The police were alerted about a bear that swam out at Saxaren in Värmdö municipality on Friday morning.
Now the islanders are forced to stay indoors – as no one knows exactly where the bear is.
– I am sitting here on the bridge to gather enough courage to go up to the clubhouse, where my grandchildren are with their grandmother, says Tomas Bergstedt.
The first alarm came in at 08:00. Then callers had seen the bear swimming in a strait.
– We received the first call at 08.00 in the morning from a resident on the island, then it was said that a bear had been observed on the island of Saxaren. Later we received an alert that it had been seen at Ekholmen, says Rebecca Landberg.
The last sighting when someone saw the bear and alerted the police was shortly before 11:00. Now the people out on the islands are forced to stay indoors to avoid running into the animal.
“We don’t know if the bear is still there”
One of the people who is now forced to deal with the bear is Tomas Bergstedt, who is at Saxaren. When he was going for a walk with the poodle Gerda in the morning, he noticed that something was wrong.
– We have a small poodle, she must have smelled the bear because she behaved very strangely and didn’t want everything to go out, he says.
Now he has put the rest of the family in safety in the sailing club’s clubhouse, while he waits out the bear by his boat.
– I am sitting here on the bridge to muster enough courage to go up to the clubhouse, where my grandchildren are with their grandmother, he says.
According to Bergstedt, it is not a large island, but it consists largely of both forest and mountains where the bear can hide. He now hopes that the county administrative board will send staff.
– It is full of depressions where it can hide. I was born in Jakobsberg and know how to move around town, but I can’t handle this. We have tried to reach the county administrative board, it would be nice if someone came out who knows what to do with the bear, he says.
Heard the bear snorting
The Latvian friends Janis Pirvics, Toms Zarins and Raimonds Lankšs are out on a sailing race that took them to Ekholmen on Tuesday.
– We docked around 8pm in the evening and closer to midnight we took a walk on the island. My friend saw something far away in the water, he first thought it was a buoy, but then we saw how it moved closer and then we thought it was a seal so we started filming, says Janis Pirvics.
But then they heard the animal’s loud snort – and when it got closer, they could tell:
– It’s a fucking bear!
The three friends ran so fast that Toms dropped his hat and sprained one of his feet, while warning residents in the area.
– We couldn’t believe our eyes, when it was ten meters from shore, we ran as fast as we could towards the boat, says Toms Zarins.
The WWF’s expert Tom Arnbom has taken part in the friends’ film clips. According to him, the bear is not the first to swim around in Stockholm’s archipelago.
– This is a bear, they have no problem swimming quite far. It’s not exactly common, but similar situations have happened before in the Stockholm archipelago, but it’s probably been at least 25 years since the last one, he says.
He urges people to stay away from the animal.
– You should be a little careful and not try to go up and pet it if you see the bear. If you see the bear, keep your eyes on it and back away slowly, he says.