Polar bear cowboys fined

Four hunters in Greenland have been fined for lassoing a polar bear that was later shot.

The Greenland court of appeals found the four guilty of violating a ban against capturing a wild animal and killing it, Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten newspaper reported last week.

The polar bear was captured with a lasso in August 2004, then shot by a hunter with a licence.

The hunter was also fined, because he used a fine-calibre rifle rather than a hunting rifle as required by Greenlandic law. The court handed out fines from 3,000 to 5,000 kroner ($535 to $890).

One of the four who lassoed the polar bear was also ordered to hand over the bear’s claws he had kept as a trophy.