Lessons to Be Learnt

22/06/2008 | 11:00

Lessons to Be Learnt
I resisted writing about the fate of the polar bear that came ashore and was subsequently shot dead earlier in the month. But, now that the event has repeated itself, I feel that I have to express my disappointment about the issue.

As the reports go, when the first polar bear reached the shore on June 3, a crowd of spectators quickly gathered on the road near the animal. When the police finally arrived they decided to euthanize the bear because there was no equipment available on hand to catch it live, nor to put it to sleep. With heavy fog in the mountains and the bear approaching the crowd the police neither wanted to risk losing sight of it nor allow it to get too close to the bystanders.

The fact that according to Egill Steingrímsson, chief veterinarian in Blönduós, there were narcotics available is infuriating: “I even had narcotics in my trunk and if the narcotics gun would have been sent by flight it would have arrived within an hour,” Steingrímsson said.

He also criticized the police for not having closed the road so that the bear would not have posed a threat to the public. And this relates to my first question. Why on earth didn’t the police close the road? Surely it would have bought them some time to consider other options.

Anyway, with the first bear down, shouldn’t some lessons have been learnt from the experience? Sure, only a couple of weeks passed before the second bear was spotted, but Minister for Environment Thórunn Sveinbjarnardóttir announced that everything would be done to catch the bear alive.

Experts were even flown in from Denmark with a cage and the necessary equipment. Yet, somehow the bear was also killed this time around. When the bear headed towards the sea, the experts on hand claim it moved too quickly and instead of shooting it with a tranquilizer, they euthanized it once it began swimming away.

This was the first attempt at catching a polar bear live in Iceland and the Ministry of Environment has announced that it is working on an operation plan for future incidents. But, it’s not like these were the first two bears to have visited Iceland.

Polar bears have been visiting Iceland for almost 1200 years, the last being in 1993, and while the situation may have been different in the early days, we’ve all known for some time now that these animals are in trouble – they were recently listed as being threatened on the US Endangered Species List – and it’s simply not acceptable to kill them.

Although, Icelandic law does state that a bear can be killed if it threatens humans or cattle, personally I think the interpretation of this law needs to be reviewed. But, don’t give me the argument that has recently been circulating that although polar bears may be endangered elsewhere in the world killing them in Iceland is justified since they swim from neighboring Greenland, where some claim their numbers are plenty.

Did the bear really need to be killed? If there was time to kill it, wasn’t there also time to shoot it with a tranquilizer gun? I wasn’t there at the time and I’ve never lived on a farm in remote north Iceland, so perhaps I appear arrogant for assuming that there really were other options, but it is difficult to accept that things couldn’t have turned out in favor of the bear.

As even Environment Minister Sveinbjarnardóttir stated: “We have an obligation towards that animal,” though she is also satisfied that no other option existed at the time and that the best course of action was taken.

I find what the farmer, who spotted the first bear, said pathetic: “I did not fancy the idea of it roaming in my grasslands.” But, what perhaps shocks me the most, is not the fact that not one, but two, polar bears were killed, but the photos and videos posted in the Icelandic media afterwards.

One image, which appeared on the front pages of the newspapers after the first bear was shot, shows the armed men who killed it observing the bloodied animal. After the incident repeated itself, pictures of onlookers taking photos of the second slain bear as well as the video of the killing of the first were posted on news website mbl.is.

Were these images supposed to shock audiences and increase debate about the topic? From an outsider’s point of view, they look shamefully barbaric.

Now with the prospect of more polar bears on the horizon, something urgently needs to be done to decrease the risk of this ever happening again.

ZR – zoe_robert3@hotmail.com