A POLAR bear – one of the species most endangered by climate change – has been shot dead by police in Iceland, despite officers having access to tranqullising drugs that could have saved its life.
Animal welfare groups are furious over the officers' decision to kill the bear, which is the first one spotted in Iceland in 15 years.
The animal was spotted nonchalantly strolling along a road near the town of Skagafjördur at about 9:30am yester
day by a farmer. Experts say it had arrived in Iceland on an ice floe and local laws stipulate polar bears can be killed if they threaten humans or livestock.
Stefán Vagn Stefánsson, the area's chief police officer, took the decision to shoot it dead after consulting with Þórunn Sveinbjarnardóttir, the environment minister.
Mr Stefánsson claimed no narcotics were available and a gun necessary to fire such drugs was in another part of Iceland "so therefore it was necessary to kill it. The animal was moving and we could not risk losing sight of it. Weather conditions were foggy and the bear was moving quickly".
But his version of events was hotly disputed by the chief vet in the town of Blönduó. Egill Steingrímsson said he had the knockout drugs necessary to immobilise the bear in the boot of his car. "If the narcotics gun would have been sent by plane, it would have arrived within an hour," he said. "They could keep tabs on the bear for that long."
News of the polar bear was broadcast all around Iceland and by the time the police arrived, a crowd of sightseers in cars had gathered at the mountain road where the bear was found roaming. Mr Steingrímsson thinks police should have closed the road and contained the bear.
Polar bears visit Iceland via drifting ice. The oldest record of them being sighted there is from the year 890 – 16 years after the first human settlers arrived. The last visit was in 1993, when sailors saw a bear swimming off the coast of Strandir. It, too, was killed.
The full article contains 362 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
