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

Posted on March 26, 2019 | Comments Off on Latest global polar bear abundance ‘best guess’ estimate is 39,000 (26,000-58,000)

It’s long past time for polar bear specialists to stop holding out for a scientifically accurate global estimate that will never be achieved and determine a reasonable and credible ‘best guess’. Since they have so far refused to do this, I have done it for them. My extrapolated estimate of 39,000 (range 26,000-58,000) at 2018 is not only plausible but scientifically defensible.

Polarbear1_wikimedia_Andreas Weith photo Svalbard sm

In 2014, the chairman of the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) emailed me to say that their global population size number ‘has never been an estimate of total abundance in a scientific sense, but simply a qualified guess given to satisfy public demand.’

In my new book, The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened, I contend that this situation will probably never change, so it’s time to stop holding out for a scientifically accurate global estimate and generate a reasonable and credible ‘best guess’. Recent surveys from several critical polar bear subpopulations have given us the information necessary to do this.

UPDATE: I have made this a sticky post for a while: new posts will appear below.

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People go to Churchill to see polar bears in the wild and PBI controls the info they get

Posted on September 18, 2019 | Comments Off on People go to Churchill to see polar bears in the wild and PBI controls the info they get

Polar Bears International is the non-profit organization that virtually rules the town of Churchill when it comes to informing naïve tourists about polar bears.  A million-dollar donation last year guaranteed the creation of a new building to permanently display PBI-generated information in downtown Churchill – previously limited to those visitors wealthy or influential enough to ride Tundra Buggies run by Frontiers North.

tundra buggy and bear_Frontiers North_wikipedia

PBI is an organization dedicated to the promotion of climate change rhetoric that currently purports to present unbiased scientific information about polar bears and climate change. It was founded by a retired marketing director and “polar bear enthusiast” in 2002 but its current leader is ‘chief scientist’ Steven Amstrup. Amstrup was almost single-handedly responsible for the failed survival model that got polar bears classified as ‘threatened’ under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in the US (Crockford 2017, Crockford 2019; Crockford and Geist 2018).

Amstrup’s model predicted that 2/3 of the world’s polar bears would be gone if sea ice got as low as it has been since 2007 but it was spectacularly wrong: polar bears are healthier and more numerous than 50 years ago.

Population size estimate graph chapter 10

Global polar bear population size estimates to 2018. From Chapter 10 of The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened (Crockford 2019).

Amstrup presented his firmly-held opinions as if they were scientific facts but observations have shown his guesses were incorrect. But he refuses to acknowledge this and PBI continues to spead a message of impending doom [my bold]:

“This year’s polar bear season is going to be big for our team, perhaps our biggest yet. Not only do we have an amazing schedule of Tundra Connections webcasts and live chats, but we’re also working with an array of media to tell stories and spread awareness about polar bears and the threats they face in a warming Arctic. This is especially important following another summer of massive sea ice loss in the Arctic and amidst overwhelming global momentum pressuring world leaders to address the climate crisis.”

Below is an excerpt from an interesting story from 2010 on how PBI controls the ‘polar-bears-are-doomed/save-our-sea-ice‘ narrative presented to the media and innocent tourists who just come to see polar bears in the wild.

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Polar bear at a walrus haulout with cliffs in Russia: Netflix scenario all over again?

Posted on September 13, 2019 | Comments Off on Polar bear at a walrus haulout with cliffs in Russia: Netflix scenario all over again?

In the news this morning is a report out of Russia that a team from WWF and a Russian documentary film crew were approached from the top of the cliff by a polar bear – at what looks suspiciously like the steepest part of the same Chukotka cliff that the infamous Netflix ‘Our Planet’ walrus video was filmed in 2017. The Netflix crew insisted that no polar bears were around when the walrus deaths occurred, despite strong evidence to the contrary (including a polar bear shown in the final seconds of the film!)

WWF and RT journalist fend off polar bear as they film walrus in Russia_13 Sept 2019 headline

Is the cliff above the same one we saw last year as walrus fell to a gruesome death on the rocks below, falsely blamed on lack of sea ice? It is mid-September, the same time of year as the 2017 walrus footage was filmed by the joint Netflix/WWF crew – and surprise, surprise, it looks like WWF are taking other filmmakers back for more of the same.

Or have they found another location with the same features?

Here is the original WWF Behind the Scenes video from the Netflix incident:

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These starving polar bears falsely blamed on climate change have scared kids to death

Posted on September 12, 2019 | Comments Off on These starving polar bears falsely blamed on climate change have scared kids to death

These four images of thin or emaciated polar bears falsely blamed on climate change have scared kids like Greta Thunburg to death: the four white lies that scarred a generation.

Starving polar bear composite_11 Sept 2019

If you see kids marching with signs like the one below – from a protest earlier this year in Montreal – you know they have seen the white lies that have been spread online. Note the poster starving bear below compared to the real-life on from 2015 above.

