A polar bear has injured a French vacationer in an assault on a campsite in Norway’s distant Arctic Svalbard Islands.
The authorities stated the girl, who has not been recognized, was a part of a tour group of 25 folks tenting at Sveasletta, within the central a part of the Svalbard archipelago, greater than 500 miles north of the Norwegian mainland.
The campsite is positioned throughout a fjord from Longyearbyen, the principle settlement within the archipelago.
Officials responded by flying out in a helicopter, chief superintendent Stein Olav Bredli stated.
“The French woman suffered injuries to an arm. Shots were fired at the polar bear, which was scared away from the area,” he added.
The girl’s accidents weren’t life-threatening, officers stated. She was flown by helicopter to hospital in Longyearbyen.
The archipelago’s most important newspaper, Svalbardposten, stated the sufferer was a girl in her 40s and quoted native hospital official Solveig Jacobsen as saying she was barely injured.
Mr Bredli later advised the newspaper that the animal had been “badly injured” and was put down after “a professional assessment”. It was unclear the way it was put down.
At least 5 folks have been killed by polar bears in Svalbard because the Nineteen Seventies. Most lately, a 38-year-old Dutch man was killed in 2020.
There was a debate after that assault about whether or not folks ought to be allowed to camp in tents open air, however no ban has been determined.
Some residents in Svalbard, which is house to greater than 2,500 folks, have known as for a round the clock polar bear watch, whereas others have argued all polar bears that get near people ought to be killed.
Some 14 polar bears have been shot from 2009 to 2019, Norwegian broadcaster NRK reported. Between 20,000-25,000 polar bears are estimated to stay within the Arctic.
In 2015 a polar bear dragged a Czech vacationer out of his tent as he was tenting with a number of others north of Longyearbyen. It clawed his again earlier than being pushed away by gunshots. The authorities later discovered and killed the bear.
Source: information.sky.com”