Dead­ly Polar bear attack II

The fatal attack of a polar bear that led to the death of a 17-year old on Fri­day (August 05) took place in the ear­ly mor­ning hours while the group was still asleep, thus coming as a total sur­pri­se. The very aggres­si­ve bear atta­cked a tent (seve­ral ones?), kil­ling one per­son and inju­ring ano­ther four, two out of the­se serious­ly in the face.

The bear was a male weig­hing 250 kg.

Next to shock and the sad­ness about the loss of a per­son, the ques­ti­on of how the dead­ly attack could hap­pen remains to be ans­we­red. We need to wait until fur­ther details will be published befo­re final con­clu­si­ons can be drawn regar­ding the situa­ti­on and its impli­ca­ti­ons for risk assess­ment and safe­ty mea­su­res.

Gene­ral­ly spea­king, when cam­ping in polar bear coun­try it is important:

• put up a trip wire (alarm fence) around the camp with suf­fi­ci­ent distance from the tents. A cor­rect set­up is important to make the sys­tem work well. You should, howe­ver, bear in mind that this tech­ni­cal mea­su­re is known to have fai­led befo­re and bears have been seen just step­ping over or kree­ping under the wire.
• it is bet­ter to have a polar dog (sledge dog) who will warn you in case a polar bear is approa­ching the camp during the night.
• or to keep careful watch night watch, if the group size allows this.
• avo­id cam­ping at expo­sed sites such as near the shore or on small islands.
• food, espe­ci­al­ly fresh items and meat, should not be stored insi­de tents.
• even if all safe­ty mea­su­res are careful­ly and cor­rect­ly appli­ed, a small risk will always remain as always in life. Cam­ping in polar bear coun­try will never be com­ple­te­ly risk-free, just taking part in car traf­fic whe­re it is com­mon to accept a (small) remai­ning risk that can­not be con­trol­led by the indi­vi­du­al.

P.S. last offi­ci­al state­ments con­firm that the alarm mines did not explo­de when the polar bear ente­red the camp. So far, the reason for this is unknown.

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