Polar bear in hotel bar in Pyra­mi­den

Seve­ral polar bears have been han­ging out in the Bil­lefjord area, north of Lon­gye­ar­by­en, for quite a while alre­a­dy. The­se have ben seen many times by tou­rists and the 14 per­sons who are working and living in the lar­ge­ly aban­do­ned Rus­si­an sett­le­ment Pyra­mi­den. Seve­ral times during the sum­mer, a bear has been seen insi­de Pyra­mi­den, also direct­ly next to hotel Tuli­pan, whe­re seve­ral peo­p­le live and whe­re guests are lodged.

Now, the polar bear has lite­ral­ly gone a step too far: during the night to Mon­day, it went through a win­dow into the bar to have a look around. The human inha­bi­tants of the hotel were woken up by the noi­se, but pre­fer­red to lea­ve the polar bear alo­ne to its busi­ness. No infor­ma­ti­on has been published about dama­ged that is likely to have hap­pen­ed, other than that the living bear was not inte­res­ted in his pad­ded con­spe­ci­fic fel­low. It is not known if the polar bear show­ed any inte­res­ted in the strong drinks that are stored in the bar.

In any case, it had alre­a­dy left when the Sys­sel­man­nen arri­ved on the sce­ne. Despi­te a 1.5 hour heli­c­op­ter search, the bar bear could not be found.

As repea­ted attempts to sca­re the polar bear away from Pyra­mi­den have not yiel­ded any­thing bey­ond short-term suc­cess, the Sys­sel­man­nen has now deci­ded to tran­qui­li­ze the bear and move him to a remo­te desti­na­ti­on when he comes back.

It is likely the same polar bear that bothe­red a stu­dent camp near Nor­dens­ki­öld­breen oppo­si­te Pyra­mi­den a few weeks ago (when the gre­at pho­to with the bear and the Sval­bard­bu­tik­ken pla­s­tic bag was taken).

Source: Sys­sel­man­nen, Sval­bard­pos­ten

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