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POLAR BEAR

Polar bear shot dead in Norway after wounding cruise ship worker

A polar bear was shot dead after attacking a German cruise ship worker on Norway's Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, authorities said Sunday.

Published: 30 July 2018 09:34 CEST
Polar bear shot dead in Norway after wounding cruise ship worker
A file photo of a polar bear. Photo: NTB Scanpix

The unnamed man in his 40's suffered head injuries shortly after landing on Spitzbergen island.

He was accompanying a tourist expedition from the MS Bremen of Hapag-Lloyd Cruises on Saturday.

“The bear was killed by another employee on the boat,” police commissioner Ole Jakob Malmo told AFP.

Hapag-Lloyd Cruises said it was “self-defence”.

“We greatly regret this incident,” said company spokesman Moritz Krause.

The injured employee was flown by helicopter to the local capital Longyearbyen and then on to Tromsø on the mainland in the evening, Malmo said.

Tromsø hospital told AFP the man's life was not in danger and he was in a stable condition.

Hapag-Lloyd Cruises said it had permission from “local authorities” to dock.

“Landings are only possible in a few places (in the archipelago),” said Krause, in remarks confirmed by Malmo.

Usually “as soon as an animal approaches, the landing stops immediately,” Krause added.

The company said excursions of this nature required staff to check areas before landing and to protect those onboard against polar bear attacks.


The polar bear shortly after being shot. Photo: Gustav Busch Arntsen/Sysselmannen på Svalbard/handout / NTB scanpix

Polar bears have been protected in Norway since 1973 and nearly 1,000 were counted on Svalbard during a 2015 census.

The archipelago, roughly twice the size of Belgium, lies about 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) from the North Pole.

Five fatal polar bear attacks have been recorded on Svalbard in the last 40 years.

The most recent was in 2011 when a bear attacked a group of 14 people on a trip organised by a British schools association.

A 17-year-old Briton died and four other members of the expedition were hurt before the bear was killed.

READ ALSO: Norway fines tourist guide for scaring polar bear

POLAR BEAR

Polar bear kills man on Arctic Norwegian archipelago

A polar bear has killed a man on Norway's Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic, local officials said Friday, the sixth fatal attack in almost 50 years in the region.

Published: 28 August 2020 09:44 CEST
Polar bear kills man on Arctic Norwegian archipelago
File photo: AFP

The incident took place overnight in a camping area near the main town of Longyearbyen, located 1,300 kilometres from the North Pole.

The man, who has not been named, was seriously wounded during the attack and died soon after, the local governor's office said in a statement.

Other people at the scene fired shots at the bear, which was later found dead in the parking lot of the local airport. People on Svalbard are advised to carry a weapon when outside urban areas.

According to a tally from 2015, the archipelago is home to about 1,000 polar bears, a protected species since 1973.

Until now, five deadly attacks on people had been recorded since 1971.

The most recent one occurred in 2011 when a bear attacked a group of 14 people camping as part of a British school trip. A 17-year-old British student was killed and four others were injured before the animal was killed.

According to experts, the shrinking icecap has reduced the polar bears' preferred hunting grounds, where they eat seals, pushing them to approach populated areas in their hunt for food.

READ ALSO: Norway fines tourist guide for scaring polar bear

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