The last time a polar bear made a similar journey to reach Iceland was in 1993, and that bear was also shot to death.
The tragedy is being cited as a reminder of the impact that receding North Pole ice has on its animal inhabitants - the shrinking of the polar bears' hunting and mating grounds and the ripple effect on the area's eco-system.
Did global warming drive the 1993 bear to make the long swim, too? I thought temps were pretty stable back then.
Well, that's one hell way to handle an illegal alien problem.
Actually just a week or two later another bear was found strolling around in Iceland, a child walked upon it, thankfully it ran away as a proper farmers child instead of wanting to stroke it as a greanpeace educated pawement child maybe would have.
Of course we shot him also though some expensive but futile attempt to save it were tried, because of the sentimentality of the first case.
The thing about statistic of these kinds of things, whatever happens, any change whatsoever is taken as a proof of global warming, in whatever direction it goes.
The funny thing is that for weeks after these incidents people starting seeing beers and beer tracks allover the country, like there was an epidemic of big foot and Elvis sightings.
Or maybe our succesful elimination of the first scouting parties gave subsequent scouts the message that a full scale invasion was not feasible at this time ;)