Tag Archives: Polar Bear Specialist Group

Misleading “State of the Polar Bear” graphic still not fixed

Posted on April 1, 2013 | Comments Off

This is an update regarding the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG)’s fancy, multilevel State of the Polar Bear web graphic that I discussed previously here, here, and here.

To refresh your memory, two points about this graphic stand out, both regarding polar bear population estimates:

1) The population estimates listed on the Nations map (copied below) add up to 22,600-32,000 - far higher than the official estimate of 20,000-25,000 polar bears worldwide.

2) The population estimates listed on the upper layer of the Subpopulation map add up to just 13,036 – not even close to the official estimate of 20,000-25,000 polar bears worldwide.
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Polar bear-sea ice relationships: what biologists knew in ’72

Posted on March 31, 2013 | Comments Off

1972 – a bit over 40 years ago. Seven years before we had reliable sea ice extent data from satellites and the year before the international agreement was signed by Arctic nations to protect polar bears from overhunting.

In 1972, a bear biologist by the name of Jack Lentfer was working for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, stationed at the Naval Arctic Research Lab in Barrow. Lentfer was one of the founding delegates of the Polar Bear Specialist Group, where he represented US interests until 1981.

In the proceedings of the 1972 PBSG meeting (Lentfer 1972a), Lentfer stated the following in his report to the group:

“Long term warming and cooling trends occur in the Arctic and probably affect polar bear distribution and numbers. Climatic trends should be considered when assessing bear distributions and population data on a long term basis.” [my bold]

Warming and cooling, not just warming.

He also had a paper published that year (Lentfer 1972b), entitled “Polar bear: Sea ice relationships.” Forty years on, I thought it was worth having a look at what Lentfer told his fellow polar bear biologist colleagues back then. Continue reading

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Posted in History, Sea ice habitat

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Polar bear distribution shows they are limited by winter ice extent

Posted on March 20, 2013 | Comments Off

I’ve said it before but it’s worth saying again now that the sea ice in the Arctic is approaching its seasonal maximum extent and thickness: polar bears are limited by winter sea ice extent (Fig.1), not by the minimum extent of ice in the summer. Otherwise, their distribution would resemble the summer sea ice minimum (Fig. 2), not the winter maximum.

Despite the hue and cry about “declining sea ice,” polar bears are still as well distributed throughout their available winter habitat as they were in 1979, when detailed sea ice records began – see the map below. See further details on polar bear distribution here.

Figure 1. Polar bear distribution map (adapted from the one provided by the PBSG) compared to sea ice concentration at Feb 28 (at or near the seasonal maximum extent) 1979 and 2013. I can’t see a difference – can you see a difference? The only place there is consistently sea ice in winter but not polar bears is the Sea of Okhotsk, but there is no evidence that polar bears have ever lived there despite the presence of seals. Click to enlarge

Figure 1. Polar bear distribution map (adapted from the one provided by the PBSG) compared to sea ice concentration at Feb 28 (at or near the seasonal maximum extent) 1979 and 2013. I can’t see a difference – can you see a difference? The only place there is consistently sea ice in winter but not polar bears is the Sea of Okhotsk, but there is no evidence that polar bears have ever lived there despite the presence of seals. Click to enlarge

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Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat

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Polar bear spin reaches epic proportions at Bangkok CITES meeting

Posted on March 10, 2013 | Comments Off

As I mentioned here in an update to my March 7th post, Damian Carrington at the Guardian Environment blog had this telling quote about the CITES deliberations that took place prior to the vote to ban polar bear trade (by uplisting its status from Appendix II to Appendix I):

As the debate raged, national delegates from other countries got confused by the strident but conflicting claims. “Where is the truth? Is it true that the polar bear is declining. Is it true that trade is increasing? We need to know,” said the Egyptian delegate.[my bold]

Indeed. Was there “truth” in the presentations heard by delegates? By that I mean, honest presentations of facts so that delegates could make up their own minds, or facts loaded with spin to sway the decision one way or another? I wasn’t there so I can’t say. But we can get some impression of what might have been said from two press releases statements issued after the vote failed by two parties that were actively promoting acceptance of the US-led proposal.[Update: Humane Society Press Release is here] Continue reading

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Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Population, Sea ice habitat

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New Chukchi Sea polar bear survey – exciting preliminary results

Posted on March 10, 2013 | Comments Off

Back in October, I wrote about US Fish & Wildlife biologist Eric Regehr comments about a recent survey of Chukchi Sea polar bears, the results of which are still not published. Since then, I’ve been able to track down a bit of information.

This project appears to have run for five years, from 2008 to 2011. The work was confined to the eastern (US) portion of the Chukchi, see maps below (Polar Bear News 2010; Rode and Regehr 2010). Researchers were doing mark-recapture work with helicopters, putting radio collars on some females and radio ear tags on a few males. They worked primarily in March and April (mating season for polar bears), operating entirely on the offshore sea ice – working, I might add, on bears that technically speaking do not exist, since the official population estimate for this region is “zero” (they are not included in the global estimate of 20,000-25,000, see pdf here,, discussed here).

