‘Wonderful experience’: Researcher’s close encounter with Svalbard polar bears

Meteorologist says bears were not aggressive but they fired signal gun to scare them away

Katarzyna Kudacz was preparing a breakfast of scrambled eggs at a research station on Svalbard when she looked up to see she had three unexpected guests.

Shocked and in awe, the meteorologist immediately alerted her colleagues to the female polar bear and her two cubs peering into the Polish research station in Hornsund, in the south of the Norwegian archipelago, their noses pressed up against the window.