Jun 17, 2008, 22:49 GMT
Reykjavik - Police in Iceland on Tuesday were forced to shoot a polar bear that had apparently travelled several hundred kilometres from Greenland atop an ice floe when the animal charged a group of journalists.
A 12-year-old girl on a farm near the town of Saudarkrokur, on the Skaga fjord, spotted the bear on Monday and alerted the authorities.
The bear was the second known to have made the trip across the north Atlantic in just two weeks, broadcaster RUV reported. They were the first such incidents in 20 years in Iceland, which lies just below the Arctic Circle and where polar bears are not native.
In the earlier case, authorities permitted police marksmen to kill the polar bear, sparking protests from environmentalists and animal rights' groups.
After the protests, authorities had vowed to capture the second bear and have it shipped in a cage back to Greenland or give it to a zoo.
But after the bear charged a group of reporters 'in a panic,' a police spokesman said they had 'no other choice' but to kill it.
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