Don’t wake the polar bears! Tourist fined €4,560 for blowing boat’s horn

A polar bear was sleeping peacefully on the shore of a remote Arctic fjord until someone on a passing boat decided to sound the horn. The stunt has cost the tourist responsible NOK 50,000 (€4,560), after fellow passengers reported them to Svalbard’s governor.

A single blast on the horn was enough to send the sleepy bear running

In August, a vessel was sailing through Lomfjorden, part of the Hinlopenstretet strait separating two of Svalbard’s largest islands and a route regularly used by expedition cruises. On the shore lay a polar bear, fast asleep. Someone on board then had the bright idea to sound the ship’s horn and wake the resting bear up instantly who moved off across the land, according to the Governor of Svalbard, known locally as the Sysselmesteren, the Norwegian government’s representative on the archipelago.

Fellow passengers reported the stunt themselves

It wasn’t the bear that ratted out the culprit. Other people on board reported what had happened to the Governor’s office, prompting an investigation into the incident. Investigators concluded the horn blast was deliberate rather than accidental, and that it amounted to an intentional disturbance of the animal under Svalbard’s wildlife protection rules. Passengers on the same vessel effectively turned in one of their own.

The fine and the law behind it

The person responsible was fined NOK 50,000 (€4,560) for breaching Section 30a of the Svalbard Environmental Act, which bans unnecessarily disturbing, luring or pursuing a polar bear. The fine has already been accepted and paid. The rule was tightened only last year. Since January 1 2025, anyone in Svalbard must stay at least 300 metres from a polar bear, rising to 500 metres between March 1 and June 30, when bears are considered most vulnerable to disturbance. Deliberately provoking one, even from the deck of a passing boat, falls squarely under the same law.

Why Svalbard treats its bears so carefully

Around 300 polar bears live on Svalbard year-round, part of a wider Barents Sea population of roughly 3,000 shared with Russia’s Franz Josef Land archipelago. Rapid Arctic warming has already made survival harder for the species, and Norwegian authorities have made deliberate disturbance a criminal matter rather than a mere courtesy.

The archipelago has become a fast-growing draw for adventure tourists, with Svalbard emerging as one of Europe’s Arctic hotspots and cruise operators building itineraries specifically around wildlife sightings. Bears drawn close to boats or settlements by curiosity or scent are already at greater risk, which is part of why officials treat any deliberate disturbance so seriously.

The rules any visitor is expected to know

Anyone travelling outside Longyearbyen, Svalbard’s main settlement, is already required by law to carry the means to scare off or defend against a bear, a rule that reflects how seriously the authorities take human-bear encounters in general. This case shows the same seriousness now applies in the other direction too. A sleeping bear left undisturbed is not an inconvenience to a passing boat. Provoking one deliberately, however, carries a hefty financial cost.