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Yearly Archives: 2014 − News & Stories


Pho­to trip: arc­tic win­ter, Spits­ber­gen 2015

One inten­se week of arc­tic win­ter impres­si­ons in Spits­ber­gen in ear­ly March 2015: polar land­scapes in the quick­ly chan­ging light of the low sun on the boun­da­ry bet­ween polar night and mid­night sun, when the light is chan­ging from day to day. That is the pur­po­se of our new pho­to trip into the arc­tic win­ter, for the first time im March 2015.

Using motor sled­ges (snow scoo­ters) as effec­ti­ve means of trans­por­ta­ti­on, we can get to various places in dif­fe­rent are­as to maxi­mi­ze the varia­ti­on of our land­scape expe­ri­ence and pho­to set­tings. The key is to have enough time and a small group to be fle­xi­ble and make the best of wha­te­ver situa­ti­on occurs. Alex­an­der Lembke as pho­to­gra­phic lea­der, Doreen Lam­pe as motor sledge expert and Rolf Stan­ge will make sure we maxi­mi­ze our oppor­tu­ni­ties during this week.

This tour will be Ger­man spea­king. Hence, the site about this tour is also Ger­man. For fur­ther infor­ma­ti­on, plea­se click here.

Foto trip in the arc­tic win­ter: gla­cier front fro­zen in fjord ice.

Foto trip in the arctic winter: glacier front

Site of the week: White-bea­k­ed dol­phin

The new site of the week at spitsbergen-svalbard.com is a recent­ly crea­ted site about the White-bea­k­ed dol­phin. Dol­phins are not exact­ly what you intui­tively expect in the arc­tic, so it is quite sur­pri­sing to learn of many the­re actual­ly are. But not on the coas­tal waters and fjords of Spits­ber­gen, rather in the open Barents Sea. In recent years, I have regu­lar­ly done the crossing from Nor­way to Bear Island and Spits­ber­gen in the begin­ning of the arc­tic ship­ping boat sea­son. The abun­dance of wha­les and dol­phins in the Barents Sea has always ama­zed me. White-bea­k­ed dol­phins are the nor­t­hern­most repre­sen­ta­ti­ves of the dol­phin fami­ly.

Click here to get to the new site of the week.

White-bea­k­ed dol­phin in the Barents Sea.

White-beaked dolphin

Coal mining not pro­fi­ta­ble: Store Nor­ske cuts 100 jobs

The Nor­we­gi­an coal mining com­pa­ny Store Nor­ske Spits­ber­gen Kul­kom­pa­ni (SNSK) will redu­ce the num­ber of employees as a reac­tion to their loss-making mining acti­vi­ty in Spits­ber­gen. Rapidly fal­ling world mar­ket pri­ces for coal encoun­te­red rising cos­ts for mining in the mar­gi­nal parts of the old mine Svea Nord and for the explo­ita­ti­on of the new mine at Lun­ckef­jel­let. At an avera­ge coal pri­ce of 75$ per ton the com­pa­ny curr­ent­ly loo­ses 10$ with every ton being extra­c­ted (see also Spitsbergen-Svalbard.com news Coal mining in Spits­ber­gen under pres­su­re from Novem­ber 2014).

Under high pres­su­re Store Nor­ske eva­lua­tes seve­ral pos­si­bi­li­ties of reac­ting to this eco­no­mic cri­sis in order to save coal mining on Spits­ber­gen for the near future. It has alre­a­dy been deci­ded that ca. 100 of the 340 jobs at Store Nor­ske will be cut as soon as pos­si­ble. The decis­i­on was published in the end of Novem­ber and in the mean­ti­me the first group of 30 employees has been infor­med, that their con­tracts will run out. It is esti­ma­ted, that all in all ca. 600 jobs on Spits­ber­gen are direct­ly or indi­rect­ly depen­ding on Nor­we­gi­an mining. In addi­ti­on to the employees of Store Nor­ske the­se figu­res main­ly include jobs at sup­pli­ers and ser­vice com­pa­nies, in the tra­ding sec­tor and at public ser­vicers, as school and kin­der­gar­ten. If the Nor­we­gi­ans had to sus­pend coal mining com­ple­te­ly, this would have a very strong impact on the rela­tively small com­mu­ni­ty of only ca. 2000 inha­bi­tants in the city of Lon­gye­ar­by­en. In 2013 Store Nor­ske did alre­a­dy cut 80 jobs, one pos­si­ble reason for the mode­ra­te popu­la­ti­on decli­ne in Lon­gye­ar­by­en after a lon­ger peri­od of growth. A signi­fi­cant expan­si­on of the two other strong eco­no­mic sec­tors, tou­rism and rese­arch, as a com­pen­sa­ti­on for a pos­si­ble sus­pen­si­on of coal mining can not be expec­ted in the short term.

