The Norwegian authorities announced on Tuesday that they had discovered, for the first time in Europe, a case of bird flu in a polar bear from the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, in the Arctic, writes AFP.
The H5N5 variant of the virus was detected in samples taken from an approximately one-year-old male bear and a walrus found dead in mid-May on this archipelago located approximately 1,000 kilometers from the North Pole, the Norwegian Veterinary Institute reported.
“The results are part of a trend in which highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses are increasingly being detected in mammals in Europe,” Ragnhild Tønnessen, avian influenza coordinator at the Veterinary Institute, said in a statement.
“At the same time, in recent years, the virus has spread to new regions, including the Arctic, where it can have consequences for vulnerable populations and ecosystems,” she added.
In a separate statement, the governor of Svalbard indicated that the presence of the virus in the brain samples taken from the two animals “is compatible with the hypothesis that this was very likely the cause” of their deaths.
In 2023, another walrus was found dead from bird flu in Svalbard. That year, the virus had also been identified in a polar bear that died in Alaska.
The bird flu epidemic has been wreaking havoc since 2020.
From January 2025 to March 2026, 140 million animals died or were slaughtered due to bird flu in nearly 70 countries, according to the World Organization for Animal Health (WHO).
That number is still far from the peak seen in 2021-2022, but since then the virus has spread among non-bird species, with the risk of transmission to humans increasing.
Polar bear at the edge of an ice floe in Svalbard. PHOTO: © Ondrej Prosicky | Dreamstime.com
