Polar Bear Appears In Iceland For 1st Time In 8 Years, Shot Dead By Police

A polar bear that made a rare appearance outside a cottage in a remote Icelandic village was shot by police after being deemed a threat to local residents. The bear was killed on September 19 in northwest Iceland after consultation with the Environment Agency, which opted against relocating the animal

“It's not something we like to do,” Westfjords police chief Helgi Jensson was quoted as saying by AP, adding that the bear was very close to a summer house. “There was an old woman in there.” The woman, who was alone at the time, locked herself upstairs in fear as the bear rummaged through her garbage. She contacted her daughter in Reykjavik for assistance via satellite link.

“She stayed there,” Jensson said, adding that other summer residents had already left the area. “She knew the danger.”

Polar bears are not native to Iceland but sometimes drift ashore from Greenland on ice floes. 

The bear shot on September 19 was the first sighted in Iceland since 2016, with only 600 recorded sightings since the ninth century. The bear, estimated to weigh between 150 and 200 kilograms, will be taken to the Icelandic Institute of Natural History for further study, said the report. Scientists plan to examine the bear for parasites and infections, assess its organ health and body fat percentage, and potentially preserve its pelt and skull for the institute's collection.

Although polar bears are a protected species in the country, authorities may take lethal action if they pose a threat to humans or livestock, according to the AP report. 

While attacks on humans by polar bears are extremely rare, a study published in the Wildlife Society Bulletin in 2017 said that the loss of sea ice due to climate change has led to more hungry bears venturing onto land, raising the risk of human encounters. The study revealed that from 1870 to 2014, there were 73 documented attacks by wild polar bears across the five polar bear Range States — Canada, Greenland, Norway, Russia and the United States — leading to 20 fatalities and 63 injuries among humans.