Polar bear attacks woman camping with a tour group on Arctic island, officials said
A French tourist was mildly injured when a polar bear attacked a campsite in a remote part of Norway, officials said.
A tour group of 25 people were tent camping on a remote Arctic island in Norway, officials from the Svalbard region said in an Aug. 8 news release.
A polar bear entered the campsite and attacked one of the tourists, authorities said.
The polar bear injured the woman’s arm before others in the group scared it away with gunshots, authorities said.
The woman in her 40s was taken to a hospital by helicopter after authorities were alerted Monday morning, the Associated Press reported. A hospital official told the outlet that the woman’s injuries were mild.
The polar bear, however, was badly injured, according to the release. The local government said it decided to euthanize the bear.
According to travel site Visit Svalbard, the archipelago has more polar bears than people. The polar bear population numbers around 3,000, Visit Svalbard reported, while the human population is around 2,500, the Associated Press reported.
Visitors should be prepared “to encounter a polar bear anywhere in Svalbard,” the travel site said.
Warnings about polar bear attacks are all over the region where, since the 1970s, polar bears have killed at least five people, the Associated Press reported.
The tour group set up their campsite in Sveasletta, a plain on the northern side of the Isfjorden bay, authorities said. The archipelago’s main settlement, Longyearbyen, is on the southern side of Isfjorden.
Svalbard is about 650 miles south of the North Pole and about 1,260 miles north of Oslo, Norway’s capital located on the mainland.
This story was originally published August 8, 2022 at 1:01 PM with the headline "Polar bear attacks woman camping with a tour group on Arctic island, officials said."
