Pri­son sen­tence for dis­tur­bing polar bears in Bil­lefjord by dri­ving car on ice

A Nor­we­gi­an court has deli­ver­ed a jud­ge­ment in the case of a man who dis­tur­bed polar bears in Bil­lefjor­den ear­lier this year by dri­ving on the fjord ice by car.

The 58 year old Ukrai­ni­an citi­zen was living and working in Pyra­mi­den. He went out on the fjord ice by car to pick up two col­le­agues who had been on tour. Ins­tead of going direct­ly back to Pyra­mi­den, they deci­ded to take a turn into neigh­bou­ring Petu­ni­abuk­ta to check the con­di­ti­on of a hut. Accor­ding to the dri­ver, he was not awa­re of the pre­sence of two polar bears who were mating at the time in ques­ti­on. He saw the bears at a distance of 50 met­res and stop­ped imme­dia­te­ly. The polar bears aban­do­ned their mating.

Polar bear fami­ly on fjord ice in Isfjord.

The Ukrai­ni­an dri­ver did not have a driver’s licen­se, this had been with­drawn by Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties ear­lier this year becau­se of other traf­fic offen­ces. Accor­ding to the Sys­sel­man­nen, this con­tri­bu­ted to the cur­rent court jud­ge­ment, tog­e­ther with the fact that it is gene­ral­ly not allo­wed to dri­ve a car on fjord ice (or any­whe­re else other than on roads) in Spits­ber­gen. Dis­tur­bing of the polar bears alo­ne would not have been suf­fi­ci­ent for a pri­son sen­tence.

The man was sen­ten­ced to 30 days of pri­son wit­hout pro­ba­ti­on.

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