Polar bear mauls a man to death at Norwegian camp site
Polar bear mauls a man to death at Norwegian camp site
- Johan Jacobus Kootte, Dutch, was killed in a campsite near Longyearbyen
- This is the sixth fatal polar bear attack in almost 50 years in Norway’s Svalbard
- The bear was later found dead in a parking lot after people fired shots at it
By Jordan King For Mailonline and Afp
Published: 04:55 EDT, 28 August 2020 | Updated: 10:03 EDT, 28 August 2020
A polar bear killed a man on Norway’s Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic making it the sixth fatal attack in almost 50 years in the region.
Dutch national Johan Jacobus Kootte was killed during the night in a camping area near the town Longyearbyen, which is 1,300 kilometres (800 miles) from the North Pole, local officials said on Friday.
The 38-year-old was seriously wounded during the attack and died soon after, the local governor’s office said in a statement.
A polar bear (stock pictured) attacked a man on Norway’s Svalbard archipelago who later died from his injuries
The attack happened in a camp site near the town Longyearbyen, which is 1,300 kilometres (800 miles) from the North Pole
Other people at the scene fired shots at the bear, which was later found dead in the parking lot of the local airport.
In Svalbard, which is also known as Spitzberg, people are advised to carry a weapon when outside urban areas.
According to a tally from 2015, the archipelago is home to about 1,000 polar bears, a protected species since 1973.
Until now, five deadly attacks on people had been recorded since 1971.
The most recent one occurred in 2011 when a bear attacked a group of 14 people camping as part of a British school trip.
A 17-year-old British student was killed and four others were injured before the animal was killed.
According to experts, the shrinking icecap has reduced the polar bears’ preferred hunting grounds, where they eat seals, pushing them to approach populated areas in their hunt for food.
