A woman has been mauled by a polar bear as it wandered into her camp on a remote island.
The Frenchwoman was part of a group in Sveasletta around 500 miles north of Norway after the attack around 8.30am.
Further details about the bear attack were not disclosed, but the victim was flown to a hospital.
She did not have life-threatennig injuries from the creature listed as 'vulnerable' by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
The local paper, Svalbardposten, said the victim was in her 40s.
Chief Superintendent Stein Olav Bredli said: "The French woman suffered injuries to an arm. Shots were fired at the polar bear, which was scared away from the area."
Reports also say the bear was injured as it was scared away and Bredli added: "Our people on site are considering what to do with it."
Authorities had to respond to the far-away call by flying out in a helicopter to the camp, across a fjord from Longyearbyen.
Longyearbyen is the main settlement in the Svalbard archipelago and has a population of over 2,300.
Due to the sparse environment in which they live, polar bear attacks are generally far and few between and only five people have been killed since the 1970s.
In 2020, 38-year-old Johan Jacobus Kootte was killed at a campsite near Longyearbyen when he was dragged from his tent.
The bear was shot dead by locals, but it was too late to save the seriously wounded Dutchman.
Polar bears are some of nature's most revered predators, with around 20,000 to 25,000 currently living in the Arctic.
The archipelago where both Kootte and the Frenchwoman were attacked is home to about 1,000 polar bears
Their shiny white coat shields them from their natural prey, which is seals rather than humans.
An adult male can weigh up to a colossal 590kg and grow up to over 2.5 metres in length.
With a top speed of nearly 25 miles per hour, humans that do stray into their path can be met with a situation that is difficult to escape from.
