The sick are said to have been in contact with the carcass of a cow suspected to have been infected. It is the first time a human being is succumbing to anthrax in the area.

The report on Wood Buffalo National Park says industry, dams, climate change and natural cycles are sucking the lifeblood from the vast delta of northeastern Alberta's Peace and Athabasca rivers

A mysterious anthrax outbreak over the summer killed more than 2,300 reindeer and at least one child.

Warming Arctic temperatures can create an environment friendly to bacterial infections like anthrax, an infection spread by contact with bacterial spores, which plant-eating animals may eat or breathe in while grazing.

So far approximately 340 bison have died from an anthrax outbreak in the Fort Providence area of the N.W.T.