If in fact cannibalism and fighting between male and female Polar Bears is occurring for the first time on record due to global warming and shrinking ice blocks in which to hunt seals, why is the Ontario and Quebec Government leaders allowing 60 of the "Great White Bears" to be killed this year?

Southern Hudson Bay polar bear count to continue this fall-----Meanwhile, governments and hunting organizations agreed to voluntary quota of 60 bears

The Nunavut government says a voluntary polar bear quota will be maintained again this year in southern Hudson Bay while surveys in the area are completed. Last September, Nunavut worked with the governments of Ontario and Quebec, as well as Inuit and wildlife organizations to come to a voluntary agreement to reduce the harvest to 60.

Drikus Gissing, with the Nunavut government, says all parties agreed to a voluntary, as opposed to an imposed, quota of 60 bears for the southern Hudson Bay population. (CBC)
Drikus Gissing, the Nunavut government's Director of Wildlife Management, said hunters only killed 48 this past year.

The harvest number will remain at 60 until the surveys are complete. "The Nunavut harvest of 25 is being maintained, a harvest of 26 was agreed to for Quebec, and then allocation to the Cree in Quebec as well as Ontario was agreed to: four for the Quebec side and five for the Ontario side," said Gissing.

Gissing said there was a polar bear survey done for the region in 2011, but many felt it was incomplete.

He said a survey of islands along the Quebec side will be done in a few weeks. Once all the survey results are in, the various groups will meet to decide if the total allowable harvest in the area should be increased, decreased or stay the same.

The number of bears in the region has been hotly debated in the past. Gissing said last year, hunters killed more than a hundred bears.