Never wake a sleeping polar bear – or pay a $6,700 fine in the Arctic

OSLO – A person in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic has been fined 50,000 kroner (S$6,724) for using a foghorn to wake a sleeping polar bear, local officials said on Aug 13.

The incident took place earlier in August when a vessel was sailing in a fjord in north-eastern Svalbard, around 1,000km from the North Pole.

“Its occupants are said to have spotted a polar bear sleeping on land,” the governor of the territory said in a statement.

“A person on board then used the ship’s foghorn, waking the animal, which moved to another location.”

Neither the identity nor nationality of the person has been disclosed.

The governor’s office ordered the individual to pay the hefty fine, which the person agreed to do.

Under local regulations “it is forbidden to needlessly disturb, attract or pursue a polar bear”, which was declared a protected species in Svalbard in 1972.

Some 260 polar bears were counted in the archipelago during the last scientific estimate, carried out in 2015. AFP