A rare polar bear showed up on the shores of Iceland. Police shot it

https://apnews.com/article/polar-bear-shot-iceland-policy-greenland-ice-0d3badd4b7f5e320d992ce7f0dc600fd

35 Comments

  1. Yeah the bear was rummaging for food near a home occupied by a single elderly woman who called the police because she was scared.

    She is a permanent resident in a summer cabin community and was all alone. She had to call her daughter in Reyjavik via Satellite phone to get assistance.

  2. Polar bears aren’t native to Iceland; the environmental agency refused to relocate the bear to Greenland after it ostensibly arrived by floating over…

    Sad but makes sense that an expensive operation involving specialized (air) transport, financial and logistical coordination between the two nations (kingdom of Denmark and Iceland), and tranquilizing a large, dangerous animal would be denied since they’re not at immediate risk of extinction.

  3. the climate is so fucked now the animals are getting fucked over too.. this is just sad all around

  4. Yeah it sucks to have a polar bear killed you just don’t want these things lurking around any sort of population especially a population not expecting to have polar bears around

  5. Jaded-Influence6184 on

    324km distance to Greenland from northwest tip of Iceland. It would be quite difficult to move it that far without the proper expertise and equipment (Churchill MB does this quite often; it’s called the polar bear capital of the world). Still a shame.

    It was probably starving after being on a drifting ice flow. They normally eat seals, but there likely wouldn’t be any in the middle of the Denmark Strait.

  6. Alienlovechild1975 on

    Did anyone try to offer it a Coca Cola? Everybody knows that polar bears love Coca Cola the commercials on Christmas said so.Brown bears drink Hamm’s beer and steal picnic baskets and black bears will carjack you.I saw a video of one opening a truck and started rummaging through it for food

  7. Extension-Iron7383 on

    Having seen one in the wild while working, they did the right thing. We are not meant to be near each other. Either you are getting killed and eaten or you are killing them in self defense.

  8. Fucking cops, always shooting incredibly dangerous and starving animals in close proximity to vulnerable people. I bet they didn’t even try to deescalate.

  9. Initially, the topic made me raging angry, I understand and support the decision, as tragic and sad as it is.

  10. Obi-Wanna_Blow_Me on

    If they didn’t shoot it the article would’ve read…

    “A rare polar bear showed up on the shores of Iceland and attacked the village of (whatever). Multiple dead and wounded.”

  11. Growing up, we had a couple show up in town. My father helped capture one. They are WILDLY dangerous. As in, broke down the door of someone’s house because it could smell food inside. Tranquilizing them is dangerous for humans because you have to get pretty close. Air lifting them out is dangerous AF for the animal and sometimes the people. You may not even have a good place to put them near-ish by. It’s really fucking sad. But seems like this was the most sensible move in this instance.

  12. If you run into one on the ice and it sees you, even if it’s a little dot on the horizon because of how far away it is, doesn’t matter, it will make its way over to you because they consider anything moving to be food.

  13. I guess they no like polar bears. Poor bear, thought he hit jackpot, then found out why he sees no other bears…..

  14. This isn’t really news. It’s the fate of every polar bear that floats over to Iceland. Babies nap on the front porch over there. They’re not used to the threat of predators.

  15. Years ago I read an account of an Inuit woman having a problem with a polar bear- mainly eating her sled dogs. After the dog entree the polar bear rummaged in the lady’s garage looking for more food. It then realised that the woman was the next best snack around and came at her through the front door. Luckily the door was reinforced for this very reason. The bear managed to rip off a portion of the door and stuck it’s head through. The lady shoved a .303 in it’s face and pulled the trigger. The bear ran off and was tracked down later and killed. I bet the Icelandic woman didn’t even have a .303…

  16. Clickbait title. Iceland’s environmental policy is to kill vagrant polar bears because 1) they are a danger to people and livestock 2) they are not native to Iceland and there isn’t enough sea ice in Iceland for them to survive anyway 3) these polar bears are from East Greenland where the population is stable and 4) it is prohibitively expensive to return every vagrant polar bear back to Greenland.

    Source: https://www.ni.is/en/fauna/mammals/hvitabjorn

  17. background_action92 on

    Bro. Those people need to start giving these animals grace. It’s bad enuff that their habitat is being destroyed for them to shoot and kill