Under the­se cir­cum­s­tances it is not only the manage­ment of Store Nor­ske but also the local govern­ment in Lon­gye­ar­by­en which is con­cer­ned and inten­si­ve­ly occu­p­ied with fin­ding solu­ti­ons to ensu­re coal mining on Spits­ber­gen. The­r­e­fo­re, mem­bers of Store Nor­ske as well as the mayor of Lon­gye­ar­by­en, Chris­tin Kris­toff­er­sen, recent­ly tra­ve­led to Oslo for nego­tia­ti­ons with ban­kers, the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment and the par­lia­ment.

Old coal mine: has seen bet­ter days in the past (Hior­th­hamn-mine oppo­si­te Lon­gye­ar­by­en).

Coal mine near Longyearbyen (Hiorthhamn)

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten

Site of the week: nor­t­hern lights

The new site of the week at spitsbergen-svalbard.com is about nor­t­hern lights (auro­ra borea­lis). It fits well as a fol­low-up to mid­night sun and polar night, which was the last week’s site.

The nor­t­hern lights page has been crea­ted recent­ly to offer some back­ground, pho­tos and some basic pho­to­gra­phic hints for nor­t­hern light pho­to­gra­phy. Click here to get to the nor­t­hern lights page.

Nor­t­hern light abo­ve Advent­fjord.

Northern light

Novem­ber wet and warm

The num­ber 52 is sto­rytel­ling. This is the amount of pre­ci­pi­ta­ti­on (mm per months) mea­su­red in Novem­ber in LOn­gye­ar­by­en, in con­trast to a nor­mal month­ly avera­ge of 15 mm. This makes Novem­ber 2014 the wet­test Novem­ber in Lon­gye­ar­by­en ever sin­ce meteo­ro­lo­gi­cal recor­dings were star­ted in the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry. Until now, the record was held by Novem­ber 1993 with 46.5 mm.

Ny Åle­sund recei­ved an ama­zing 73.2 mm, but this was not enough to beat the record from Novem­ber 1993, which is an ama­zing 230.3 mm.

Also the tem­pe­ra­tures were abo­ve avera­ge, in Lon­gye­ar­by­en -6.4 degrees cen­ti­gra­de com­pared to an avera­ge of -10.3. The reason for the warm and wet wea­ther is the high fre­quen­cy of low pres­su­res coming from the west with warm and moist air. Nor­mal­ly, the­re is a stron­ger eas­tern influence with col­der and drier air in Novem­ber.

The wea­ther made its­elf felt in dai­ly life: A few snow mobi­les are now fro­zen solid on a ice-cover­ed ground, and it may take the next real thaw to make them move again. This may or may not hap­pen befo­re May. And the hos­pi­tal cer­tain­ly had an abo­ve avera­ge num­ber of pati­ents who had slip­ped on clear ice. It is recom­men­ded to use spikes and light or a reflec­tor if you walk around in Lon­gye­ar­by­en in the­se con­di­ti­ons.

Clear ice under a thin snow cover made wal­king in Lon­gye­ar­by­en dan­ge­rous at times in Novem­ber.

Clear ice

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten

Bear Island: Boun­da­ry stone in a bound­less sea

A vir­tu­al jour­ney to a fasci­na­ting arc­tic island, as expe­ri­en­ced and writ­ten by Rolf, published on the blog tof­fee­fee or The World accor­ding to Dina. Enjoy!

Bear Island: Boun­da­ry stone in a bound­less sea.

Bear Island: Boundary stone in a boundless sea

Site of the week: mid­night sun and polar night

The site of the week at spitsbergen-svalbard.com is a com­ple­te­ly new page: mid­night sun and polar night. Ever­y­bo­dy knows that the sun does not shi­ne any more in the arc­tic sin­ce late Octo­ber. But what exact­ly is the dif­fe­rence bet­ween “dark time” and “polar night”? How is the cour­se of the “light sea­sons” over the year? This is what the new page mid­night sun and polar night is about.

