Sysselmannen pa Svalbard is translates as "Governor of Svalbard".
Posted on 01/02/2024 4:04:32 AM PST by marktwain
On Sunday, March 24, 2013, a determined polar bear made a fatal error in the prey selection process. The six-year-old healthy male would not be deterred from getting at two humans in a cabin located on Svalbard (administered by Norway) at Hornsund on the island of Spitsbergen. Hornsund is the most southern fjord on the southern tip of the Island of Spitsbergen in the Svalbard archipelago, about 140 km south of Longyearbyen.
The incident was reported in newsinenglish.no in 2013. The incident is confirmed in the PBHIMS database obtained by AmmoLand, which includes many reports of polar bear attacks that happened in the Svalbard archipelago. In the PBHIMS database, the incident is number 132. It has not been included in the pistol defense database before because the type of firearm used was not mentioned in the PBHIMS.
The couple inside the cabin went to extreme lengths to avoid shooting the polar bear, which was forcing its way into the cabin through a window. They fired four warning shots. Their defensive firearm was a revolver, which most commonly hold six cartridges. After firing four warning shots, they would only have one or two shots remaining before the necessity of reloading.
Reloading can involve considerable stress when a polar bear is forcing its way into your residence. The incident is listed as self-defense by both the Svalbard administration and in the FOIA database obtained by AmmoLand. This was considered to be a predatory attack. The couple, a man and a woman, were in their 40s. The most common revolver caliber used for bear protection in Svalbard
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
Sysselmannen pa Svalbard is translates as "Governor of Svalbard".
A good revolver used by competent hands.
Well get the job done.
Looks like they got nice rug out of the ordeal.
Fish in a barrel? More like shootin’ bears in a window.
One dead polar bear and two people with permanent tinnitus.
“The couple, a man and a woman”
…finally. Some sanity
There are two kinds of bears that stalk their prey. Black bears and polar bears.
The rest of the bear community are opportunistic feeders and do not stalk their prey but... they will defend their territory.
I was up way up North Alaska working on antenna systems with a team of contractor’s back in the late 90s and we were out in the field, with protection services provided and one of the protection services personnel glassed a polar bear about a thousand yards out or so (don’t ask me how) and immediately advised us to get packed up and “let’s get back into the transportation.” I asked why and was told that a polar bear had “sniffed us” and we were now the subject of his dinner. They were concerned. We were too. We went back to that site a week later (a precautionary amount of time) to finish up the job before the weather changed. It was weird being part of the food chain and we were certainly not sourdoughs. Although we were most certainly Hyderized by the time we left the state.
My head is still moving up and down after reading that 1st paragraph.🤪 (trying to visualize the locations.)
That’s a freaking BIG BEAR !!!!
And that window looks kinda small ?
Like something out of a horror movie…
Except much worse because it’s real.
LOL, great point!
And HNY Dean, love your posts.
Here is an article about fatal attacks where bear spray was used. Of the nine people killed, 7 were predatory attacks. Of the seven, 4 were grizzly/brown bears for certain, one was probably a grizzly (not certain), and 2 were black bears.
Biased to an extent because many more people carry bear spray for protection against grizzly/brown bears than against black bears.
White Bears Matter
Warning shots? Wasting ammo.
From your story and provided link, it appears that there is no firearms ownership in Norway. That one must rent a firearm from a approved dealer.
Bears repeating
Svalbard is under a treaty from 1920, which has Norway administering the Svalbard Archipelago, with guaranteed rights of access to Denmark, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, the UK (includes Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, India) and the United States.
Svalbard follows Norwegian law for firearms permits otherwise.
You mean Polar Bears don’t come up and give you a hug, like in that Nissan Leaf commercial?
"Feels like that woman's wedding ring is coming out now!"
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