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ANCHORAGE, Alaska — <\/span>Late every summer, hulking white bears gather outside a tiny Alaska Native village on the edge of the continent, far above the Arctic Circle, to feast on whale carcasses left behind by hunters and to wait for the deep cold to freeze the sea.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a spectacle that once brought 1,000 or more tourists each year to Kaktovik<\/a>, the only settlement in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,<\/a> in a phenomenon sometimes called \u201clast chance tourism\u201d \u2014 a chance to see magnificent sights and creatures before climate change<\/a> renders them extinct. <\/p>\n The COVID-19 pandemic and an order from the federal government halting boat tours to see the bears largely ended Kaktovik’s polar bear tourism<\/a> amid concerns that the tiny village was being overrun by outsiders. But Kaktovik leaders are now hoping to revive it, saying it could be worth millions to the local economy and give residents another source of income \u2014 provided the village can set guidelines that protect its way of life and the bears themselves.<\/p>\n \u201cWe definitely see the benefit for tourism,\u201d said Charles Lampe, president of the Kaktovik Inupiat Corp, which owns 144 square miles (373 square kilometers) of land. \u201cThe thing is, it can\u2019t be run like it was before.\u201d<\/p>\n As far back as the early 1980s, anyone in Kaktovik with a boat and knowledge of the waters could take a few tourists out to watch the bears as they lumbered across the flat, treeless barrier islands just off the coast or tore into the ribs of a bowhead whale left by subsistence hunters. <\/p>\n Tourism in Kaktovik soared in the years after federal officials declared polar bears a threatened species in 2008. The rapid warming of the Arctic is melting the sea ice<\/a> the bears use to hunt seals, and scientists have said most polar bears could be wiped out by the end of the century<\/a>.<\/p>\n As visitation boomed, the federal government imposed regulations requiring tour operators to have permits and insurance, and that began to squeeze locals out of the industry, Lampe said. Larger out-of-town operators moved in, and before long crowds of tourists were coming to Kaktovik \u2014 a village of about 250 people \u2014 during the six-week viewing season.<\/p>\n The town\u2019s two hotels and restaurants lost out on some business when large operators began flying tourists in from Fairbanks or Anchorage for day trips. Locals complained tourist gawked at them or traipsed through their yards.<\/p>\n Small plane capacity became an issue, with residents sometimes battling tourists to get on flights to or from larger cities for medical appointments, forcing those left stranded in the cities to get expensive hotel rooms for the night.<\/p>\n When the pandemic struck, Kaktovik paused visitation. Then in 2021, the federal government, which manages polar bears, halted boat tours,<\/a> mostly over concerns about how tourists were affecting bear behavior and overrunning the town.<\/p>\n Now Alaska Native leaders are in talks with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to address those concerns and reignite the industry, perhaps as early as 2027. The agency told The Associated Press in a statement that it\u2019s working with Kaktovik \u201cto ensure that any future opportunities are managed in a way that prioritizes visitor safety, resource protection, and community input.\u201d<\/p>\n Among the changes Kaktovik leaders want to see is a limit on how long a boat can sit in the water near the bears. Too long, Lampe said, and the bears get used to humans \u2014 making for a dangerous situation when bears wander into town looking for food.<\/p>\n During the height of the tourism boom, it became tougher to haze bears out of town, even with the town\u2019s bear patrol<\/a> shooting at them with non-lethal rounds. The patrol had to kill about three or four bears per year, compared to maybe one per year before the boom, Lampe said.<\/p>\n \u201cOur safety was at risk,\u201d Lampe said. <\/p>\n