A person in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago has been fined $5,255 for waking a sleeping polar bear using a foghorn. The incident occurred earlier this month as a vessel sailed in a fjord in northeastern Svalbard, roughly 620 miles from the North Pole.
According to the territory’s governor, the ship’s occupants noticed the polar bear sleeping on land. An individual on board then used the ship’s foghorn, causing the animal to relocate. The governor’s office imposed the fine, which the individual accepted. The person’s identity and nationality remain undisclosed.
Local laws prohibit needlessly disturbing, attracting, or pursuing polar bears, which have been a protected species in Svalbard since 1972.
In April 2025, an image captured a male polar bear on sea ice near glaciers in eastern Spitsbergen within the archipelago. The last scientific estimate in 2015 counted around 260 polar bears in the region.
Polar Bear Population in Svalbard
The polar bear population in Svalbard seems to be faring well despite climate change and melting ice threatening their habitat. Scientists reported in January that the bears are thriving and even gaining weight. Jon Aars, a senior scientist with the Norwegian Polar Institute, has been leading research that tracked the size and weight of nearly 800 bears between 1992 and 2019.
“I was quite surprised,” Aars told CBS News, “because we have lost so much sea ice since I started.”
Researchers have long warned that shrinking sea ice could endanger polar bears, as they rely on it to hunt seals. However, recent findings suggest that the bears are adapting to smaller ice patches and potentially hunting more efficiently because their prey is concentrated in smaller areas.
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