The war on polar bears

Clashes with human settlements are on the rise, as melting ice drives hungry predators inland in search of food

Photo collage of a roaring polar bear and a hunter with a rifle, sitting in the snow.
(Image credit: Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images)

A polar bear has been shot dead in a remote Icelandic village, the latest casualty of growing tensions between humans and the Arctic mammals.

Polar bears are not native to Iceland, but they occasionally travel onto land via ice floes from Greenland. Even that is "relatively rare", said The Associated Press – a polar bear was last seen in Iceland in 2016. Police shot the animal earlier this month after an elderly woman spotted it rummaging through rubbish outside the summer house she was staying in.

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Harriet Marsden is a writer for The Week, mostly covering UK and global news and politics. Before joining the site, she was a freelance journalist for seven years, specialising in social affairs, gender equality and culture. She worked for The Guardian, The Times and The Independent, and regularly contributed articles to The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The New Statesman, Tortoise Media and Metro, as well as appearing on BBC Radio London, Times Radio and “Woman’s Hour”. She has a master’s in international journalism from City University, London, and was awarded the "journalist-at-large" fellowship by the Local Trust charity in 2021.