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.
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?
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.
Yes, and those people all have guns to shoot polar bears.
https://www.sysselmesteren.no/en/weapon/
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.
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.
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.
How do the Scandinavians do recess? Surely they do and they don’t have a magic no polar bear fence. These are solved problems.
So polar bears are basically dingos?
Dingos would hunt at packice holes if they had access to them?
Yes.
…no?
No but also yes.
But almost entirely no.
A polar bear ate my baby!
Also not true!
Why not?
You dont even have a baby!
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.
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
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland
What do you think?
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.
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.