Global polar bear abundance ‘best guess’ estimate is 39,000 (26,000-58,000)

Posted on February 26, 2020 | Comments Off on Global polar bear abundance ‘best guess’ estimate is 39,000 (26,000-58,000)

This is a sticky post link to my March 2019 essay on polar bear numbers at 2018. View it here.

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Polar bear habitat update for end July 2021 compared to previous years

Posted on July 29, 2021 | Comments Off on Polar bear habitat update for end July 2021 compared to previous years

Here’s a trip down memory lane for Arctic sea ice at the end of July, which as far as I can see provides no evidence that a very low sea ice disaster is in the cards for polar bears this year.

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A literary review of my polar bear attack thriller, with all the condescending attitude you’d expect

Posted on July 27, 2021 | Comments Off on A literary review of my polar bear attack thriller, with all the condescending attitude you’d expect

For your amusement, I present a book review of Eaten from an Austrian academic specializing in contemporary literature by the name of Michael Fuchs. I came across his book chapter last week, buried deep within Google offerings, while looking for something else. I laughed all the way through it.

Here is the abstract:

“This chapter draws on Margaret Atwood’s vision of Canada as a Gothic space, examining how contemporary texts continue to invoke imagery of human and animal as antagonists competing for the same space. Fuchs analyzes a corpus of three “bear horror” fictions, the horror film Backcountry (2014) and two novels, The Bear (2014) by Claire Cameron and Susan J. Crockford’s near-future polar bear-themed Eaten (2015). It argues that animal predation on humans provides a powerful symbolic vehicle for bridging the human–animal divide, as it overrides the theory of human exceptionalism, offering a critical view of the entanglement of humans and nonhumans in the Anthropocene.”

A friend that I shared the essay with commented:

“My favourite sentence (new word of the day, class, please use “diegetic” in a sentence):

“These constant slippages between ontological levels puzzle the reader in ways similar to how Anna is confused by the goings-on in the diegetic reality.” [pg. 263]

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Western Hudson Bay polar bears: still some out on the sea ice, some causing trouble

Posted on July 22, 2021 | Comments Off on Western Hudson Bay polar bears: still some out on the sea ice, some causing trouble

As of Monday (19 July), more polar bears had come ashore near Churchill and on the shores of Wakusp National Park but some are still out on the bay. The pattern of ice breakup this year means most bears will come ashore well south of Churchill and make their way north over the summer and fall. There have been two Churchill ‘problem’ bear reports so far but not one for this week, so I’ll go ahead and post without it.

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As much Beaufort Sea polar bear habitat at mid-July 2021 as there was in 1982

Posted on July 18, 2021 | Comments Off on As much Beaufort Sea polar bear habitat at mid-July 2021 as there was in 1982

Beaufort Sea ice coverage is about average for this time of year, again failing to decline in lock-step with other Arctic regions. Will there be lots of fat bears onshore like there was in 2019? Only time will tell.

Healthy polar bear male at Kaktovik, Alaska on the Southern Beaufort Sea, September 2019, Ed Boudreau photo, with permission.
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Polar bears have begun to come ashore on Western Hudson Bay

Posted on July 9, 2021 | Comments Off on Polar bears have begun to come ashore on Western Hudson Bay

So far, the first evidence I’ve seen of a bear ashore in Western Hudson Bay was one photographed near Churchill Manitoba on 28 June (below).

28 June 2021 near Churchill

However, by 5 July, the first of six collared females from Andrew Derocher’s WH study (below) had also come ashore, as did others along the shore of Wapusk National Park. This is not ‘early’ – just earlier than the last few years. Like last year, however, there is still a fair amount of sea ice left on the bay and some bears seem to be choosing to stay out longer on what ‘experts’ describe as unsuitable habitat. As you can see on his bear tracker map, Derocher uses a filter that shows only ice >50% concentration because he and his buddies have decided that bears so dislike anything less that they immediately head to shore as soon as ice levels fall below this threshold.

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Constant dire predictions have been an attempt to counter effective criticism of polar bears as AGW icon says outgoing PGSG chair

Posted on July 3, 2021 | Comments Off on Constant dire predictions have been an attempt to counter effective criticism of polar bears as AGW icon says outgoing PGSG chair

In an unexpected statement, Dag Vongraven (the out-going Chairman of the Polar Bear Specialist Group) suggests that much of the incessant dire warnings of doom about the future of polar bears from PBSG members has been a counter-measure to offset the effective efforts by myself and others to expose the flawed rhetoric this group promotes.

