Polar bear invades campsite and injures tourist - animal must be killed

Created: 08/09/2022 17:03

By: Julia Schöneseiffen

There was a polar bear attack on Svalbard.

A tourist was injured - the bear had to be killed.

Longyearbyen – A tragic incident has occurred on the Spitsbergen archipelago, which belongs to Norway.

A French tourist was injured by a polar bear and the bear was subsequently killed.

The polar bear entered a campsite on Monday morning (8 August) and injured the woman's arm, local police chief Stein Olav Bredli told the

news agency .

Authorities said the woman's injuries were not life-threatening.

Svalbard: polar bear attacks French tourist

The authorities did not provide any information about the exact circumstances of the incident.

Shots were fired at the polar bears, said the police chief.

"He got scared and left the place." The animal was later located and killed due to the extent of its injuries.

The woman was part of an expedition of 25 tourists staying in tents on the northern part of Isfjorden, about 1,000 kilometers from the North Pole.

The approximately 40-year-old was taken to the hospital in Longyearbyen, the largest settlement on Spitsbergen, in a helicopter.

The archipelago is in the Arctic Ocean.

A polar bear attacked a French tourist on Spitsbergen.

(symbol image) © dpa

Spitsbergen (Norway): Last polar bear attack of 2020

On Svalbard it is mandatory to carry a rifle outside of urban areas as a protective measure against polar bears.

Males can weigh between 300 and 600 kilograms, females are about half that size.

A 2015 census put the number of polar bears on Spitsbergen at around 1,000.

The animals have been under species protection since 1973.

Around 300 of them live on the archipelago all year round.

Some have returned to the western part of the territory - the most densely populated area.

Six people have been killed in polar bear attacks in Svalbard since 1971.

In the most recent incident of this kind in the archipelago, a 38-year-old Dutchman was killed by a polar bear in 2020.

A terrible incident involving a bear also occurred in the United States.

A family man was killed by a grizzly bear near Yellowstone National Park.