Australia and Norway in frosty Twitter exchange over polar bear tourist warning

Norway and Australia have been involved in a bizarre Twitter exchange over polar bears in the Scandinavian country.

The Australian government’s travel advisory and consular information service, Smartraveller, warned visitors to Norway to be wary of the threat posed by polar bears, tweeting: “Avoid polar bear attacks in #Norway – read our travel advice.”

The tweet linked to advice on its website, which read: “There are risks for travellers to the arctic archipelago of Svalbard relating to avalanches, glacier accidents, boating incidents and polar bear encounters. The level of our advice has not changed. Exercise normal safety precautions in Norway.”

But Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs replied pointedly, reminding the service that in mainland Norway all polar bears are stuffed and pose “only limited risk”.

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It went on to post a picture of a stuffed bear in in its Prime Minister’s office as an example.

But despite the acerbic response, Australia’s advice doesn’t point to mainland Norway, but to the Svalbard archipelago, which is apparently home to nearly 1,000 bears, and there have been a number of polar bear attacks involving tourists in Svalbard, meaning the warning isn’t quite as far off the mark as it may seem.