Figure 1. Chukchi Sea – getting you oriented. Note the location of Kotzebue Sound, northeast of the Bering Strait. Map from Wikipedia.

Figure 1. Chukchi Sea – getting you oriented. Note the location of Kotzebue Sound, northeast of the Bering Strait. Map from Wikipedia.

In 2012, US Fish & Wildlife biologist Eric Regehr told reporter Jill Burke at Alaska Dispatch that they found the bears were “reproducing well and maintaining good body condition.” I’ve finally found some details regarding what he meant by that statement (although no final reports or peer-reviewed papers are out, see footnote below).

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Misleading “State of the Polar Bear” graphic cost advocate scientists more than US$50,000

Posted on February 10, 2013 | Comments Off

I’ve had some time to do a little digging regarding the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) State of the Polar Bear web graphic. It turns out this fancy but misleading document was designed by a US company called Periscopic (Portland, Oregon) at a cost of US$50, 000-70,000. So apparently, rather than put $70,000 towards much-needed polar bear research, the PBSG chose to use the money to tell people, in a slightly different way, that it thinks polar bears are doomed. [see UPDATE: April 1 2013]

Just to refresh your memory, last month I pointed out that this fancy summary “tool,” which sits prominently on the home page of the PBSG website, suggests that there are now 22,600-32,000 polar bears worldwide, when tallied by nation (when you add up the individual population estimates provided on each of the two maps on this web “tool” (without clicking through to more detail), you get two different numbers that have no resemblance to the “official” estimate of 20,000-25,000: the page “Nations” gives totals by country that add up to 22,600-32,000 and the numbers given on the “Subpopulations” page (when you hover your mouse over each of the 19 regions) add up to only 13,036 – a far cry from 20,000-25,000 official estimate).

A few days later, I got a response to the email I’d sent to Norwegian polar bear biologist Dag Vongraven, who said it was his job to supervise work on this summary. But, he said, he had “not yet had time to review all details in it as well as I should.” So it seems that without a careful review of the final product, the graphic was posted on the home page of the PBSG website (sometime in October 2012).

It turns out there had been a discussion at the 2009 PBSG meeting, documented in its official report (Obbard et al. 2010:11, Fig. 1 below), about their intention to hire Periscopic as part of on-going PBSG website developments supervised by Vongraven. Several PBSG members agreed this would be a good idea and offered to help by providing data. Continue reading

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Andrew Derocher refuses to accept that polar bears have been saved

Posted on February 5, 2013 | Comments Off

Update Feb 12, 2013 – I now have a copy of the Derocher et al in press paper. If anyone would like to see it, please send me a note via the “Commments-Tips” page above

Andrew Derocher, an known polar bear advocate, has been making headlines again, this time promoting a new “policy paper” he is lead author on that has just been accepted for publication. He and his colleagues simply refuse to accept that the polar bear has been saved (population numbers have rebounded dramatically since protective legislation was introduced in 1973) and it seems all they can think of to do now is press for ever more restrictive regulations.

The timing of the release of this paper is very convenient: Fish and Wildlife biologists and polar bear activists worldwide are actively campaigning to get CITES, at their meeting next month, to make it illegal to trade in legally harvested polar bear parts (see previous post here). Canada is also under international pressure to up-list the status of the polar bear to “threatened,” see post here.

The article itself is behind a paywall (abstract and co-author list below), so it is unlikely that many people outside the choir of conservation advocate subscribers of the journal will ever read it, so Derocher is talking it up big time, with the help of his university PR department. Timely indeed. [h/t WUWT]

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Canada under international pressure to list polar bears as threatened, so far holds out

Posted on January 26, 2013 | Comments Off

[Updated Jan. 27, 2013 at 7:55 am PST Footnote added]

I was inspired to write this post after perusing the Q & A portion of the “What scientists say” section at Polar Bears International. One of the questions is this one:

Are Canadian scientists opposed to listing the polar bear as threatened, as some news organizations have reported?

While I don’t know when it was posted, this question appeared quite timely when I came across it, given the recent news (Nov. 30 2012) that “Canada is being forced to explain its policies to an international environmental watchdog” (Maclean’s magazine; see also the Calgary Herald story) because of a petition filed by the ever-litigious Center for Biological Diversity.

This petition, presented to the Commission on Environmental Co-operation by the CBD, followed on the heels of the news that Canada’s “Species at Risk Act” (SARA) will continue to list the polar bear as a species of “special concern” but not threatened or endangered (CBC story here).

The original petition was filed in November 2011 and re-issued in October 2012. It seems Canada now has until January 23, 2013 to respond to the Commission, after which an investigation could be launched.

