A group of teenagers were camping in Spitsbergen Island in the Svalbard Archipelago when a polar bear made it through their camp’s system of alarm wires and tried to make a meal of a 16-year-old. He punched the 500lb bear in the nose and kicked at to try to fight it off. Eventually the group’s 29-year-old leader shot it and killed it. The group was pulled out of the islands and all of the kids survived and should be fine one of the kids died in the attack, a terrible tragedy and a rather large mistake on my part. Sorry to all my readers and the families of the kids.

via Get Outdoors

Some Canadian National Parks are now requiring hikers to carry bear spray. They’ve also banned cycling and dogs during peak bear activity months. The law falls under their National Park Act, and fines could be as much as $25k for not carrying spray, though it’s hard to imagine them actually charging someone that much for not being properly equipped. Hopefully people don’t start buying Halt! and spraying on themselves like mosquito repellent.

Is bear spray required in any U.S. National Parks? I did a quick search online and couldn’t find requirements listed for any parks.

Wildlife officials in Oklahoma studying the growing black bear population have an update: bears love donuts. They’ve found that donuts are the most reliable bait to stuff into bear traps, which they’ve been using to catch and tag the animals. What these wildlife researchers have failed to realize is that once bears develop a taste for donuts, normal bear food will never again suffice. They’ll roam the wilds of Oklahoma ever on the lookout for Dunkin’ Donuts to plunder, and when they do, we have only Oklahoma wildlife officials to blame.

A film crew in Yellowstone shooting a segment on bear safety in the park was interrupted when a hiker walked past while trying to get away from an approaching black bear. The hiker had seen the bear and been backed up to the shore, when a group of nearby kayakers paddled over and helped her swim away from it. The bear wasn’t threatening in any way, she just said she felt more comfortable swimming away that trying to circle back into the forest and avoid it that way.  The incident likely would have passed without notice, but a film crew was on the scene to pique the interests of onlookers.

Photo by Mila Zinkova

The National Park Service is saying that a man who surprised a grizzly and her cubs was killed by the bear in the first fatal mauling in the park since 1986. The man was hiking with his wife about a mile and a half into the park’s backcountry on the Wapiti Lake trail. Investigators are looking into the incident and searching for other hikers and backcountry campers to warn.