Kayaker Escapes Polar Bear’s Jaws When Partner Shoots the Animal
By Rocky Thompson on August 11th, 2010
A duo of Norwegian adventurers sought to become the first people to circumnavigate the arctic archipelago of Svalbard, which is a land teeming with polar bears. There might be fewer polar bears living in the wild today, but the retreating sea ice keeps them in smaller groups. These two Norskies were no fools – they setup their camp with an electrified perimeter that would send off flares if breached by a polar bear, but the flares proved no match for the bear’s hunger.
The bear grabbed the 23-year-old out of his tent and dragged him away, snapping a shotgun in the process. His 22-year-old expedition partner lined up a shot with their spare rifle.
“I was about 20 or 25 metres [22 to 27 yards] from the bear and it had Sebastian in its mouth, I was very worried I did not want to hit Sebastian as well,” said Mr Fjeld. “That would have been a really bad day for him.
Indeed. Happily, he connected with the bear, which dropped the guy and saved his life.
Tags: global warming, Kayaking, norway, polar bear
That’s a crazy story! It’s unfortunate that the bear had to die, but completely understandable. So I take it their trip is postponed for the time being…wonder how far along they were into the 1.250 mile trip. (Ah looks like ~a month)
Yeah well I probably would have rather been eatin. Don’t get me wrong, it woulda sucked, but the polar bears deserve a chance, its not their fault there home is being sucked out from under them, poor bastards. Its a sad day for the bears…
Human life is always more important than an animal, it was an unprovoked attack. it is the circle of live the bear thought he was the baddest boy on the block when he attacked, and found out that there was someone who was badder. Wild animal fearing humans is a good thing. All this animal planet BS does is get humans killed. Wild animals are not pets and when you encounter them you better be prepared like the guy in the article. Good job on his part saving his friends life.
…Why is human life always more important than animal life?
While I agree that we value human life above all else, that is not the point. This bear did not die because its activities conflicted with ours, but because a couple of a$$holes needed to be the first to do something essentially pointless. Maybe the crew from Whale Wars should go sink their kayaks.
I have to defend these guys. Anytime you or I walk into Glacier NP, we’re going into the bears’ land. If one bites your skull are you just going to let it eat you? They took way more precautions than anyone else I’ve heard of going into a land teeming with bears. While it’s a sad case, people are going to push their limits in the outdoors, and even after taking every possible precaution, there will still be some of these encounters.
RT- I am not suggesting they did the wrong thing given the situation. Simply that I wish they had not put themselves in the situation. Polar bears have an estimated population of 20-25000 (about 1/10th that of brown bears) and they face enough pressure that threatens their survival. Let’s use a bit of common sense and try to do what we can to preserve some species for future generations. Choose better places to push your limits.