Site of the week at spitsbergen-svalbard.com: mid­night sun and polar night.

polar night

Decli­ne in polar bear popu­la­ti­on in the sou­thern Beau­fort Sea

In Novem­ber U.S and Cana­di­an sci­en­tists published the results of a 10-year stu­dy peri­od focu­sing on the polar bear popu­la­ti­on dyna­mics in the sou­thern Beau­fort Sea. The results are alar­ming: During the peri­od of inves­ti­ga­ti­on from 2001 to 2010 the num­ber of polar bears in this regi­on drop­ped by about 40%.

The Beau­fort Sea is part of the Arc­tic Oce­an and is loca­ted north of Alas­ka and the Cana­di­an ter­ri­to­ries Yukon and Nor­thwest Ter­ri­to­ries. The stu­dy was moti­va­ted by the fact that a spa­ti­al and tem­po­ral decli­ne of sum­mer sea ice in the sou­thern Beau­fort Sea was noti­ced over the years. Ear­lier pro­jec­tions of a decli­ne in polar bear popu­la­ti­on due to the­se unfa­voura­ble ice con­di­ti­ons had alre­a­dy con­tri­bu­ted to the U.S. government’s decis­i­on in 2008 to regard the polar bear as a threa­ten­ed spe­ci­es. Now the results of the pre­sent stu­dy have con­firm­ed the­se ear­lier pro­jec­tions.

Espe­ci­al­ly in the years 2004 to 2006 a low sur­vi­val rate led to a 25-50% decli­ne in polar bear popu­la­ti­on in this regi­on. For very young indi­vi­du­als it was almost impos­si­ble to sur­vi­ve during this peri­od, as out of 80 cubs obser­ved in Alas­ka from 2004 to 2007 only 2 sur­vi­vors could be con­firm­ed. The reason for the low sur­vi­val rate is seen in a limi­t­ed access to seals, the polar bears favo­ri­te prey, cau­sed by the retrea­ting sea ice. In addi­ti­on the seal abun­dance its­elf decreased in the same peri­od. In 2007 the sur­vi­val rate of adults and cubs began to impro­ve again so that the popu­la­ti­on could at least be sta­bi­li­zed with ca. 900 bears towards the end of the sur­vey. Howe­ver, among sub­adults, tho­se who were recent­ly sepa­ra­ted from their mothers, sur­vi­val decli­ned throug­hout the enti­re peri­od.

So, as in 2004 still a suf­fi­ci­ent num­ber of 1600 indi­vi­du­als could be obser­ved, the popu­la­ti­on final­ly drop­ped to only 900 bears in 2010.

Polar bear on land, wit­hout any ice near­by, and obvious­ly not in good shape.

polar bear, Duvefjord

Source: Eco­lo­gi­cal Appli­ca­ti­ons

Coal mining in Spits­ber­gen under pres­su­re

The Nor­we­gi­an mining com­pa­ny Store Nor­ske Spits­ber­gen Kull­kom­pa­ni is set under pres­su­re by the per­ma­nent­ly low world mar­ket pri­ce for coal. Sin­ce 2012 the Nor­we­gi­an coal mining in Spits­ber­gen is a loss-making busi­ness. Fal­ling pri­ces encoun­te­red infe­ri­or qua­li­ties and rising cos­ts in the main mine Svea Nord near Sveagru­va. Here mining is coming towards an end and is now run in the mar­gi­nal parts of the coal seam (see also Spitsbergen-Svalbard.com news Store Nor­ske: black gold yields red num­bers from May 2013).

The new mine at Lun­ckef­jel­let, ope­ned offi­ci­al­ly in Febru­ary 2014, was sup­po­sed to pro­du­ce reli­ef. But at a cur­rent avera­ge coal pri­ce of 75$ per ton Lun­ckef­jel­let is not pro­fi­ta­ble eit­her. The pri­ce is at least 10$ per ton less than Store Nor­ske needs to avo­id ope­ra­ting at a loss. When the new mine was plan­ned, the com­pa­ny even cal­cu­la­ted with a pri­ce 40% abo­ve the cur­rent level. As the total amount of coal expec­ted at Lun­ckef­jel­let is rela­tively low, com­pared to Svea Nord, the new mine will only be dri­ven until 2018 and it is not expec­ted that the coal pri­ce will rise in the next few years.

