Bear kills oil worker in Canada tar sands

An employee of Canadian oil company Suncor was killed by a bear that wandered onto an oil sands extraction site.

"The employee was pronounced deceased on the scene," said a statement late on Wednesday from Canada's largest energy company.

Agents from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Alberta's environmental division "responded to the scene and the animal was put down," it added.

The police said the bear was a male.

"We are shocked by this very unusual incident and there are no words to express the tragedy of this situation," said Mark Little, a Suncor executive vice president, who urged Suncor workers "to be extremely vigilant in dealing with wildlife."

The oil sands site was 25 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, in northwest Alberta.

The area has exploded in the last decade as oil companies have launched projects to extract oil from the tar sands, which hold enough oil to give Canada the world's third largest oil reserves.