A polar bear has died of bird flu as the highly contagious H5N1 virus spreads to the most remote parts of the planet.

The death was confirmed in December by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. “This is the first reported case of a polar bear, anywhere,” Alaska State Veterinarian Dr. Bob Gerlach told the Alaska Beacon.

The polar bear was spotted near Utqiagvik, one of Alaska’s northernmost communities, two years after this last strain was detected in North America. Gerlach said it’s possible the bear died after eating the carcasses of infected birds.

Polar bears are listed as “vulnerable” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) red list of threatened species, mainly due to melting ice.

It’s possible more bears have died undetected because they tend to live in remote places with few people, Gerlach said.

The outbreak of the highly virulent H5N1 variant – which began in 2021 – is estimated to have killed millions of wild birds. Globally, thousands of mammals have also died from the virus, including black and brown bears. Bald eagles, foxes and kittiwakes are among the species that have died from the virus in Alaska in recent months.

“It was in the Antarctic and now it’s in the northern Arctic in mammals – it’s terrifying,” Diana Bell, emeritus professor of biology at the University of East Anglia, told the Guardian.

“And yet I’m not surprised – in the last two years the list of mammals that have died has grown. the virus has killed such a wide range of raptors and mammals now, this is not just a poultry disease. When a large, charismatic species like a polar bear hits, people suddenly sit up and listen – or at least I hope they do. We already have a pandemic in biodiversity and it’s called H5N1 because it’s killed so many birds and mammals.”

The first known cases of H5N1 were detected in the Antarctic region last October in brown squaws on Bird Island, off South Georgia. Two months later, hundreds of elephant seals were found dead. There were also increased deaths of seals, kelp gulls and brown squaws at several other locations.

Scientists have warned that the highly contagious virus could bring “one of the greatest ecological disasters of modern times” if it reaches remote penguin populations.

The virus continues further south in the Antarctic region. A Brown skua is suspected to have died from it on Heroína Island, at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.

It is currently awaiting further testing, according to the latest update on the SCAR (Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research) website. “It doesn’t bode well,” said Dr Meagan Dewar, head of the SCAR Antarctic Wildlife Health Network.

Ecosystems in polar regions are particularly vulnerable to bird flu because they include many animals found nowhere else in the world that have never been exposed to similar viruses. It is also one of the places most affected by climate disaster.