Recent­ly Store Norske´s manage­ment descri­bed the situa­ti­on as serious for the first time. In the long run the com­pa­ny will react with cost reduc­tions which also means a reduc­tion of staff. In the short run it was neces­sa­ry to hire 30 addi­tio­nal miners to extra­ct coal from mar­gi­nal parts of the old mine Svea Nord, mea­ning an inte­rim increase of ope­ra­ting cos­ts. Facing the cur­rent con­di­ti­ons it is get­ting ques­tionable if coal mining in Spits­ber­gen will have a future at all. New pro­jects like Ispal­len and Ope­raf­jel­let are chal­len­ged.

Both Store Nor­ske, which is 99.9% owned by the Nor­we­gi­an sta­te, and the local govern­ment in Lon­gye­ar­by­en are awa­re of the eco­no­mic and social rele­van­ce of the com­pa­ny for the small com­mu­ni­ty of only 2000 inha­bi­tants. If coal mining in Spits­ber­gen will be redu­ced or even sus­pen­ded it will affect not only tho­se who work for the mining com­pa­ny. A lar­ge num­ber of other jobs in Lon­gye­ar­by­en are direct­ly or part­ly con­nec­ted to the mining busi­ness.

Curr­ent­ly, Store Nor­ske is in a dia­lo­gue with their employees, the Nor­we­gi­an sta­te and the ban­kers to ensu­re fur­ther ope­ra­ti­on in 2015.

Sveagru­va in Van Mijenfjord: the cur­rent cent­re of coal mining in Spits­ber­gen.

Spitsbergen mining - Sveagruva

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten

Punch­fest in Lon­gye­ar­by­en

Hard to belie­ve, but it has hap­pen­ed: in the late evening on Mon­day, a lar­ge num­ber of young men got enga­ged in a robust fight in a bar in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The ser­vice per­son­nel of the Sval­Bar did not have any choice but to ring the poli­ce. In the past, the Sval­Bar used to adver­ti­se with a slo­gan that only tho­se who real­ly deser­ve it would be kicked out. The­re are obvious­ly some more peo­p­le who have joi­n­ed this doubtful club now.

For reasons not yet known, two groups of young men star­ted to fight so vigo­rous­ly that the staff had to call the poli­ce to stop the punch­fest. One man had to go to hos­pi­tal. The exact num­ber of per­sons invol­ved is so far unknown. The poli­ce is inves­ti­ga­ting.

As recent­ly as last week, a man got a fine of 8000 Nor­we­gi­an Kro­ner becau­se of aggres­si­ve beha­viour in one of Longyearbyen’s pubs.

Not always as peaceful as it should be: the polar night in Lon­gye­ar­by­en

Longyearbyen

Source: Sys­sel­man­nen

Web­page of the week: Pan­ora­mas nor­thwest Spits­ber­gen

More or less weekly, we have a new web­page desi­gna­ted as “web­page of the week” to show hid­den tre­asu­res within spitsbergen-svalbard.com, which are likely to escape from your atten­ti­on other­wi­se. The­se are new or revi­sed sites, abso­lut­e­ly worth see­ing. This week’s page gui­des you to a num­ber of 360 degree pan­ora­mas from nor­thwes­tern Spits­ber­gen, inclu­ding well-known places such as Smee­ren­burg on Ams­ter­damøya, Vir­go­ham­na on Dan­s­køya or Grav­ne­set in Mag­da­le­nefjord, but also less well known sites, for exam­p­le Kob­befjord or Bjørn­ham­na. And, of cour­se, all the­se pan­ora­mas come com­ple­te with a short nar­ra­ti­on of the sto­ry that is to tell – almost as good as being the­re! The pan­ora­mas were taken in all kinds of wea­ther and light, from sun to rain, that is just how the area is with its quick­ly shif­ting wea­ther. Remem­ber, the open north Atlan­tic is just around the cor­ner.

Some more pan­ora­mas from Raud­fjord will com­ple­te the page over the next cou­ple of days, but that is of cour­se not the end of the sto­ry. More pan­ora­ma images will be shot over the years to come, that is for sure. And now … enjoy tur­ning the images!

Pan­ora­ma from Kob­befjord: only one of many pan­ora­mas from nor­thwes­tern Spits­ber­gen.

panorama, Kobbefjord

Polar Code: IMO regu­la­ti­ons for ship­ping in polar waters

After seve­ral years of nego­tia­ti­ons the IMO (Inter­na­tio­nal Mari­ti­me Orga­niza­ti­on), the United Nati­ons ship­ping orga­niza­ti­on, com­ple­ted a man­da­to­ry inter­na­tio­nal code that regu­la­tes ship­ping in Arc­tic and Ant­ar­c­tic waters. The so-cal­led Polar Code is sup­po­sed to impro­ve the safe­ty of ship­ping and the pro­tec­tion of the envi­ron­ment in the polar regi­ons.

