The woman, who has not been named, was part of a 25-person tour group camping in Sveasletta, in the central part of the Svalbard archipelago, which lies more than 800 kilometers (500 miles) north of mainland Norway. The campsite was across a fjord from Longyearbyen, the main settlement on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. Authorities responded to news of the attack, which came just before 8:30 a.m., by flying Chief Inspector Stein Olav Bredli there by helicopter. “The French woman was injured in the hand. Shots were fired at the polar bear, which was scared away from the area,” he said. Further details of her injuries were not released. He was airlifted to hospital in Longyearbyen. The Arctic archipelago’s main newspaper, Svalbardposten, said the victim was a woman in her 40s and quoted local hospital official Solveig Jacobsen as saying the woman suffered minor injuries. Bredil later told Svalbardposten that the animal was “badly injured” and after a “professional assessment” it was put to sleep. It was not clear how he was killed. Svalbard is dotted with polar bear warnings. Visitors who choose to sleep outdoors receive stern warnings from the authorities that people must carry firearms. At least five people have been killed by polar bears since the 1970s. In 2011, a British teenager was killed, and the last time a fatal polar bear was reported in Svalbard was in 2020, when a 38-year-old Dutch man was killed. After that attack, there was a debate about whether people should be allowed to camp in tents, but no ban has been decided. Some residents in Svalbard, home to more than 2,500 people, want a 24-hour polar bear watch, while others advocate killing all bears that come near people. From 2009 to 2019, 14 polar bears were shot, Norwegian broadcaster NRK reported. An estimated 20,000-25,000 polar bears live in the Arctic. In 2015, a polar bear dragged a Czech tourist out of his tent as he and others camped north of Longyearbyen, clawing at his back before being shot away. The bear was later found and killed by authorities.
