Newsroom
A tourist in the Arctic has learned an expensive lesson: If you see a sleeping polar bear, leave it alone.
The man was travelling on a ship through a fjord in northeastern Svalbard when passengers spotted a polar bear asleep on land. Instead of simply watching it from a distance, he sounded the ship’s foghorn to wake it.
The bear got up and moved to another location.
Authorities in the Norwegian archipelago fined the passenger 50,000 kroner, about €4,550. He accepted the penalty.
Local rules prohibit anyone from unnecessarily disturbing, attracting, or chasing polar bears, which have been protected in Svalbard since 1972.
The rules are there for good reason. Polar bears need to conserve their energy, and disturbing them can force them to move unnecessarily at a time when shrinking sea ice is already making it harder for them to hunt.
Svalbard lies about 1,000 kilometers from the North Pole and is home to an estimated 260 polar bears, according to the most recent scientific survey conducted in 2015.
Visitors are expected to keep their distance and allow the animals to behave naturally, even if that means the bear sleeps through the entire encounter.
