Two polar bears died on Good Fri­day in the ear­ly mor­ning at Vin­dod­den in Sas­senfjord. A fema­le bear drow­ned and her cub was later shot.

During the night – which is not dark any­mo­re, the mid­night sun is not far away – the litt­le bear fami­ly was seen by peo­p­le near Vin­dod­den. Vin­dod­den is a small pen­in­su­la in Sas­senfjord with a cou­ple of huts owned and used by locals from Lon­gye­ar­by­en, and during spring weekends, espe­ci­al­ly the Eas­ter weekend, it is very popu­lar to stay in a hut.

Vin­dod­den in Sas­senfjord: two polar bears died here in the ear­ly mor­ning on Good Fri­day.

The polar bears approa­ched the huts, whe­re peo­p­le tried to sca­re them away with war­ning shots fired from signal pis­tols. This work­ed, and the polar bears moved away, swim­ming in the fjord.

So far, so com­ple­te­ly nor­mal. Polar bears are excel­lent swim­mers and can easi­ly cover long distances in the water.

But in this par­ti­cu­lar case, the inci­dent soon had a tra­gic out­co­me. The fema­le bear was soon seen dead in the water, head down, with the cub swim­ming around her. The Sys­sel­mes­ter (poli­ce) was alar­med and came by heli­c­op­ter. The dead fema­le was retrie­ved from the water. The cub approa­ched, the per­so­nell tried to sca­re the cub away, but this time, it did not work and the cub was sub­se­quent­ly shot.

The case will now be inves­ti­ga­ted in details, inclu­ding hea­ring of wit­nesses and post­mor­tem exami­na­ti­on of the bear.

Fur­ther details are not yet released.