POLAR BEAR BRINGS EARLY-MORNING MAY DAY CALL: Helicopter tracks animal for four hours as it wanders from Bjørndalen and past cabins before heading north

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A polar bear sighted in Bjørndalen at about 3 a.m. Friday was tracked by a rescue helicopter for about four hours as it wandered past cabin areas, into Adventdalen, and though the water and coastline across from Longyearbyen before heading northward away from town, according to police.

People in cabins reported the bear to officials, who used the aircraft to monitor it but took no other action, said Police Chief Lt. Kjell Arne Lundin. He said there were no reports of encounters with people who were out.

No special precautions are being taken since the bear is now considered a safe distance from inhabited areas, he said.

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Mark Sabbatini

I'm a professional transient living on a tiny Norwegian island next door to the North Pole, where once a week (or thereabouts) I pollute our extreme and pristine environment with paper fishwrappers decorated with seemingly random letters that would cause a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters to die of humiliation. Such is the wisdom one acquires after more than 25 years in the world's second-least-respected occupation, much of it roaming the seven continents in search of jazz, unrecognizable street food and escorts I f****d with by insisting they give me the platonic tours of their cities promised in their ads. But it turns out this tiny group of islands known as Svalbard is my True Love and, generous contributions from you willing, I'll keep littering until they dig my body out when my climate-change-deformed apartment collapses or they exile my penniless ass because I'm not even worthy of washing your dirty dishes.

marksabbatini@yahoo.com

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