A Polar Bear Was Seen In Iceland For The First Time Since 2016, But Police Shot The Rare Bear Dead After Deeming It A Threat
A rare polar bear was spotted in Iceland for the first time since 2016—and it was promptly shot dead by police after being considered a threat.
Police consulted with environmental authorities, who declined to have the bear relocated. So, there was no other option but to kill the animal.
Polar bears are not native to Iceland. It is believed the bear traveled to Iceland on ice floes all the way from Greenland, a journey of hundreds of miles.
According to Anna Sveinsdóttir, the director of scientific collections at the Icelandic Institute of Natural History, many icebergs have recently been spotted off the north Icelandic coast. Occasionally, polar bears will come to shore on such icebergs.
The bear had wandered near a cottage in a remote village in Iceland. The owner of the cottage was home alone and locked herself upstairs as the bear went through her garbage.
She contacted her daughter in Reykajavík, the nation’s capital, via satellite link and called for help.
The bear was killed in the northwest of Iceland. It was healthy and weighed between 330 and 440 pounds. It was transported back to Reykajavík for testing. Scientists will check for any parasites and infections.
“It’s not something we like to do,” said Westfjords Police Chief Helgi Jensson. “In this case…the bear was very close to a summer house. There was an old woman in there.”
Polar bear attacks on humans are incredibly rare, but the loss of sea ice due to global warming has led more bears to land.
Tom – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual polar bear
This results in a higher chance of polar bears getting into conflicts with humans. The melting sea ice is causing polar bears to starve. They could die out within the century.
In 2021, scientists from Norway discovered that polar bears were inbreeding as they fought for survival.
From 1995 to 2016, polar bear populations on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard saw a 10 percent decline in genetic diversity, increasing the risk of extinction.
Between 1870 and 2014, there were 73 documented attacks by polar bears in Greenland, Canada, the United States, Norway, and Russia.
A total of 20 people were killed, and 63 were injured—15 of those attacks took place just during the last five years of that time period.
Attacks have occurred in more recent years as well. Just this August, a pair of polar bears killed a worker at a remote government site in the Canadian Arctic. In 2023, a woman and her young son were killed by a polar bear in Wales, Alaska.
The bear that was recently shot was the first to be seen in Iceland since 2016. Polar bear sightings in Iceland are relatively rare, as only 600 have been recorded since the ninth century.
Police were forced to shoot the bear, as the cost of returning the animal to Greenland was too high. After the bear was shot, the woman who reported it decided to stay in the village for a little longer.
Polar bears are a protected species, so it’s illegal to kill one, but they can be killed if they pose a threat to humans or livestock.
Experts also pointed out that polar bears would be unable to survive for very long in Iceland because of a limited food supply and a lack of sea ice.
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