Police have shot and killed a polar bear that came ashore in northwestern Iceland, the first sighting of a polar bear there since 2016. It might have hitched a ride from Greenland on a floating iceberg.

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    That says you’re supposed to scare them off first. Shooting them is a last resort. Not the first resort. In Iceland they made it the first resort by law. That’s the issue.

    • Twiglet@feddit.uk
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      1 month ago

      So you want a non-native animal with no suitable habitat and no food source other than humans to be given special preferential treatment over the humans that happen to live there, allowing it to roam and maul at it’s leisure while people politely try to shoo it away from the child buffet?

      You have zero context and zero knowledge of the situation, the country or that environment but sit there on your high horse pretending to be morally superior to the people in actual mortal danger.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        They are not in any more danger than other places that live with polar bears. That’s the point. They have the same situation but a different, worse, standard for dealing with it.

        Also it’s a bear, it can fish on the coasts, in rivers, and hunt other animals just fine. It’s not some horror movie monster just coming after people.

        • Twiglet@feddit.uk
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          1 month ago

          Polar bears aren’t native there, and you have no idea what the natural area is like. It’s an island built on fishing, all the towns are on the coast, where the bears would like to hunt. Polar bears don’t live there, because it’s not an environment that can sustain them, and the biggest native wild animal is the arctic fox. Rest is all farm animals with some reindeer introduced to the highlands in the 70’s for game/sport hunting.

          You’re arguing from pure ignorance.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Lmao. Pure ignorance, from the “just shoot them all” crowd. Excuse me if I don’t accept that there’s no other possible way to deal with the problem.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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      1 month ago

      Got it. As long as the children have a way of scaring off the hungry polar bear when it gets to the school playground, no worries.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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          1 month ago

          I see, so post multiple guards around any place children might be just in case the rare polar bear makes landfall on Iceland so it can get scared away instead of mauling children.

          Very reasonable.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            How do the Scandinavians do recess? Surely they do and they don’t have a magic no polar bear fence. These are solved problems.

              • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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                1 month ago

                Obviously there’s more to it than that. The literal government website you linked requires non lethal means to be carried.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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                  1 month ago

                  Yes. When they’re not near a settled area. This should be fucking obvious.

                  Still waiting for you to provide evidence that there were no other houses around. Or are you going to repeat “summer home” again as if it’s the Unabomber’s shack in the woods when the weather is warm?