Iceland: Police shoot 1st polar bear sighted in years
Iceland: Police shoot 1st polar bear sighted in years
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.
You're viewing a single thread.
That's a lot of justification for killing something that can go fishing for food.
polar bears will absolutely hunt humans for food without a second thought. And you will not be able to outrun them or scare them away.
This one came quite close to homes, which is a reason for almost all towns with polar bears in the area to shoot them.
That this bear was the first in quite a while is a sad thing, but it's understandable that the town doesn't want a bear mauling people for a snack
See also: The town where guns are required
If it's black, fight back. If it's brown, lie down. If it's white, good night.
And remember that black bears can be shades of brown.
Honestly, if it's a bear good night.
What about grizzly bears?
Grizzly bears are brown.
You lie down in hopes that it will not perceive you as food and once it has determine you are no longer a threat, it will hopefully leave you with lots of wounds requiring stiches, but not completely dead.
Thanks, for some reason I thought grizzly bears had special rules.
I mean... if you think fighting a grizzly bear is a good Plan A, go for it.
This reads like it's justified.
We destroy their habitats so they need to come to us to survive only to get killed by us.
Sounds like we are just bad guys.
It does seem justified to save a person's life
It is justified.
Read the article. They don't even go onto that. They have a shoot on sight policy regardless.
Yes. Because they're not going to wait until someone got turned into kibble for something to do
Which isn't the reason the Iceland government gives. Again. Go read the article. But also that's the same excuse we almost made wolves extinct with. Animals as a rule avoid people when possible.
If you can see a polar bear it's a threat.
They really aren't like other bear species. They are an apex predator in an area where basically nothing other than another polar bear can even harm them. They see most things as food, including humans.
As a bonus, Iceland has a pretty wonky ecosystem that needs protecting as is and polar bears aren't native to the island. They have to swim extreme distances to get there, making relocation extremely difficult and expensive, plus if they leave it be it will entirely disrupt other wildlife in the area, to say nothing of the human population.
As others have said, it sucks that it got shot, but Iceland especially has very limited options on how else to deal with it. Shoot on sight is, unfortunately, a very reasonable policy for them.
A whole ass country can't afford to trap and relocate 1 Bear per decade?
That's ridiculous.
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?
Greenland is an autonomous territory but also part of Denmark — refusing permission either on the grounds of concerns about disease, or because of the local population not being keen on a larger polar bear population on its glacier.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Next time this happens you should volunteer to fly out and gently remove the polar bear for them.
I wouldn't say it's sufficient justification, to be honest. I guess it depends on the population to some degree. But since we caused this problem, I would say moving even a whole village out of polar bear habitat is worth the cost of shooting even one, and we can suppose there will be more to come. I think we have a responsibility to get the hell out of their space, even at a huge cost to us.
Sorry... you think an entire village needs to be moved when a polar bear is seen in Iceland? How would that even work?
What do you mean how would that work? Polar bear habitat is declared national park, inhabitants get assistance moving elsewhere. Extremely expensive? Yes. Complicated? Not really.
I get that people aren't gonna go for this, but I stand by the position that it would be the ethically correct thing, and we should be honest with ourselves that we are compromising on that.
Did you even read the headline of this article? This is the first polar bear seen in Iceland since 2016. They swim.
Where exactly is this habitat supposed to be? The entire coast?
If humans had any respect at all for the natural world, they'd feed themselves to the bear.
Okay, we'll put you down as part of the "children should be eaten by bears if they had any respect for the natural world" faction.
There are still literally tens of thousands of polar bears.
As a global population for a species, that's low.
But as something that would mean relocating entire towns full of people — when towns are usually doing something important production wise and can't just be moved willy nilly — that's a whole lot.
"Move an entire town"
Then half a year later when the bear moves to another town, do it again. And again. And again.
Seriously? Do you know the size of the town compared to the national population in Iceland?
That's just a logistical nightmare which wouldn't even accomplish any of the virtues you're signaling so hard.
The polar bears aren't following the people. It can absolutely hunt (and would prefer) a coastline.
Do you know where most towns in Iceland are?
On the coast.
And? You think it's just going to keep going to the next town like some kind of horror movie monster?
Would it be possible or perhaps even likely for the bear to roam a few dozen kilometers to the next town?
https://www.wwf.org.uk/learn/wildlife/polar-bears
Polar bears range across the Arctic Ocean, in parts of Canada, Alaska, Russia, Greenland and Norway (Svalbard). They can walk on ice or swim long distances to find food or breed – sometimes roaming across vast areas up to 600,000 sq km.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland
The main island covers 101,826 km2 (39,315 sq mi), but the entire country is 103,000 km2
What do you think?
Villages live in polar bear territory in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Scandinavia, and Russia just fine. So Iceland has to learn some new rules. It's no reason to contribute to the extinction of a species.
but can they actually go fishing for food? If a wild animal is wandering into human territory, there is usually a resource-limiting reason for it.
According to Iceland the entire island is human territory. I'm going to press F to doubt.
And they very much can. This was a rural home, not some suburb. But even that wouldn't be the first time in the North.