Rare Polar Bear Shot in Iceland After Approaching Cottage

A rare polar bear was shot and killed by Icelandic police on Thursday after approaching a cottage in a remote village in the northwest of the country. The bear was considered a threat to the elderly woman inside the cottage, The Associated Press reports.

The incident occurred in the Westfjords region, where the bear was spotted close to a summer house. The owner, who was home alone, was frightened by the bear’s presence and locked herself upstairs as it rummaged through her garbage. She contacted her daughter in Reykjavik via satellite phone and called for help.

“She stayed there,” said Westfjords Police Chief Helgi Jensson, adding that other summer residents in the area had gone home. “She knew the danger.”

Police consulted with the Environment Agency, which declined to relocate the animal. The decision was made to euthanize the bear to protect the woman’s safety.

While polar bears are not native to Iceland, they occasionally reach the country’s shores after traveling on ice floes from Greenland. Sightings are relatively rare, with only 600 recorded in Iceland since the ninth century. This was the first sighting since 2016.

Although attacks by polar bears on humans are extremely rare, a recent study in Wildlife Society Bulletin found that the loss of sea ice due to global warming is driving more bears to land, increasing the risk of conflicts with humans.

The young bear, weighing up 200 kilograms, will be taken to the Icelandic Institute of Natural History for study.Though polar bears are a protected species in Iceland and killing them at sea is forbidden, they can be euthanized if they pose a danger to people or animals on land.