Norwegian authorities have documented Europe’s first case of bird flu in a polar bear, found in the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic.
The H5N5 strain was detected in tissue samples from a young male polar bear, about one year old, and a walrus, both found dead in mid-May on the archipelago, located roughly 1,000 kilometres from the North Pole, according to the Norwegian Veterinary Institute.
“This fits into a pattern where highly pathogenic bird flu viruses are increasingly being detected in mammals in Europe,” Ragnhild Tønnessen, avian influenza coordinator at the institute, said in a statement.
She added that, in recent years, the spread of the virus to new regions, including the Arctic, has been posing risks to vulnerable populations and ecosystems.
In a separate statement, the governor of Svalbard said the presence of the virus in brain samples from the two animals “is consistent with the hypothesis that it was very likely the cause” of their deaths.
A walrus that died of bird flu had already been found in Svalbard in 2023, when the virus was also detected in a polar bear in Alaska.
The bird flu outbreak has caused widespread harm since 2020.
Between January 2025 and March 2026, 140 million animals died or were culled due to bird flu across nearly 70 countries, according to the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH).
While this figure is lower than the peak in 2021-2022, the virus has since spread more extensively among non-avian species, increasing the risk of transmission to humans.
