Monthly Archives: January 2022

Davis Strait polar bears in Eastern Canada are thriving according to new survey

Pack ice is barreling down the Labrador coast, almost certainly bringing Davis Strait polar bears with it. And according to new survey results, those bears are doing just fine: numbers are stable, bears are fatter than they were in 2007, and cubs are surviving well – thanks largely to abundant harp seals.

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Big difference between National Geo’s starving polar bear and Attenborough’s falling walrus

In Fallen Icon, I included a chapter about that infamous National Geographic video that falsely claimed an emaciated polar bear was starving because of climate change. Although I really thought at first that Attenborough’s falling walrus fiasco was the same over-zealous promotion of animal tragedy porn we were all used to seeing from activists, digging deep showed how wrong I was.

It was important to document these phenomena, in print, for the historical record. But on top of that, I bring the science and the hidden facts to light in Fallen Ichttps://polarbearscience.com/2022/01/18/fallen-icon-sir-david-attenborough-and-the-walrus-deception-is-now-available/on and reveal the difference between the two campaigns.

See if you agree. And please do take the time to leave a review on Amazon for the benefit of future readers.

Fallen Icon: Sir David Attenborough and the Walrus Deception

Sir David Attenborough, the royal family, and their ties to the WWF and WEF

David Attenborough has been a close family friend to the Queen and the rest of the royal family for decades; he and the Queen are the same age and run in the same elite social circle of money, power, and influence.

Attenborough and the Queen, from The Daily Express, 31 October 2021

“The two icons of British culture were both born in London in 1926, only weeks apart. The Queen is the slightly older of the pair, born on April 21, and Sir David followed suit on May 8. Although their connection is particularly special, Sir David is also close with other members of the Royal Family, including Prince Charles, Prince Harry, and Prince William.” Woman and Home, 24 January 2022.

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Polar bears at Kolyuchin Island weather station provide a rare photographer’s treat

Russian wildlife photographer Dmitry Kokh took some photos and video last year of polar bears hunkered down at an abandoned weather station on the Chukchi Sea coast and he apparently won a prize for one of them, shown below. The shots are very cool, so I’ve provided some context for the story and posted the video here.

‘Summer Season’ by Dmitry Kokh
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Attenborough fibbed about hundreds of dead walrus because he wanted what the WEF wants

As I point out in my new book, Fallen Icon, David Attenborough devised a three year campaign on the falsehood that hundreds of Russian walrus died falling off a cliff due to climate change because he also desired what the World Economic Forum (WEF), meeting online this week, say they want: immediate and drastic changes, supposedly to mitigate an invisible ‘climate emergency’ and other societal ills.

Some of the hundreds of dead walrus blamed on global warming. Basov 2017.

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Fallen Icon: Sir David Attenborough and the Walrus Deception is now available

My new book, Fallen Icon: Sir David Attenborough and the Walrus Deception, is now available for purchase on Amazon. This is one you won’t want to miss!

Paperback and ebook versions are available at all Amazon outlets, including USA, Canada, UK, and Australia. There should also be a hard cover version within a week or so.

What people are saying about Fallen Icon and my introductory essay are below:

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False starving polar bear meme from 2019 making social media rounds with Greenland added

I have discovered that an entirely false meme has been circulating social media. For the record, here it is with an explanation of what’s wrong with it, which is everything.

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East Coast sea ice so far similar to last year

Davis Strait ice pack is slowly moving south this year just as shorefast ice is developing in-place along the Labrador shoreline, similar to last year. East Coast harp seals that give birth in the region in March depend on this ice and so do many Davis Strait polar bears that feed on those newborn seals. In contrast, in 2017 the ice off Labrador was broader by mid-January (even more so by mid-February) and that seems to have made a huge difference by April, when ice north of Newfoundland was thick and extensive.

Compared to last year at this time, there was somewhat less ice along the Labrador coast but the difference is really negligible. By April, ice extent was well below average, especially in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and there were few sightings of polar bears along the Labrador and Newfoundland coasts.

Back in 2017 at the same time (below), the band of ice along the southern Labrador coast was much broader, indicating more movement of Davis Strait ice from the north. This resulted in so many polar bear sightings in Newfoundland and Labrador by March and April that I could hardly keep up reporting them (Crockford 2019:32):

East coast conditions could change significantly over the next few weeks however, especially if weather conditions bring more north winds.

References

Crockford, S.J. 2019. State of the Polar Bear Report 2018. Global Warming Policy Foundation Report 32, London. PDF here.

Remembering the terrorizing Belushya Guba polar bears: lots of Barents Sea ice cover this year

Three years ago, the Russian village of Belushya Guba on southwest coast of Novaya Zemlya on the Barents Sea got international attention for the dozens of polar bears that had invaded the local dump and some aggressive bears were terrorizing local residents. The phenomenon was of course blamed on climate change by virtually all media outlets largely because there was no sea ice on that coast at the time (as had been true many years before without bear trouble).

This year is a different story completely. It’s only early January and already there is abundant ice along the west coast of Novaya Zemlya; ice in the Barents Sea in general is well up over recent averages and the pack is already converging on Bear Island (Bjørnøya) to the south of the Svalbard archipelago. Ice this far south often brings polar bear visitors to the weather station there but that doesn’t usually happen until March or April.

You’ll find references in previous posts linked here.

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A ‘mass exodus’ of polar bears from Alaska to Russia has taken place, local residents claim

An article in a UK newspaper yesterday contains a claim made by local residents that polar bears which used to hang around Utqiagvik (formerly known as Barrow) in western Alaska, are ‘moving to Russia’ (i.e. the Chukchi Sea) in a ‘mass exodus’. It’s certainly possible but if so, it should come as a surprise to no one and is good news for polar bears.

If the allegation is upheld by scientific evidence, polar bears will not have been pushed out of Alaska by lack of summer sea ice (i.e. ‘forced to migrate’) but rather pulled into the Chukchi Sea by abundant food resources that did not exist when summer ice cover was more extensive. It’s a big difference and it speaks to the benefits of less summer sea ice that no one wants to discuss.

Moreover, moving temporarily to where conditions suit them best is what polar bears do all the time: it’s not a new phenomenon, it’s a prominent feature of their biology (Crockford 2019).

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