We should hear their answer any day now – but guess what? Outspoken PBSG polar bear biologist Andrew Derocher looks to have at least inspired this petition, if he was not party to it.

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PBSG invited WWF and PBI advocates to its last polar bear experts meeting

Posted on January 24, 2013 | Comments Off

In 2009, for the first time, the polar bear biologists that make up the IUCN’s Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) invited four professional advocates – not one or two, but four – to their exclusive, once-every-four-years meeting of top polar bear biologists (called “delegates”) from the world’s Arctic nations (Canada, Russia, USA, Greenland/Denmark and Norway) – two from World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and two from Polar Bears International (PBI).

[Recall that 2009 was also the year that PBSG Chairman Andrew Derocher stripped veteran Canadian polar bear biologist and long-time PBSG member Mitch Taylor of his delegate attendee status because he did not have the appropriate attitude to global warming (see previous post here). Update - just to be clear, Mitch had retired from his government polar bear research job (a valid reason for not being included as a delegate) but with more than 30 years experience and his vast publication record on polar bears - as well as his long association with the PBSG as a delegate - he certainly should have qualified as an "invited specialist" at the 2009 meeting]

I expect Canadian journalist and author Donna LaFramboise would call this inclusion of WWF and PBI advocates in an otherwise exclusive meeting of polar bear biologists a “behind-the-scenes lobbying opportunity,” similar to the inclusion of WWF personnel in the IPCC review process (see original article here and email interview here and “WWF infiltrates UK gov’t” here).

WWF and PBI are organizations devoted to changing public policy to suit their idea of how the world should be – whether others agree or not. They are passionate lobbyists with money behind them and they use their influence to pressure politicians – and now, supposedly impartial scientific organizations – to make decisions that fit their agenda.

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Update: Polar bear population now 22,600-32,000 – when tallied by nation

Posted on January 17, 2013 | Comments Off

[See followup post here and here (April 1)]

Two days ago, I got a short note from PBSG chairman and website manager Dag Vongraven of the Norwegian Polar Institute, Tromso. He was responding to an email I sent him earlier this week asking about the apparent increase in global polar bear numbers when tallied by nation as depicted in the “State of the Polar Bear” dynamic “tool” featured on the Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) website, which I discussed in a previous post here. The tally by nation in that PBSG document suggests that the world population estimate for polar bears is 22,600-32,000 – far higher than the 20,000-25,000 “official” estimate.

Apparently, this tool was developed by a US-based web company under Vongraven’s supervision. But, he says, he has “not yet had time to review all details in it as well as I should.” So, without a careful final review, the document was posted on the front page of the PBSG website, where it has been featured for several months.

The “tool” consists of three maps – that’s it. They are titled Subpopulations, Nations, and Ecoregions. I previously discussed the population totals by Nation, but when I went back and looked at the Subpopulation numbers, I realized they are very odd as well.

The total population estimate listed on the Subpopulation map add up to just 13,036 – not even close to the 20,000-25,000 “official” estimate. The map (see screen cap below) gives no number (estimate = 0) for the following subpopulations, all of which have an official estimate (see previous post here, estimates from the 2009 PBSG report in square brackets): Foxe Basin [2,197], Viscount Melville [161], Laptev Sea [800-12,00] and Barents Sea [2,650]. On the map below, all of the regions coloured grey have no estimate provided (estimate = 0). In addition, there is no estimate provided for the Chukchi Sea subpopulation, coloured orange in this map, as per the official estimate [you can't see the numbers given in this screen cap because they only show up when you hover your mouse over the region].

So when you add up the individual estimates provided on each of the two maps on this web tool, you get two different numbers that have no resemblance to the “official” estimate of 20,000-25,000.

"Subpopulation" status, from the Polar Bear Specialist Group special tool, "The State of the Polar Bear." downloaded January 17, 2013

“Subpopulation” status map, from the Polar Bear Specialist Group dynamic web tool, “The State of the Polar Bear.” [downloaded January 17, 2013]. Population estimates for each region show up on the original web-based tool when you hover your mouse over the map. All of the regions coloured grey, as well as one of the orange-coloured regions (Chukchi Sea, centre top), do not have a number provided.

 Vongraven says he is recovering from surgery and so it may be awhile until someone takes a look to see what’s up with this tool. He did not seem overly concerned about it. But he assured me that the official polar bear estimate of 20,000-25,000 has not changed, although it may after the next population review at the PBSG meeting later this year.

The point is this: if you were a high school student or a teacher looking for a simple and authoritative summary on the status of the polar bear, this tool would look very attractive. The IUCN/SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group want us to consider them the ‘premiere’ experts on polar bear numbers worldwide but these maps do not accurately summarize the current state of knowledge about global polar bear population numbers. The maps are misleading and confusing. We may never know who’s bright idea this was but I in my opinion, it’s a dud.

[the "State of the Polar Bear" tool was still up on the PBSG website, in its original state, the last time I looked]

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