A fema­le polar bear and her first year cub were shot at Aus­t­fj­ord­ne­set (inner Wij­defjord) in Spits­ber­gen on June 13 (during the sea­son, news are updated with delays. The focus is curr­ent­ly on the tra­vel blog). Two per­sons are curr­ent­ly living at Aus­t­fj­ord­ne­set to win­ter the­re as trap­pers.

The bear had been in the vici­ni­ty of the hut for a while, pro­ba­b­ly becau­se of nests of Com­mon eiders in that area. It is com­mon that polar bears eat eggs and chicks of tun­dra bree­ders during the bree­ding sea­son. It is, howe­ver, uncom­mon that a mother bear with a cub comes clo­se to human pre­sence.

One of the two inha­bi­tants of the hut was insi­de, the other one was on the roof to sca­re the bear away with war­ning shots. While doing so, it came to a fatal mista­ke: rather than with a rub­ber bul­let as inten­ded to sca­re the fema­le polar bear away wit­hout inju­ry, the shoo­ter loa­ded his gun with sharp shot. This pro­ved to be lethal on a distance of 8.5 met­res.

On advice by a polar bear spe­cia­list of the Nor­we­gi­an Polar Insti­tu­te, the poli­ce shot the cub on loca­ti­on the same day. The cub, being about 6 months old, did not have a chan­ce for sur­vi­val on its own.

As all cases of polar bears kil­led, the inci­dent is now mat­ter of legal inves­ti­ga­ti­on at the Sysselmannen’s office in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Polar bears are com­ple­te­ly pro­tec­ted in Spits­ber­gen. Only in cases of self defence, a kill is exempt from punish­ment.

The two trap­pers, Nor­we­gi­ans 28 and 29 years old who had stu­di­ed at UNIS and work­ed as gui­des in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, retur­ned to Aus­t­fj­ord­ne­set after poli­ce ques­tio­ning in Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

The case of the group of ski tou­rists from Fin­land, who had inju­red a polar bear at Ver­le­gen­hu­ken north on Spits­ber­gen which then had to be shot by the poli­ce, has been clo­sed mean­while. Accor­ding to the Sys­sel­man­nen, it was not a cri­mi­nal act.

Pho­to

Sources: Sys­sel­man­nen, Sval­bard­pos­ten