‘The rules are taking over Inuit tradition and the bears are taking over Inuit. We’re just watching in the distance, afraid of these bears because they’re free to do whatever they want.’ says Brian Aglukark, after two fatal polar bear attacks this summer (CBC, 24 September 2018).
Here’s an excerpt (my bold): continue reading
Comments Off on Inuit hunters frustrated by polar bear conservation rules that put their lives at risk
Posted in Polar bear attacks
Tagged attacks, conflicts, conservation, hunting, polar bear, problem bears, quotas
Just in from NunatsiaqNews (6 September 2018): The polar bears that killed Foxe Basin resident Darryl Kaunak were in good condition, as were the bears who approached the group of hunters after the fact. And the bear that mauled Arviat resident Aaron Gibbons in early July was an adult male in “fair” condition, according to necropsy results.
In all, no evidence that lack of sea ice was to blame. Quotes below.
Comments Off on Polar bears that killed Foxe Basin hunter in August were in good condition, say officials
Posted in Polar bear attacks
Tagged Arviat, attack, body condition, Foxe Basin, Gibbons, Kaunak, Naujaat, necropsy, polar bear, western hudson bay
In case you missed it: The real story behind the famous starving polar-bear video reveals more manipulation (29 August 2018).
Comments Off on The politics of starving polar bears: my op-ed in the National Post last week
Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Sea ice habitat
Tagged advocacy, apology, climate change, Mittermeier, National Geographic, Nicklen, opinion, polar bear, Sea Legacy, Somerset Island, starving, tragedy porn, video
The Chukchi Sea finally has a polar bear population estimate! According to survey results from 2016 only recently made public, about 2937 bears (1522-5944) currently inhabit the region, making this the largest subpopulation in the Arctic. This is exciting news — and a huge accomplishment — but the US Fish and Wildlife Service responsible for the work has been oddly mum on the topic.
Not only that, but an extrapolation of that estimate calculated by USFWS researchers for Chukchi plus Alaska (the US portion of the Southern Beaufort Sea subpopulation) was estimated at 4437 (2283-9527), although with “significant uncertainty.” Nevertheless, it means the 2016 estimate for Alaska could be roughly three times what it was in 2010: a whopping 1500 or so, up from about 450 (or about 225-650) for the same area estimated during the last survey (Bromaghin et al. 2015: Fig. 5a).
Even if the real number for Alaska is only twice as large (~1000), that’s still a huge improvement. It would eliminate the Southern Beaufort as the only polar bear subpopulation in the Arctic to have shown a significant decline blamed on human-caused global warming (Crockford 2018). If the recovery is real, it means the 2004-2006 decline was a temporary fluctuation after all, just like previous declines in the region. I expect, however, that it will take a dedicated SB population survey for officials to concede that point.
There is not yet a detailed report to cite (Regehr et al. in prep), but the numbers were announced at the 10th meeting of the Russian-American Commission on Polar Bears held at the end of July this year (AC SWG 2018) by Eric Regehr (formerly of the US Fish & Wildlife Service, as of 2017 at the University of Washington). [h/t to G.H.] This was the same report that raised the quota for subsistence hunting in the Chukchi from 58 to 85, based on these new figures, as I discussed last week.
From “Military bases to open on Wrangel Island and Chukotka” 22 October 2015.
Regehr was quoted as saying:
“Chukchi bears remain larger and fatter and have not seen downward trends in cub production and survival, according to new preliminary information on the health and numbers of bears.”
Comments Off on Chukchi Sea polar bears number almost 3000 according to new survey results
Posted in Conservation Status, Population
Tagged Alaska, body condition, Chukchi Sea, cub survival, fat bears, guesstimate, healthy, increase, polar bear, population, Regehr, sea ice, Southern Beaufort, thriving, triplets
Starvation due to natural causes is the leading cause of death for polar bears and loss of body condition (getting thinner) is therefore the first symptom of impending death for virtually all polar bears that die naturally. However, polar bear specialist Andrew Derocher claims that loss of body condition is also the first symptom of climate change for polar bears.
But how do you tell the difference between polar bears made thin by man-made climate change and those who are thin due to natural causes?
You can’t. Even a necropsy will not be conclusive because there are so many natural reasons for a bear to lose weight — and even starve to death — that’s it’s virtually impossible to say that any thin bear is skinny due to a lack of sea ice.