Polar bear endangered plackard at Kids Global Strike Montreal March 2019 CBC

Here I summarize the truth about all four of these starving polar bear images that have been used since 2009 to emotionally manipulate the public (especially young girls), into getting on board the climate change band wagon. Rational people have seen through the rhetoric and come to realize that climate change is virtually never the cause of starvation. However, some poor kids have been scared to death by these images and the stories of climate change catastrophe they inspired – they are very real victims of climate change messaging at its worst.

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Death by drowning: Al Gore told us this was the future of polar bears but it wasn’t

Posted on September 10, 2019 | Comments Off on Death by drowning: Al Gore told us this was the future of polar bears but it wasn’t

In this short interview clip with Friends of Science director Michelle Stirling, I talk about the drowning polar bears in Al Gore’s 2007 movie that he implied would lead to the extinction of the species. Except that it didn’t…

My new book, The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened, explains why.

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Polar bear books for kids and young adults are the perfect antidote for climate anxiety

Posted on September 9, 2019 | Comments Off on Polar bear books for kids and young adults are the perfect antidote for climate anxiety

In this short interview clip with Friends of Science director Michelle Stirling, I talk about Polar Bear Facts & Myths (for kids 7 and up) and EATEN, my science-based polar bear attack thriller that’s appropriate for older teens and young adults. Both are available in paperback and ebook formats, while the paperback version of Polar Bear Facts & Myths is also available in French, German, Dutch, and Norwegian.

Polar Bears: Outstanding Survivors of Climate Change is also suitable for teens and young adults and is fully referenced.

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Western Hudson Bay polar bears in great shape after five good sea ice seasons

Posted on September 5, 2019 | Comments Off on Western Hudson Bay polar bears in great shape after five good sea ice seasons

Polar bear researcher Andrew Derocher says it takes four years of good sea ice conditions to recruit a polar bear from birth but implies that 2019 is the first year in decades that conditions for bears have been ‘good’ in Western Hudson Bay. He thinks he can get away with saying this because he hasn’t published any of the data on body weight and body condition he’s collected on these bears over the last 25 years (apparently, whatever funding agency pays for his research does not require him to publish the data he collects).

But independent observations such as dates of ice freeze-up in fall, ice breakup in summer, dates and condition of bears recorded onshore, suggest he’s blowing smoke: at least five out of five of the last sea ice seasons for WH bears have been good. That means we should be seeing more bears in the next official population count.

Churchill Seal River Lodge triplets_30 Sept 2017

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Walruses climbing cliffs and falling off them are natural events: 1994 video from Alaska

Posted on September 1, 2019 | Comments Off on Walruses climbing cliffs and falling off them are natural events: 1994 video from Alaska

US Fish and Wildlife officials in 1994 explain walruses falling to their deaths from a cliff at Cape Pierce in the southern Bering Sea (a haulout for adult males during the ice-free season). Explanation? Overcrowding (too many walruses)!

Hype from the Netflix/Attenborough ‘climate change is gonna destroy the world’ fearmongers earlier this year notwithstanding – or the media this summer trying to stir up climate change fever – the US Fish and Wildlife Service determined in October 2017 that the Pacific walrus is not being harmed by climate change and is not likely to be harmed within the foreseeable future (USFWS 2017). The IUCN Red List (2015) lists the Pacific walrus as ‘data deficient‘.

Large herds onshore are a sign of population health, not climate change, and walruses have come ashore in the Chukchi Sea during the ice-free season in summer and/or fall for more than 100 years (Crockford 2014; Fischbach et al. 2016; Lowrey 1985). Those are the relevant scientific facts.

References

Crockford, S. J. 2014a. On the Beach: Walrus Haulouts are Nothing New. Global Warming Policy Foundation Briefing Paper 11. Pdf here.  http://www.thegwpf.org/susan-crockford-on-the-beach-2/

Crockford, S. J. 2014b.The Walrus Fuss: Walrus Haulouts are Nothing New https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwaAwsS2OOY  23 Oct 2014. [15,141 views at 31 Aug 2019]

Fischbach, A.S., Kochnev, A.A., Garlich-Miller, J.L., and Jay, C.V. 2016. Pacific walrus coastal haulout database, 1852–2016—Background report: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2016–1108. http://dx.doi.org/10.3133/ofr20161108. The online database is found here.

Lowry, L. 1985. “Pacific Walrus – Boom or Bust?” Alaska Fish & Game Magazine July/August: 2-5. pdf here.

MacCracken, J.G., Beatty, W.S., Garlich-Miller, J.L., Kissling, M.L and Snyder, J.A. 2017. Final Species Status Assessment for the Pacific Walrus (Odobenus rosmarus divergens), May 2017 (Version 1.0). US Fish & Wildlife Service, Anchorage, AK. Pdf here (8.6 mb).

USFWS 2017. “Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; 12-Month Findings on Petitions to List 25 Species as Endangered or Threatened Species” [pdf] 4 October

 

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