Police have shot and killed a polar bear that came ashore in northwestern Iceland, the first sighting of a polar bear there since 2016. It might have hitched a ride from Greenland on a floating iceberg.
Police have shot and killed a polar bear that came ashore in northwestern Iceland, the first sighting of a polar bear there since 2016. It might have hitched a ride from Greenland on a floating iceberg.
Except that’s not how Polar Bears prefer to hunt. They prefer to hunt by holes over pack ice, where they wait for animals like seals to surface for air. When there’s no pack ice, which is what is happening thanks to global warming, they hunt for whatever they can on land. And if that land is inhabited by humans, that means humans.
I would say the potential to kill and eat humans, including infants, is excellent justification.
Does it suck that this is our fault to begin with? Absolutely. That doesn’t mean that human lives should be put at risk as well.
So tranquilizers and trailers don’t exist in Iceland? They couldn’t just send it back to Greenland?
So no map? You said it wasn’t an immediate threat. Where’s your evidence?
Also, why are you assuming it came from Greenland and why are you assuming that it would survive just being dropped off in some random place in the humongous island of Greenland anyway?
The article, read the article.
The article that says relocating it to Greenland was a non-starter?
The article that says this?
Yes that part and the part about the bear being in the trash outside. Not an immediate threat.
Again, please show me the map which shows how far away the bear was from a populated settlement.
I’m guessing if you want a map you can find one online. The article says it was near a summer home.
You’re making the claim, not me. It’s not my job to prove you’re not wrong, it’s yours. I know the article says it was near a summer home. I’m not sure why you think that’s relevant unless you think it was the only home in the area. In which case, show that.
So polar bears are basically dingos?
Dingos would hunt at packice holes if they had access to them?
Yes.
…no?
No but also yes.
But almost entirely no.
A polar bear ate my baby!
Also not true!
Why not?
You dont even have a baby!
Humans have lived in polar bear territory for centuries though. So we know it’s possible. Shooting endangered animals on sight because you don’t want to learn how to co-habitate a region is just peak shitty human.
And they’re bears they can absolutely find other sources of food without killing humans.
Brother you are literally required by law to carry a firearm in svalbard if you go outside of longyearbyen because if polar bears. Its pretty shitty if iceland(400k people) suddenly have to deal with the mess.
Really because Flying Squid’s link only recommends them. It requires a method of scaring them off. And life happens. We don’t have a right to just exterminate everything inconvenient around us.
With this logic humans exterminating everything around them is life just happening. Humans are animals. What i propose is that humans should stop ruining their natural habitat so they wont have to migrate to new places where they are dangerous to not only humans but probably other species that live there.
That would be nice, but it seems unlikely.
Yes, and those people all have guns to shoot polar bears.
https://www.sysselmesteren.no/en/weapon/
That says you’re supposed to scare them off first. Shooting them is a last resort. Not the first resort. In Iceland they made it the first resort by law. That’s the issue.
Got it. As long as the children have a way of scaring off the hungry polar bear when it gets to the school playground, no worries.
Presumably that’s the responsibility of adults.
I see, so post multiple guards around any place children might be just in case the rare polar bear makes landfall on Iceland so it can get scared away instead of mauling children.
Very reasonable.
How do the Scandinavians do recess? Surely they do and they don’t have a magic no polar bear fence. These are solved problems.
Yes. They solve it by shooting the polar bears.
So you want a non-native animal with no suitable habitat and no food source other than humans to be given special preferential treatment over the humans that happen to live there, allowing it to roam and maul at it’s leisure while people politely try to shoo it away from the child buffet?
You have zero context and zero knowledge of the situation, the country or that environment but sit there on your high horse pretending to be morally superior to the people in actual mortal danger.
They are not in any more danger than other places that live with polar bears. That’s the point. They have the same situation but a different, worse, standard for dealing with it.
Also it’s a bear, it can fish on the coasts, in rivers, and hunt other animals just fine. It’s not some horror movie monster just coming after people.
Polar bears aren’t native there, and you have no idea what the natural area is like. It’s an island built on fishing, all the towns are on the coast, where the bears would like to hunt. Polar bears don’t live there, because it’s not an environment that can sustain them, and the biggest native wild animal is the arctic fox. Rest is all farm animals with some reindeer introduced to the highlands in the 70’s for game/sport hunting.
You’re arguing from pure ignorance.
Lmao. Pure ignorance, from the “just shoot them all” crowd. Excuse me if I don’t accept that there’s no other possible way to deal with the problem.
How the fuck do you imagine “co-habitating” with polar bears??? That’s like starving a wolf and telling it to “co-habitate” with a baby.
Yes, it sucks that we have forced polar bears out of their natural habit and that they now have to hunt humans for food, however if something starts hunting humans for food it’s just gonna get killed.
Nobody in the article said it was hunting humans. That’s pure exaggeration and fever dream shit from the comments section. This entire fucking comments section just assumes polar bears prefer to hunt humans.
They do kill and hunt humans. It’s a fact, not an assumption. It was a threat to people, going closer to inhabited areas. What were they supposed to do, check if this one is a vegan?
Nobody said it doesn’t happen. But the article doesn’t support that it was happening there.
It’s not just an assumption. Polar bears will hunt humans. They’re the absolute apex predator in their habitat so why shouldn’t they just hunt everything that moves?
Because most animals, including polar bears, have learned to be wary of groups of humans. And nobody is saying they won’t hunt humans. But the article doesn’t support that this one was. The comment section is acting like they’re obligated to hunt humans.
Polar bears are absolutely not wary of humans. You keep talking about the topic as if you don’t really know anything about them.
Lol, polar bears do not avoid humans, that’s like running away from food
Next time this happens you should volunteer to fly out and gently remove the polar bear for them.