A man in Norway has been fined 50,000 kroner, roughly 460,000 Russian rubles, for using a ship siren to wake up a sleeping polar bear on a shoreline in the Arctic.
The incident occurred in early August inside a fjord on the north-west coast of Spitsbergen island, located approximately 1,000 kilometres from the North Pole, BBC News reported.
Passengers and crew members aboard a passing vessel spotted the resting predator on land. One person on board decided to activate the ship siren, waking the animal and forcing it to move to another area.
Actions of this nature are strictly prohibited under local law in the region. Polar bears have been officially protected on Spitsbergen since 1972, and local regulations mandate that wild animals must not be disturbed, attracted, or pursued without extreme necessity. The offender, whose name has not been released by authorities, has agreed to pay the fine.
Wildlife protection laws
Spitsbergen is the largest island of the Svalbard archipelago, a remote Arctic territory administered by Norway. The archipelago is overseen by the Governor of Svalbard, who enforces strict environmental statutes designed to safeguard fragile Arctic ecosystems and wildlife from human interference.
This penalty is not the first time a visitor has faced legal consequences for disturbing animals in the region. In 2024, another tourist was fined 11,500 kroner, approximately 102,000 rubles, for approaching a walrus on the archipelago.
According to Governor Lars Fause, a count taken in 2015 showed there were approximately 250 polar bears on the archipelago. Governor Fause noted that the resident population requires strict protection to ensure its preservation.
Other bear encounters
The case highlights the strict enforcement surrounding interactions with wild animals. In a separate incident previously reported, a bear weighing around 136 kilograms in India attacked people immediately after being rescued from a well where it had been trapped for several hours, scattering a crowd of onlookers before escaping into the forest.
