularly using the dump as a dining room.
Since the town erected an electric fence around the landfill, as first reported by Cabin Radio, most of the bears haven’t made it.
Estimates vary, but Toby Halle, a renewable resource officer based in Inuvik, says at least 28 of them were shot by officers, with more shot by locals. The chance of the remaining few surviving is slim, he said.
“Their fate was pretty much written in the stars, I guess,” said Halle.
In 2025, researchers could spot multiple bears in one frame from trail cameras, sometimes as many as 13. (GNWT)
Under orders from the Gwich’in Land and Water Board, officials built an electric fence around the dump to keep the bears out. It’s a model being used by other dumps across North America, but so far, Inuvik is the only community in the Beaufort Delta to do so.
It cost the town close to a million dollars, paid for in part by federal funds, says Inuvik Mayor Peter Clarkson.
“There was lots of anxiety in town for sure. And lots of people questioning why was the town doing this? Isn’t it better to just let the bears feed at the landfill in the long term?” Clarkson said.
“No, it’s not better because this is the situation you get.”
The electricity was turned on this summer. But the problem didn’t go away. Instead, bears started descending on Inuvik in search of food.
Others were spotted prowling the fence in desperation.
One of the grizzly bears captured by trail cameras prowling the Inuvik dump in May, 2026. (GNWT)
“They would just do these laps around the dump and they would just be emaciated, sickly,” said Halle. “They don’t know what to do with themselves. And quite frankly, we don’t know what to do with them.”
The problem is that for many of these bears, the dump was all they’d ever known.
“We’ve probably had three to four generations of bears that have been using that landfill,” said Clarkson, based on the math that female grizzlies can start having cubs around age 7. “Unfortunately, something wasn’t done 25 years ago.”
After the electric fence was switched on in April, many bears “didn’t know what to do with themselves,” say Toby Halle, renewable resource officer. (GNWT)
Clarkson says thankfully there were no tragic bear encounters, but people in Inuvik spent the summer on high alert.
“We’d be inundated with bear calls,” said Halle.
He says in the past the department tried to relocate one family group, but they returned within days.
Dr. Lana Ciarniello is an independent conservation scientist and co-chair of the human-bear conflicts expert team with the International Union for Conservation of Nature. She says moving bears elsewhere, especially in the N.W.T. — where there are healthy bear populations everywhere — is not a viable solution.
“Where are you going to move them? You’re going to move them into someone else’s home,” she said, adding this increases the odds of one bear killing another.
“Moving bears is not the solution.”
In Europe, where she says there are no-kill policies, some problematic bears have been put into captivity. But she says many of these wild bears are not adapting well to captivity, and Canada doesn’t have enough specialized facilities to take them in.
The solution, therefore, is prevention.
“Bears cannot be feeding on garbage. It is 2026. I mean, it’s ridiculous to have open pit dumps anywhere in Canada. They need to be closed,” she said.
Many bears had grown up relying on the Inuvik landfill as a food source, like this one pictured in 2017. (Steven Baryluk/GNWT)
Halle says the next couple of years will see slightly higher bear activity, before it normalizes.
That is, as long as the fence stays up — and the town makes sure it’s bear proof.
“We make these bears,” said Ciarniello. “They’re not problems inherently on their own.”
