Recorded 12 August 2022, here’s the full podcast (his ‘#5’), some short snippets of this can be found on Tom’s Twitter feed and a list of his podcasts is here (you may notice I’ve let my curls come out to play!).

Recorded 12 August 2022, here’s the full podcast (his ‘#5’), some short snippets of this can be found on Tom’s Twitter feed and a list of his podcasts is here (you may notice I’ve let my curls come out to play!).
Comments Off on Watch me talk polar bears with Tom Nelson
Posted in Book promotion, science, Summary
Tagged climate change, facts, global warming, history, interview, models, podcast, polar bear
Spoiler Alert! Participants of the History Channel’s Season 9 ‘Alone’ and its spinoff, ‘Alone: Frozen’ reality shows were never at risk of a polar bear attack despite the marketing hype claiming they were, because coastal Labrador is only ‘polar bear territory’ when pack ice is present offshore, which it wasn’t when the shows were filmed. Shocking, I know!
I happened upon the trailer for the ‘Alone’ series while watching TV one night and the “set in the hunting territory of the mighty polar bear” claim caught my attention. So I watched a few episodes and did some followup. Before the series even ended, there were ads for the spinoff series, ‘Alone: Frozen’, which had even more polar bear hype. Here’s what I discovered–call it a Frivolous Friday post if you like, but I felt it had to be said.
Continue readingComments Off on ‘Alone’ and ‘Alone Frozen’ survivor reality show participants were never at risk of a polar bear attack
Posted in Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat
Tagged attack, Davis Strait, History Channel, Labrador, pack ice, polar bear, prize, reality TV, survival
The first few reports on problem polar bear activity in Churchill are in, posted early this week (two together), starting the last week of July (25-31).
Funny how these reports in recent years (these included) don’t mention the condition of bears the way they used to as recently as 2017 (or the state of the sea ice). I guess it’s so they can’t be used as evidence against the prevailing mantra that western Hudson Bay polar bears that spend the summer onshore are starving because of the lack of ice due to human-caused global warming!
Continue readingComments Off on Churchill problem polar bear reports for early 2022 have no mention of fat bears or excess sea ice
Posted in Life History, Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat
Tagged body condition, Churchill, Polar Bear Alert Program, problem bears, sea ice
Almost half of all tagged Western Hudson polar bears are still out on the ice of Hudson Bay, even though much of it is broken up in pieces: as of yesterday, 10 out of 22 bears were still offshore.
This is shaping up to be a great year for Hudson Bay bears!
It also appears none of the bears onshore are causing problems in Churchill, as the Polar Bear Alert Program weekly reports for Churchill have not yet begun. Last year the first report was issued for the first week of July, while in 2020 the first report didn’t come out until the end of August.
Continue readingComments Off on Hudson Bay sea ice update: many polar bears are still on low concentration ice offshore
Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged breakup, Churchill, Polar Bear Alert Program, satellite, sea ice, tagged
With only a few days until the end of July, most Western Hudson Bay polar bears are still on a thick band of thick first year ice that remains close to shore. The few bears that have come off the ice appear to be nice and fat, indicating they had good spring feeding conditions.
We’ll have to wait a few more weeks to see if this year shapes up as it did in 2020, when the last of bears didn’t come ashore until the third week of August, despite there being very little visible ice. Last year, most of the bears were ashore by the end of July.
Continue readingComments Off on Most Hudson Bay polar bears are still offshore, excellent ice conditions for late July
Posted in Advocacy, Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged body condition, breakup, Hudson Bay, ice charts, polar bear, sea ice, tagged
A few weeks into the Arctic summer (July-September), sea ice in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas is dominated by thick, multi-year ice.
At this time of year, multi-year ice is an important refuge habitat for many polar bears when seasonal ice melts out. However, it provides few opportunities for hunting seals. In fact, it is nearly as devoid of food as is the shore during the melt season. Consequently, most polar bears eat little over the summer whether they are on land or on sea ice due to the scarcity of seals.
Continue readingComments Off on Thick sea ice in the Western Arctic is not good habitat for polar bears, seals, or walrus
Posted in Sea ice habitat, walrus
Tagged Beaufort, Chukchi Sea, East Siberian Sea, fasting, multiyear ice, sea ice, summer, thick first year ice
A paper published yesterday discusses polar bears that get into human garbage and cause other problems due to community attractants. Most of the incidents recounted and the issues they’ve raised have been reported by the media and are ones I’ve discussed here over the last few years in detail, including here and here, as well as in my recent book (Crockford 2019).
All you need to know about the motivation behind the paper comes from the authors’ acknowledgement:
This paper developed from a meeting in Churchill, Manitoba, in autumn 2019 where the issue of dump use by polar bears arose. We thank Dan Cox [a photographer for PBI] for suggesting exploration of this issue and Polar Bears International for arranging this meeting.
So, six months or so after my book came out in March 2019, in which these issues were discussed in detail, polar bear experts decided it was time to write a paper on the topic. The open access paper, by Tom Smith and colleagues (Smith et al. 2022), is accompanied by an online essay published the same day by the lead author and picked up at least one cheer-leading media outlet via Reuters. See what you think.
Continue readingComments Off on New paper polar bears attracted to garbage dumps blames lack of sea ice without any evidence
Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Polar bear attacks
Tagged attractants, garbage, polar bear, problem, sea ice, Tom Smith
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