Iceland to Shoot Arriving Polar Bear Refugees

Some Icelanders were deeply saddened after two arriving polar bears were shot last June.

An Icelandic commission has recommended that any polar bears that manage to reach the island nation from Greenland should be shot because it’s too expensive to ship the dangerous animals back to their natural habitat or to zoos.

The commission was appointed last summer after two of the bears were shot dead. They had apparently managed to swim up to 200 miles after ice floes that carried them part of the way from Greenland melted beneath their feet.

Police marksmen said they were forced to shoot the bears once one of them became a danger to sightseers and the other charged a group of reporters “in a panic.”

The killings sparked outrage from conservation groups that blamed authorities for not keeping the bears isolated until they could be safely relocated.

Polar bear sightings had been rare in Iceland until this past June.

The arrival of two bears with a two-week period could lend credence to warnings that global warming is now melting the bears’ habitats.

Photo: Visir