Emaciated polar bears like the one above from Somerset Island in the Canadian Arctic,1 captured on camera in August 2017, are being used to promote the idea that polar bears are already dying of starvation due to climate change. That’s a big white lie, as the headline above suggests: seven months later, National Geographic has admitted as much. Here I show why it could not have been true in the first place (with references from the scientific literature).
UPDATE: 29 August 2018: See my op-ed in the National Post (29 August 2018) and the GWPF video below on this issue:
Comments Off on White Lie: Polar bear starvation is virtually never caused by sea ice loss
Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Life History, Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat
Tagged body condition, climate change, emaciated, facts, mauling, mortality, National Geographic, natural, Nicklen, polar bear, sea ice, skinny bears, starvation, symptoms
A man from Naujaat, Nunavut (formerly Repulse Bay) has been killed by a polar bear and her cub, and his two hunting companions injured. The party was found today by a search and rescue team on White Island, southeast of Naujaat after they were reported overdue home on Sunday. A total of five bears were destroyed at the scene: the female and her cub responsible for the attack, plus three other bears attracted to the site and still present when rescuers arrived. This is the second fatal polar bear attack in Nunavut this summer (see previous post here). A very sad day indeed.
Excerpts from news reports below and more details to follow on this incident as they become available. Map below shows location of Naujaat, with White Island about 100 km southeast (off Southampton Island):
UPDATE 6 September 2018: According to examination of the bodies, all of the bears involved (apparently only 4, not 5) were in good condition. See post here and news announcement here.
According to the CBC (28 August 2018), five polar bears were destroyed following the attack [my bold]:
Comments Off on Breaking news: One hunter killed, two injured in polar bear attack in Foxe Basin
Posted in Polar bear attacks
Tagged attack, fatal, Foxe Basin, ice breaker, Naujaat, Nunavut, polar bear, rescue
Last fall, there were persistent alarms raised about low levels of sea ice in the Chukchi Sea that were echoed this spring. But these low ice levels are not really a serious concern for these polar bears: a 2018 assessment found the bears were in excellent health with no declines in cub production or survival. Funny how little we hear about that.
From “Military bases to open on Wrangel Island and Chukotka” 22 October 2015.
See a photo essay of Wrangel Island here and of the islands polar bears here and here.
You also don’t hear about the fact that sea ice has declined by about the same amount in the Chukchi Sea as in Western Hudson Bay. Since 1979, sea ice in the Chukchi Sea has declined at a rate similar to Western Hudson Bay (-0.90 days per year vs. -0.86 days per year, respectively), see graphs below from Regehr et al. (2016, Fig. 2):
While Western Hudson Bay bear numbers have declined slightly in number (by a non-statistically significant amount) and appear to have suffered some recent declines in cub survival (Dyck et al. 2017) (with unsubstantiated claims of declines in adult body condition), Chukchi Sea bears have not (Rode and Regehr 2010; Rode et al. 2013, 2014, 2018).
The fact that Chukchi bears are thriving while Western Hudson Bay bears appear to be struggling, given almost identical trends in sea ice decline, is a connundrum that polar bear specialist are loath to explain.
Only last week, it was announced that the quota for subsistence hunting of Chukchi Sea polar bears had been raised from 58 to 85 due to the excellent status of the population. Polar bear biologist Eric Regehr was quoted as saying:
“Chukchi bears remain larger and fatter and have not seen downward trends in cub production and survival, according to new preliminary information on the health and numbers of bears.”
So, despite warnings from the polar bear and sea ice “experts” that Chukchi Sea bears may be in dire straits due to recent sea ice declines (see below), it appears that the bears themselves are more resilient to changing conditions than the experts give them credit.
NSIDC sea ice experts cruising the Chukchi Sea took this photo of a polar bear in excellent condition a couple of weeks ago (early August 2018, A. Khan), despite the scary-looking melt ponds:
Comments Off on Facts contradict predictions that Chukchi Sea polar bears should be in trouble
Posted in Conservation Status, Population, Sea ice habitat
Tagged body condition, Chukchi Sea, cub survival, fat bears, polar bear, Regehr, sea ice, western hudson bay, Wrangel Island
