Person fined $5,000 for using foghorn to disturb sleeping polar bear | CNN

A person has been fined about 50,000 Norwegian kroner (roughly $5,300) after sounding a ship’s foghorn in Norway’s Svalbard, waking a sleeping polar bear, the region’s governor said. The incident took place earlier in August on a vessel traveling in a fjord in northern Svalbard, in the Arctic archipelago about midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. Svalbard environmental rules prohibit unnecessarily disturbing, luring, or pursuing polar bears, and require keeping at least 300 meters away between July and February (500 meters from March to June). The individual agreed to pay the penalty.