If so, they’re not saying. This year, with higher-than-average sea ice, we’ve heard much less than usual about the location of tagged Hudson Bay polar bears. Odd, isn’t it?
By this time last year, Polar Bears International rep Alysa McCall had published two reports on the location WHB polar bears tagged by the University of Alberta research team led by Andrew Derocher (Fig. 1 below).
Figure 1. Sea ice coverage and locations of female polar bears with tracking collars for 30 June 2014 and 8 July 2014 (black, Western Hudson Bay bears; blue, Southern Hudson Bay bears), courtesy Alysa McCall, Polar Bears International. Click to enlarge.
This year, there’s been nothing: not a single PBI mention of WHB breakup. Derocher tweeted a track map on 6 July (2/9 bears ashore), with no updates since, but PBI’s “Bear Tracker” has not been updated since 2 July. Compare this year’s ice cover on Hudson Bay (and elsewhere in Canada) to last year on this date (14 July): quite a difference.
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