The Polar Code is a set of regu­la­ti­ons con­cer­ning ship design, con­s­truc­tion and equip­ment, ope­ra­tio­nal and trai­ning mat­ters, search and res­cue and the envi­ron­ment in the polar regi­ons. Envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion regu­la­ti­ons include for exam­p­le the pre­ven­ti­on of pol­lu­ti­on by pro­hi­bi­ting any dischar­ge into the sea of oil, noxious liquid sub­s­tances, sewa­ge and gar­ba­ge. A gene­ral pro­hi­bi­ti­on of hea­vy fuel oil as car­go or fuel, as deman­ded by envi­ron­men­tal orga­niza­ti­ons, could not be imple­men­ted. A hea­vy fuel oil ban alre­a­dy exists in the Ant­ar­c­tic sin­ce August 2011 and was imple­men­ted in seve­ral steps in lar­ge parts of Spits­ber­gen.

The geo­gra­phi­cal boun­da­ries in which the Polar Code will be valid, include the enti­re Ant­ar­c­tic waters south of 60º S and the Arc­tic waters north of 60º N with some modi­fi­ca­ti­ons in the North Atlan­tic: Included is an area south of Green­land. Excluded are, in the influence zone of the North Atlan­tic Cur­rent, the waters around Ice­land, Nor­way and the Rus­si­an Kola Pen­in­su­la inclu­ding the rou­te to Ark­han­gelsk.

The Polar Code is built on two older exis­ting agree­ments of the IMO: The Inter­na­tio­nal Con­ven­ti­on for the Safe­ty of Life at Sea (SOLAS) regu­la­tes safe­ty mat­ters and the Inter­na­tio­nal Con­ven­ti­on for the Pre­ven­ti­on of Pol­lu­ti­on from Ships (MAR­POL) regu­la­tes envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion mat­ters in mari­ti­me ship­ping. In addi­ti­on to the­se gene­ral agree­ments the IMO deve­lo­ped spe­cial gui­de­lines in 2002 and 2009 for the polar regi­ons which, howe­ver, were not bin­ding. The new Polar Code will now for the first time estab­lish a man­da­to­ry, inter­na­tio­nal set of regu­la­ti­ons for ships ope­ra­ting in Arc­tic and Ant­ar­c­tic waters.

The imple­men­ta­ti­on of a bin­ding agree­ment was initia­ted by the Arc­tic sta­tes USA, Nor­way and Den­mark (Green­land). The nego­tia­ti­on pro­cess took many years and was final­ly delay­ed, as the dif­fe­ring inte­rests of the United Nati­ons ship­ping sta­tes had to be equa­li­zed. Envi­ron­men­tal orga­niza­ti­ons cri­ti­ci­ze the delay and are curr­ent­ly poin­ting at defi­ci­ts con­cer­ning envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion mat­ters. On the other side the­re are still objec­tions of some sta­tes being invol­ved into the pro­cess. Espe­ci­al­ly Rus­sia sees the Polar Code as a thre­at to its inte­rests in the Arc­tic. Curr­ent­ly Rus­sia for exam­p­le gains pro­fit from the incre­asing traf­fic on the Nor­t­hern Sea Rou­te.

Accor­ding to the IMO´s time­ta­ble the Polar Code can be adopted at a mee­ting in May 2015 and then, after being rati­fied by the mem­ber sta­tes, final­ly enter into force in 2017.

See also Spitsbergen-Svalbard.com news IMO: polar code not befo­re 2015 from March 2012.

Crui­se ship, expe­di­ti­on ship and govern­men­tal ice­brea­k­er in Ant­ar­c­ti­ca: the IMO Polar Code will cover all of them.

Ships in Antarctica

Source: IMO, Sjøf­arts­di­rek­to­ra­tet

Spits­ber­gen, Ant­ar­c­ti­ca

The polar night has brought the usu­al mix­tu­re of cold, wind, snow, dark­ness and the Dark Sea­son Blues Fes­ti­val to Spits­ber­gen. The Blues Fes­ti­val was last weekend’s pro­gram­me, both locals and tou­rists were enthu­si­a­stic – as usu­al. The Dark Sea­son Blues Fes­ti­val has built up a good repu­ta­ti­on far bey­ond Lon­gye­ar­by­en and Nor­way, attrac­ting inter­na­tio­nal stars, guests and atten­ti­on.

