They killed a polar bear during a meeting with tourists

A polar bear was shot in the Norwegian Svalbard Archipelago in the Arctic Circle after the animal attacked a cruise ship. The man was injured in the head, but he was in a stable condition and out of danger.

This guard was tasked with protecting tourists who had arrived on the island of Svalbard during the MS Bremen cruise, which is operated by Hapag-Lloyd Cruises.

The German cruise line declared that another of his guards shot the bear "in self-defense".

The injured person was taken to the Longyearbyen City Hospital, Spitsbergen (the largest island in Svalbard).

More bears than people

This archipelago is a desert of glaciers and ice caps that extends between Norway and the North Pole. It is estimated that 60% of its total area is covered by ice and that its 3,000 polar bears outnumber the human population.

All vessels in the region must use guards to protect bear pbadengers "

" There are very strict rules, because the islands are visited by many polar bears in summer, so we should all be vigilant when we're down, "writes a tour guide from The Cruise Line's Web Site

The incident motivated controversy in social networks, and some accuse humans of attacking, since tourists were invading a territory that is the habitat of the polar bear. "This story is obnoxious," said Twitter's user
@ nicell70. "Kill a wild animal in danger of extinction in its natural environment, which was invaded by exploitative humans."

The warming of the Arctic has changed the behavior of bears, since the reduction of sea ice forces them to spend more time on the land and to hunt in more distant places .