Animal Drama at Spitsbergen ,
Polar bear attacks tourists – and is shot!
Polar Bear Plays on Svalbard!
A French tourist was attacked and injured by a polar bear on the Norwegian archipelago. According to a statement on the Spitsbergen governor’s website, the bear broke into a tent camp on Monday and injured the woman’s hand.
The injuries are not life threatening. The animal was initially gunned down. According to the information, the polar bear was so badly injured that it eventually had to be shot.
The woman, about 40 years old, was part of a group of 25 tourists living in tents in the northern part of Isfjorden (more than 1,000 kilometers from the North Pole). He was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Longyearbyen, Svalbard’s largest settlement. The archipelago is in the Arctic Ocean.
Officials did not provide any details about the exact circumstances of the incident. The polar bear was fired upon, Police Chief Stein Olav Bradley explained: “He got scared and left.” The animal was later found and killed because of the extent of its injuries.
On the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, it is mandatory to carry rifles outside urban areas as a protective measure against polar bears. Males can weigh between 300 and 600 kg, with females about half the weight. A 2015 census put the number of polar bears on Spitsbergen at around 1,000.
These animals have been under species protection since 1973. About 300 of them live on the archipelago all year round. Some have returned to the western part of the region – the most densely populated area. Svalbard has killed six people in polar bear attacks since 1971. In the most recent such incident in the archipelago, a 38-year-old Dutchman was killed by a polar bear in 2020.