Today (Tues­day, 04 Novem­ber), the lar­gest exer­cise of emer­gen­cy ser­vices is going on that Spits­ber­gen has ever seen. Seve­ral hundred reli­ef units and per­sons acting as inju­red peo­p­le are see­mingly tur­ning Lon­gye­ar­by­en into a place struck by a major dis­as­ter. This is exact­ly what they want to be pre­pared for, just in case. You never know. It seems to be a pret­ty safe place, but things can always hap­pen.

Com­pa­ra­tively calm times here in the web­site-publi­shing- and book­wri­ting- work­shop at spitsbergen-svalbard.com. The polar night has clo­sed the curtain for major acti­vi­ties in the far north, resul­ting in an unu­su­al amount of time to push on with pro­jects that have been wai­ting for far too long alre­a­dy. The­re has been so much tra­ve­ling in the last years and other things that have kept me busy, but now is the time to get going with pro­jects like the island info pages and the pan­ora­ma sides on spitsbergen-svalbard.com, which are under­go­ing impro­ve­ments and amend­ments. And I had almost for­got­ten that the arc­tic wild­life spe­ci­es did not yet have their indi­vi­du­al pages in Eng­lish – embar­ras­sing, real­ly! But now they are the­re, seve­ral dozen new indi­vi­du­al pages.

As an aut­hor, I am enjoy­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to get going with seve­ral pro­jects. The­re will be new books, that is for sure. It will still take some time, but I am get­ting on with it. More about it when I am get­ting the­re.

Dozens of new Eng­lish pages about arc­tic wild­life spe­ci­es are among­st the recent results of work at spitsbergen-svalbard.com

arctic wildlife pages

Begin­ning of the polar night, Kross­fjord pan­ora­ma pages

The polar night has begun in Spits­ber­gen some days ago, and it won’t be befo­re the second half of Febru­ary that the sun will be visi­ble again abo­ve the hori­zon. In the dar­kest time, from mid Decem­ber to ear­ly Janu­ary, it will be dark 24/7. Only stars, moon and nor­t­hern lights will cast some bleak light over the snow-cover­ed land­scape when the sky is clear.

A good time to sort pho­tos and take care of the web­site. Kross­fjord has now got the site it deser­ves, being one of Spitsbergen’s big­gest and most beau­tiful fjords. A map makes it easy to navi­ga­te through seve­ral sub-pages that have got pan­ora­ma series and vir­tu­al tours of a num­ber of places in Kross­fjord, of cour­se inclu­ding some back­ground infor­ma­ti­on.

One of many new pan­ora­mas from Kross­fjord.

Krossfjord-Panorama-Seite

Polar bear in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, final act

The polar bear in Lon­gye­ar­by­en (see pre­vious posts) is not in Lon­gye­ar­by­en any­mo­re. Today (Thurs­day, 16 Octo­ber) at 12.45 hours, it was seda­ted and then flown out to a remo­te part of Sval­bard. Befo­re the polar bear actual­ly fell asleep, it still wal­ked for about 3 kilo­me­t­res from the shore of Advent­fjord, whe­re it had been lying for a while, to the old nor­t­hern light obser­va­to­ry (at the old run­way) in Advent­da­len. After the usu­al weig­hing, mea­su­ring and mar­king, it was flown nor­thwards.

The Sys­sel­man­nen wants to get it as far away as pos­si­ble, pre­fer­a­b­ly to ano­ther island rather than the main island Spits­ber­gen. The exact place will, howe­ver, depend on the wea­ther during the flight. The initi­al­ly nor­t­her­ly direc­tion may, howe­ver, point to Nord­aus­t­land as a pos­si­ble new home for the bear. If it beco­mes simi­lar­ly faithful to a smal­ler area the­re as he did near Lon­gyear­ben, is some­thing nobo­dy can curr­ent­ly know, pro­ba­b­ly inclu­ding the polar bear its­elf.

A lar­ger num­ber of peo­p­le used the oppor­tu­ni­ty to get a glim­pse of the bear in a distance of about 540 met­res. For some, it was the first time to see a polar bear in the wild.

Appro­xi­ma­te posi­ti­on of the polar bear near Lon­gye­ar­by­en when it was seda­ted (red dot). Image base: Goog­le Earth.

Polar bear Longyearben

Source: http://svalbardposten.no/index.php?page=vis_nyhet&NyhetID=5128

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