Norway
Polar bear injures tourist on Spitsbergen and is killed
A polar bear stands on an ice floe near Spitsbergen. (Archive image) photo
© -/PRESSENS BILD/dpa
A polar bear has entered a tent camp on Svalbard and injured a woman. The animal can be driven away, but is injured so badly that it has to be killed in the end.
A polar bear injured and killed a tourist from France on the Spitsbergen archipelago, which belongs to Norway.
The bear entered a tent camp in the morning and injured the woman’s arm, according to a statement on the Svalbard governor’s website on Monday. The injuries are not life-threatening. The animal was chased away with gunshots. According to the information, it was injured so badly that it had to be killed.
The woman was part of a group of 25 tourists staying in tents on the northern part of Isfjorden. She was taken in a helicopter to the hospital in Longyearbyen, the largest settlement on Svalbard. The archipelago is in the Arctic Ocean.