In July, a polar bear was seen on the north coast of Spitsbergen with a plastic fishing net around its neck. The bear was found again later, it could then be anesthetized and freed from the potentially deadly debris.
Not much later, another polar bear, again a female, was found entangled in a fishing net. In this case, the bar had a small transmitter in its ear, placed there by scientists to track migration movements. The net was entangled around the transmitter.
The bear was found in Sorgfjord by volunteers of the governor’s beach cleanup trip. Experts of the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI) were flown in by helicopter to tranquilize the bear, but just before the NPI biologist fired, the transmitter fell off together with the net and the polar bear was free of the its burden. There were no signs of injury, and the bear seems to be fine.
Norwegian fishery is now facing criticism for the amount of dangerous fishing nets and other debris found in the north Atlantic and shorelines there. Fishing vessels are obliged to report loss of fishing gear at sea, and the fishery authority (Fiskeridirektorat) has, since 1980, the responsibility to retrieve lost nets and other dangerous debris if possible. Since 1980, more than 17,000 nets have been retrieved. The number of fishing nets found on beaches in Spitsbergen and elsewhere indicates, however, that the numbers of nets actual lost must be higher. Since 2008, damaged nets can be discharged in Norwegian ports free of charge.
Many providers of satellite-based communication services had technical problems in late July for several days. This led, amongst others, to delays of my arctic blog on this website.
Other consequences were more serious. Worldwide, ships were not able to download updated weather information. In Spitsbergen, a French sailing yacht was missing for several days; the families of the crew had not received messages as agreed for 6 days. The Sysselmannen sent a plane out to search for the yacht, which was found near Smeerenburg with everybody on board in good condition.
The technical problems were deep in the complex system, far out of reach of and unforeseeable for the individual user. By now, the problems seem to be solved.
This communication device is almost undestructable, but unfortunately not mobile. Pyramiden, near the port.