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.

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    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.

    • AItoothbrush@lemmy.zip
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      45 minutes ago

      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.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        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.

        • Twiglet@feddit.uk
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          1 hour ago

          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.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            1 hour ago

            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.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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          4 hours ago

          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.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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              4 hours ago

              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.

              • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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                2 hours ago

                How do the Scandinavians do recess? Surely they do and they don’t have a magic no polar bear fence. These are solved problems.