Iceland in Pictures

I just had to translate this for you (original here). This is comic artist Halldórs response to the killing of the polar bear in Iceland this week. You may have read my recent post about the polar bear that was spotted in Iceland. Well polar bears do not normally live in Iceland, but they do occasionally stray over from Greenland, particularly when sea ice shortens the gap. Over the past century or so there are very few incidents of bears making the crossing. However in the past three years a whopping four bears have swum over. All of them have been shot nearly immediately by police. They are of course a great danger to unsuspecting hikers or farmers. But polar bears are an endangered species and this rise is causing people to think of new ways to respond to the problem.

If you read through history, there are around 600 accounts of polar bears in Iceland. Most of these occurred in the 1700s, during the “little ice age” when Iceland was a whole lot colder. There are even tales of bears spotted on the south east corner of Iceland. It is obvious that this change has something to do with changing climates, just as in the 1700s.

These bears have been thought to be abnormal in some way. Why would they swim all this way? They must be exhausted beyond saving after such a journey. Right? Well a recent experiment may prove that these are healthy bears, that may just as well swim back to Greenland. US researchers tagged and tracked a female bear that swam without rest and without eating 687 km of ocean in 9 days. After the swim, the bear continued a further 1,800km on land and sea before be captured by the researchers again. The bear had then lost 22% of his body mass.

Taking this into account, the 287km between Iceland and Greenland is just a walk in the park for these guys. Polar bears also have an amazing sense of smell. They are known to smell seals from 30km and a male can smell a female 100km away (no deodorant). Perhaps bears are hanging out on sea ice which can lie only around 50km way from Iceland and smell the seals being born on Icelandic coasts. In any case it is at this time of the year that most bears have come.

So what can we do? A few suggestions for improvement have been made. Catch it, put it in a cage and take it back to Greenland. Catch it and put a tracking collar on it, then only intervene if it is nearing civilization. Catch it and put it in the Reykjavík petting zoo as the elected mayor promised during his campaign (he also promised “all sorts of things for losers”). Or just shoot it and subtract it from the hunting quota in Greenland. No point in flying it over to Greenland to have it shot there. Right?

I think tracking it would be the most interesting. It would also give us insight into their routines. Perhaps they’ll just stop in Iceland for a few days and then swim back to Greenland. But then they may find a hot spring and just hang out there…

The Reykjavík mayor is giving this lots of thought. Check out his new Reykjavík Polar Bear Project.

Polar bear spotted in Iceland

Iceland does not generally have polar bears, but every few years one does wander over from Greenland. They float out towards Iceland on icebergs and then swim up to a few hundred kilometers to reach land. Generally they are closer to being dead than alive after such a journey. This one however seemed quite healthy (from a far distance).

Sailors on a fishing vessel, Sædís, noticed the polar bear in the isolated valley of Hælavík on the northernmost part of Hornstrandir in the Vestirðir area of northwest Iceland. The sailors said the bear seemed quite brisk, jogging along the sea. The bear then swam out towards the boat, but returned to land and ran up into the foggy hillside.

Hornstrandir is a completely uninhabited area, but popular among hikers in the summer. A group of hikers have delayed their trip to the area and police is trying to establish contact with a pair that might be hiking in the area.

A Coast Guard helicopter is on its way to the area with representatives of the Icelandic Nature Institute. They have not yet decided what will be done to the bear. The few bears that have wandered over in the past few years have all been shot. However they were all quite weak and unlikely to survive any captivation and journey back home to Greenland. The rich Icelander that offered his private jet and to pay for the relocation to Greenland when the last bear crossed is also somewhat bankrupt today.

[Update] The bear was shot this afternoon. Officials from the Icelandic Nature Institute along with the Coast Guard shot the bear. Since there was a thick fog in the region which made tracking the bear impossible the bear was shot for safety reasons. It could wander unnoticed into inhabited areas through the fog.

Björk sharing feelings with a polar bear.

llapen:

photo: John Baptiste Mondino

(via gydaffi)

Polar bears have never inhabited Iceland although they can stray from Greenland on very rare occasions. It’s therefor surprising to see this humongous polar bear drawn on the ice cap of Langjökull Glacier in Iceland.

The artist Bjargey Ólafsdóttir drew the 4.000 square meter polar bear with red food coloring to call attention to the United Nations Climate Change Conference along with 17 other artists around the world. All the projects are featured on the website 350.org.