The vacation of a French tourist in Norway could have turned into a tragedy, but she was able to get out of it alive. She was injured by a polar bear that entered a camp on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard in the Arctic, but her life is not in danger, local authorities announced on August 8, 2022, reports the AFP.
The woman, whose identity has not been specified, was part of an expedition of 25 people who were staying in tents in the middle of nature in the west of this territory twice the size of Belgium, just over a thousand miles from the North Pole. “A bear entered a camp this morning around 08:30 (06:30 GMT) and injured a French woman in the arm.local police chief Stein Olav Bredli told AFP.
The tourist was evacuated by helicopter to the hospital in Longyearbyen, the main town of the archipelago. “It is a woman in her forties who was slightly injurede,” a spokeswoman for hospital authorities, Solveig Jacobsen, told AFP. “His days are not in danger“, he added. The exact circumstances of the incident have not been specified.”Shots were aimed at the polar bear who was frightened and left the scene“Said Stein Olav Bredli. Injured, the animal was later located by the authorities who, due to the extent of its injuries, finished it off.
Men, bears and climate change
In Svalbard, carrying a rifle is mandatory when leaving urban communities to be prepared in case of a chance encounter with a bear that weighs between 300 and 600 kg for males and half as much for females. According to a 2015 count, the Norwegian sector of the Arctic is home to around 1,000 polar bears, a species that has been protected since 1973. Some 300 of them live year-round on the archipelago and some have resettled in the west of the territory – where the human presence is also concentrated. They had disappeared from this area when hunting was still permitted.
Six fatal attacks for humans have been counted there since 1971. The last involving a 38-year-old Dutchman dates back to 2020. According to experts, the retreat of the sea ice under the effect of global warming deprives bears of their hunting ground. favorite, where they gorge themselves on seals, and pushes them to approach places populated by man, in search of food.