UAF student kills polar bear during first field experience
Published Friday, June 12, 2009
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Bob McNabb, 23, is just beginning what might be a long career studying glaciers. No matter how many seasons he spends on ice, he probably will never have a field experience like his first.
In May, McNabb shot and killed a polar bear that charged him outside a research station in Svalbard. The doctoral student was observing a far north glacier in the Norwegian territory and 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 island, which is the size of Connecticut, 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.
“It’s one of the most remote places on Earth,” said Regine Hock, McNabb’s adviser and a scientist at the Geophysical Institute.
A research station built by Swedish, Finnish and Swiss researchers for the 1957-1958 International Polar Year still stands on the island. It’s called Kinnvika. The station, which consists of a main building, several others and an outhouse, is on the coast where polar bears sometimes wander the beach. McNabb encountered the polar bear outside one of the snow-drifted frame buildings.
McNabb woke in the chilly research station on the afternoon of May 10 after a long night in which he worked on nearby Franklinbreen Glacier. His co-workers, who are from universities in Sweden and Finland, were sleeping when McNabb thought of heating water for coffee.
“I was getting wood together for the stove when I heard glass breaking in the hallway,” McNabb said.
He heard more smashing, coming from the room where his shotgun leaned against a wall. He yelled “Hello,” and got no reply. Then, above the drifted snow on a window next to him, he saw a polar bear’s paws pressing against the glass. They were the size of dinner plates.
He slipped into the room with the broken windows and picked up the shotgun. His mind raced about what to do next.
He remembered that one of his colleagues had shooed a bear a few days earlier by starting a snowmachine and revving the engine. McNabb decided to step outside cautiously and start a machine. He thought the noise would alert others to the bear’s presence, and going outside seemed more logical than staying in the station.
“(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.”
Slowly turning the door latch and pushing it open to the cold, McNabb didn’t see the bear at first. Looking out, he noticed the closest snowmachine had a pull-rope start, rather than an electric start. He didn’t want to risk taking the extra time to start the first machine, so he walked a few steps farther toward the machine with a push-button starter.
“While I was going for the next one, the bear came around the corner,” McNabb said.
The bear looked at McNabb from about 90 feet away. McNabb raised his shotgun and fired a warning shot into the air.
“It sniffed the air, looked at me and then charged,” McNabb said.
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 on the ground and stopped moving.
McNabb ran back inside the building and reloaded his shotgun. He then told two Swedish logistic officers stationed there what had happened.
The officers went out and confirmed the bear was dead. They 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 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 away when McNabb began shooting, and the bear turned away when it was 25 feet from McNabb’s boots. Government officials have not ruled whether McNabb will be fined for shooting the bear, but 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.”
Shortly before the polar bear incident, McNabb, a native of Kalamazoo, Mich., had taken the UAF shotgun training course taught by Fairbanks resident Joe Nava. He also had practiced shooting at the Svalbard city of Longyearbyen and at the Kinnvika station.
“It was a good thing I had both the shotgun class and the other shooting experiences,” he said. “The class was the first time I’d picked up a gun in 13 years.”
A few weeks after the experience, McNabb said, “the movie of it has stopped playing in my mind.”
“After the bear fell down, I was still rushing on adrenaline, hoping the bear wasn’t going to get back up,” McNabb said. “Once I realized it was dead, I felt pretty sad about it.”
Ned Rozell is a science writer at the Geophysical Institute.
Community Discussion
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Glad your okay, and gratified to see your wisdom and forethought saved your life.
I am glad you are okay physically, hope you experience does haunt you.
Good shootin'. Sounds justified to me. Only people like Treadwell deserve to be bear dung.
"hope you experience does haunt you"/ wtf? your and doesn't I hope you meant. "They speak english in what?" lol
That experience would haunt me for a long time to come.
Stuff Happens. When prepared you live; otherwise you don't.
