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Polar bear in Spitsbergen, Norway (icon image)
Photo: M. Guyt / AGAMI / blickwinkel / imago images
A polar bear injured a tourist from France on the Spitsbergen archipelago in Norway.
He was later killed.
The bear entered a tent camp in the morning and injured the woman's arm, according to a statement on the Svalbard governor's website on Monday.
The injuries are not life-threatening.
The animal was chased away with gunshots.
According to the information, it was injured so badly that it had to be killed.
The injured were taken to the hospital by helicopter
The woman was part of a group of 25 tourists staying in tents on the northern part of Isfjordst.
She was taken in a helicopter to the hospital in Longyearbyen, the largest settlement on Svalbard.
On the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, carrying a rifle outside of urban areas is mandatory 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.
ktz/dpa/afp
