Polar bear shot dead after cruise ship security guard injured in beach attack
0 The bear lies dead as officials check the coastline after the attack on a guard leading tourists off a cruise ship on the Svalbard archipelago on Saturday Norwegian authorities said that a polar bear attacked and injured a guard who was leading tourists off a cruise ship on an Arctic archipelago on Saturday.
The polar bear was shot dead by another employee, the cruise company said.
The Joint Rescue Coordination for Northern Norway said that the attack occurred when the tourists from the MS Bremen cruise ship landed on the most northern island of the Svalbard archipelago, a region between mainland Norway and the North Pole that is known for its remote terrain, glaciers, reindeer and polar bears.
The German Hapag Lloyd Cruises company, which operates the MS Bremen, said that two polar bear guards from their ship went on the island and one of them “was attacked by a polar bear and injured on his head”.
The polar bear was then shot dead “in an act of self-defence” by the second guard, spokeswoman Negar Etminan said.
The injured man was taken by helicopter to the town of Longyearbyen on Spitsbergen island. He was not identified and no further information was given on him.
“He was flown out, was responsive, and is currently undergoing medical treatment,” Ms Etminan said, adding that the victim was not in a life-threatening condition.
She said all cruise ships travelling in the northern region are obliged to have polar bear guards aboard. Arctic tourism to the region has risen sharply in the last few years and is now in high season.
A Longyearbyen port schedule showed that 18 cruise ships will be docking at the Arctic port in the next week.
Svalbard is a wilderness of glaciers and ice caps that lies between Norway and the North Pole.
An estimated 60 per cent of it is covered with ice, and its 3,000 polar bears are said to outnumber the human population.
All ships in the area are obliged to employ bear guards to protect passengers on sightseeing tours.
“There are very strict rules here as the islands are visited by many polar bears in the summer, so we all need to be vigilant when we are ashore,” one guide wrote in a post on Hapag-lloyd’s website.
Critics online, including British comedian Ricky Gervais, blamed the attack on human intrusion into polar bear territories.