Person fined after using foghorn to wake sleeping polar bear

A person has been fined for using a foghorn to wake a sleeping polar bear in Norway's Svalbard archipelago, a local official said. The incident happened earlier this month after someone sounded the alarm from onboard a vessel, which was sailing in a fjord in northwestern Svalbard - about 1,000 km (620 miles) from the North Pole. On Thursday, a person - who has not been named - was fined 50,000 kroner (£3,890) over the incident, the governor of the territory confirmed. Under local regulations in the region, it is forbidden to needlessly disturb, attract or pursue a polar bear, which was declared a protected species in Svalbard in 1972. About 250 polar bears were counted in the archipelago during the last scientific estimate, carried out in 2015.