Boat operator fined over $5K for waking sleeping polar bear

Let sleeping bears lie — or pay up! A boat operator near Norway was hit with a fine of over $5,000 for blowing a foghorn to wake a sleeping polar bear, officials said Thursday. The vessel was sailing off the coast of the Svalbard archipelago, around 620 miles from the North Pole, earlier this month when the operator disturbed the animal and caused it to move, according to CBS News. A boat operated was fined $5,000 for using the ship’s horn to wake up a sleeping polar bear on Norway’s Svalbard archipelago. Getty Images “Its occupants are said to have spotted a polar bear sleeping on land,” Lars Fause, governor of the territory, said in a statement. “A person on board then used the ship’s foghorn, waking the animal, which moved to another location,” he added. The governor’s office ordered th