Polar bears kill people on the Arctic Svalbard Islands in Norway

A polar bear has killed a man on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen in Norway, local officials say.

The attack took place on a campsite near Longyearbyen, the main town of the island in the Svalbard archipelago.

The bear was then shot and found dead at the local airport.

Experts say polar bear hunting grounds have been reduced as the Arctic ice sheet melts due to climate change, forcing them into populated areas as they try to find food.

The man, identified as 38-year-old Dutch citizen Johan Jacobus Kootte, was attacked in his tent for breakfast Friday morning and died shortly afterwards from his injuries.

Svalbard officials say there were seven people on the site at the time and that they are being cared for by health care.

Camp owner Michelle van Dijk said the man who died in his second season as manager had been; “He had done the right training and knew how everything worked there,” she told Dutch public broadcaster NOS.

There had been a warning on Thursday of a polar bear wandering around Longyearbyen, she said. “He said the situation was under control.”

What do we know about the polar bear?

Terje Carlsen, a spokesman for the governor of Svalbard, told the BBC that the bear was a three-year-old man whose mother was abducted on Monday with her puppy from Longyearbyen.

The Norwegian Polar Institute tweeted a photo of the mother and boy before they calmed down, explaining that the weather was sunny during the day and the couple was getting hot quickly.

Their departure was not linked to the attack, as polar bears are considered capable of defending themselves once they become two years old.

After the attack, the three-year-old was then shot by one of the people at the campsite. “This is polar bear country, you have to be alert,” Mr Carlsen said.

So far, only five fatal attacks on bears by humans have been recorded on the islands in the last 50 years.

The last was in 2011, when a 17-year-old British student was killed and four others were injured in an expedition.

According to Norwegian authorities, the archipelago is home to nearly 3,000 people and nearly 1,000 bears.

There has been increased human activity of tourism and scientific research in recent years, resulting in more contact with the animals.

Polar bears have been a protected species since 1973, and shooting at them is only allowed in self-defense. However, people in Svalbard are advised to carry a weapon outside urban areas.

Across the Barents Sea, the Russian Novaya Zemlya Islands have reported several incidents involving bears in recent years.

In 2019, the main settlement, Belushya Guba, reported an invasion of as many as 52 bears, and in 2016, five Russian scientists were besieged several weeks ago at a remote weather station on the island of Troynoy.