Laws of Nature.
that will be a great story to tell to his grand kids some day
guess the norwegian government feels that the bears are more important than people. we're getting that way here in the usa too.
Sounds like he saved a few more baby seals.
The University Center in Svalbard has a very good web sit and web cam at unis.no.
Couldn't McNabb have just talked to the bear, like the Obama/Clinton Team talks to the Iranians and North Koreans?
Good job Mr. Nava
Another success story from one of your firearm safety classes.
Sounds like a clear case of DLP to me.
glad he lived through it.
Does he get the hide?
I don't know this young man, but what a clear mind he kept during this incident. I understand his feeling sad after the fact as well. A lot of emotion and commotion packed in to a moment of his young life. You did fine Mr. McNabb. Best of luck in your life as it unfolds.
Hey blue- bears and governments are different.
Are we being "charged" by the Iranians or N.Koreans?
Are either countries trying to invade us?
Maybe he could have just "prayed" the bear away.
Like how "Sarah" said we could just "pray away the gay".
So did he eat any of the meat, or just throw it away?
humanbeing i doubt he ate it 'cause he felt bad it was dead in the first place....i wonder if he would have shot it if it was a mom with a cub
Humanbeing - Only a non-Alaskan would ask this question. Why are you on the web site?
You cannot eat polar bear meat. I know someone who tried, they had to throw away the meat saws and electric meat band saw used in the butchering - they could not get the foul smell out of the metal no matter how many trips in the commercial washer or bleach.
That, and just 1/8 of a teaspoon of the liver will kill a normal person - soo much vitamin A.
Having recently taken the same class from Mr. Nava, please note that he does not advise going out to start a snowmachine to distract the bear, citing this experience as evidence. He points to this as a poor decision. Not that any of us know what we would do in that same situation. Mr. Nava said don't go outside when there is a bear there! Other than that, seems like obvious self-defense. The government is doing it's job conducting an investigation and will surely determine self-defense.
Just what we need... selfish students shooting endangered species. He was in the bear's territory, not the other way round and the bear was only looking for dinner.
wow glacierwolf i didn't know that! crazy!!
glacierwolf is full of b/s. no b/s on the polar bear liver part though.
i have friends from the coast that say the polar bear meat is one of the best to eat up there.
yah, yah, now call natives savages cause they can actually eat such a foul animal.
i would much rather eat an animal that doesn't sleep and stand in it's own sh-- and pi-- every day of it's life, like cows and chickens.
i live in the city though, so yes i still eat those foul animals.
You bastard! How could you shoot an innocent polar bear? Don't you know he has feelings, too?
Just kidding. Glad you're okay. Hope you don't get fined. That would be so incredibly lame.
Sounds like the Norwegian government is making certain that a protected species wasn't taken unduely. This is similar to what happens when we take a bear or other animal in defense of life or property. Our state government wants to know the circumstance.
And since we Americans are known as a gun loving country (yes, I love my right(s) too), they're probably checking this one twice for that reason. Can't blame them, it's their country.
even if McNabb does get fined, it will probably be the best bargin he will ever recieve in his life.
Glacierwolf, where on this website does it stipulate that only Alaskans can post?
So Crikey, are you suggesting that Mr. McNabb should have allowed himself to be the polar bear's next meal?
I took it for granted Crikey was being sarcastic.
Did you know gullible is not in the dictionary?
The polar-ity of opinions here is un-bear-able.
Boarish, even..
Expect some BS from UAF staff & students. There are so many bunny-huggers up there. Surprised PETA didn't hound you yet. Let them know Alaska's version is "PEOPLE FOR THE EATING OF TASTY ANIMALS."
I'm glad your ok..that bear could have been on top of you before you got off a shot. But I can understand and respect you for trying to get rid of him with noise. That might be what saves your butt from the law.
Bob,
Well done mate. Pete the Brit here. Glad all went well. Sometimes safety is required. Any piccies.....
Peter
I wonder why the polar bears are so hard up, are most of them starving or was this an exception?
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