OSLO (Reuters) – A 38-year-old Dutchman killed through a polar bear in Norway’s Arctic islands early On Friday, said local government, the first fatal incident of its kind in nine years.
The man, known as Johan Jacobus Kootte, attacked in his tent in a camp in the hours before dawn.
“The bear pierced other people at the scene and headed to the nearest airport,” Svalbard’s deputy governor, Soelvi Elvedahl, said in a statement. “(The bear) was discovered dead a short time later in the airport parking lot.”
Halfway between the far north of Europe and the North Pole, the Svalbard archipelago, made up of snow-capped mountains and glaciers, is home to another 2939 people and 975 polar bears, according to the Norwegian Bureau of Statistics and the Norwegian Polar Institute.
In 2011, a polar attacked an organization of British campers, killing a 17-year-old boy and seriously injuring four others.
Polar bears are a kind and shooting them is only allowed to protect themselves and as a last resort.
Outside of Svalbard’s main settlements, the law requires others to bring the means to scare animals or protect themselves, and the government recommends carrying a firearm.
The islands are experiencing increased activity, mainly tourism and clinical research, and encounters between humans and animals are increasing. In addition, the Arctic ice sheet is shrinking, reducing the area over which polar bears can move.
(Report through Nora Buli; Edited through Mark Heinrich)
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