You may remember Vongraven, who in 2014 famously sent me an email alerting me to a PBSG statement that later came back to bite them (in part because it was included in a CBC documentary called The Politics of Polar Bears later that year, see below):

It is important to realize that this range [i.e. their polar bear population estimate] never has been an estimate of total abundance in a scientific sense, but simply a qualified guess given to satisfy public demand.

Will this be another? You be the judge.

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Barents Sea polar bears thriving despite huge summer ice loss: spring research results are in

Posted on July 1, 2021 | Comments Off on Barents Sea polar bears thriving despite huge summer ice loss: spring research results are in

After being locked out last year, fieldwork monitoring polar bears in the Svalbard region of the Barents Sea resumed this spring. The results show that despite having to deal with the most extreme loss of summer sea ice in the entire Arctic, polar bears in this region continue to thrive. These facts show no hint of that impending catastrophic decline in population size we keep hearing is just around the corner. No tipping point here.

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Op-ed sneak preview of my new book & sign-up to receive an email with the release date

Posted on June 24, 2021 | Comments Off on Op-ed sneak preview of my new book & sign-up to receive an email with the release date

My new book is almost ready to launch! In 6 weeks or so it should be ready for orders. But when Terry Corcoran asked for a sneak preview for Junk Science week at the National Post /Financial Post, I couldn’t resist. 

Read the preview at the FP here and sign up below to be informed of the book release date.

The title is Fallen Icon: David Attenborough and the Walrus Deception and you’ll find it full of surprises.

In 2019, Attenborough created a scandal when he falsely insisted that hundreds of walrus that fell to their deaths off a cliff on the coast of Siberia did so because of climate change. My investigation into the deceptions involved reveals the full extent of Attenborough’s journey to noble cause corruption, which started with the falling walrus and ended (so far) with him promoting ridiculous prophesies for COP26:

Use this new sign-up form and I will let you know, via a personal email, exactly when the book will go on sale:

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But that’s not all!

I will also have a walrus science book for kids called Walrus Facts & Myths ready to launch at the same time. It’s a companion to Polar Bear Facts & Myths and I’m sure kids aged 7 and up will enjoy it just as much. Stay tuned.

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Polar bears of western Hudson Bay still on the ice at third week June

Posted on June 23, 2021 | Comments Off on Polar bears of western Hudson Bay still on the ice at third week June

According to the tracker map provided by Andrew Derocher (University of Alberta), all of the western Hudson Bay polar bear females that still have operational satellite collars (deployed in 2019) are still out on the ice of Hudson Bay. The Explore.org live video cam that sits on the shore of Wapusk National Park just south of Churchill has been capturing images of caribou and birds but so far, no polar bears. Last year, the first bear seen onshore by the cameras (shown in the video) was on 13 July.

It wasn’t until a month later that more bears were seen: the fat mother and cub in the screencap below were spotted on 18 July 2020 and the last of the collared bears didn’t come ashore until late August:

This year at 21 June, only 6 collars still operating but only one of them is anywhere close to shore yet (courtesy Andrew Derocher via twitter, below):

That ice in the middle of the bay is still primarily very thick first year ice, as the chart for this third week of June shows (below):

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Polar bear habitat update and the progress of breakup on Hudson Bay

Posted on June 17, 2021 | Comments Off on Polar bear habitat update and the progress of breakup on Hudson Bay

At mid-month, there is still an abundance of thick first year ice over much of Hudson Bay, suggesting that – yet again – this will not be an early breakup year for Western Hudson Bay polar bears. The early breakup years in the past (like 2010) that generated all kinds of panic amongst polar bear specialists have not developed into ever-continuing declining trend (Lunn et al. 2016) or another abrupt step-change like there was in 1998/99 (Castro de la Guardia et al. 2017).

In the last few years conditions have been more like they were in the 1980s than the prophesied catastrophe we were promised. I don’t see a ‘tipping point’ for Hudson Bay; do you see a tipping point?

The more light green areas of thinner ice present, as there was in 2010 (below), the earlier breakup is apt to be:

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