I am just tacking this on to the most recent bear story as supplemental info. I cannot find any other report on the internet about this rather old (May 2009) story. Deals with a polar bear, but shows some interesting differences in behavior and reminds me of a discussion in the past of how bears are not particularly frightened of gunshots and may in fact be attracted to the sound (associating it with killed game).
http://alaskareport.com/news39/x71256_polar_bear_kill.htmJune 10, 2009
Scientist kills polar bear during first field experience
By Ned Rozell
Bob McNabb, 23, is just beginning what may be a long career studying glaciers. No matter how many seasons he spends on ice, he will probably never have a field experience like his first.
In May 2009, McNabb shot and killed a polar bear that was charging him outside a research station in Svalbard. The doctoral student observing an extremely far-north glacier in the Norwegian territory spoke about his experience when he returned to Fairbanks, where he studies at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
This spring, McNabb traveled to the island of Nordaustlandet in Svalbard. The Connecticut-size island is just 10 degrees latitude shy of the North Pole. An ice cap covers 80 percent of its land area. The few mammals on the island include walrus, arctic foxes, and polar bears. No people live there.
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"I was getting wood together for the stove when I heard glass breaking in the hallway," McNabb said.
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"(The bear) seemed determined to get inside," McNabb said. "I did not want to be in the house with the bear, and I didn't want somebody else to come out of the sleeping hut (a nearby building) and walk right into it."
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He raised the shotgun to his shoulder, firing four times at the white bear. The bear stopped its advance, growled, and shook its head. It turned away, ran about 120 feet, rolled over on the ground, and stopped moving.
McNabb ran back inside the building and reloaded his shotgun. He then went and told two Swedish logistic officers stationed there what had happened. Those men went out and confirmed the bear was dead. They then called the governor of Svalbard, who advised them to remove the bear's stomach before foxes began feeding on the carcass.
Preservation of the stomach was essential for determining the animal's condition for an investigation by government officials of Svalbard, where polar bears are protected.
"(Killing a polar bear) is assumed to be a crime until proven otherwise," said Hock, who taught in Svalbard earlier this year. "There's always a legal investigation."
A Svalbard police unit flew up to the Kinnvika station where McNabb shot the bear. They measured tracks as they recreated the incident, finding that the bear was about 60 feet distant when McNabb began shooting, and the bear turned away when it was 25 feet from McNabb's boots. Though the government officials have not yet ruled whether McNabb would be fined for shooting the bear, both McNabb and Hock said they believe the evidence for self-defense was obvious.
"They found it was a male with nothing in its stomach," McNabb said. "Before it tried to break into the building, it tried to eat two seats on the snowmachines. It was starving, I would guess, at that point."
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The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.
-- Carl Sagan
