12 years of Polar Bear Science winding down as I transition to writing Biology Bites on Substack

While I’m not done with polar bears completely, it seems I’ve been so successful at informing the public and defanging the rabid activists that fewer examples of nonsense seem to pop up. And it turns out I have other things I’d like to write about.

I’ve spent my entire career as an unconventional scientist and I’m betting that many of the stories I’ve amassed along the way will be of interest to a wider audience. So, after 12 years of blogging here at PolarBearScience, I’m branching out with a new writing forum called “Biology Bites,” hosted on Substack.

Biology Bites is an amalgam of stories about my unique career in evolutionary biology, some of the fascinating things I’ve learned or discovered along the way, and some of the on-going issues that still grab my attention.

I’m hoping that at least some of my readers will choose to become paid subscribers at a cost of US$5 per month, which is probably the price of a cappuccino most places and is the lowest price Substack allows.

Only subscribers get to comment and I look forward to being able to interact with readers in a way I haven’t been able to do here. Subscribers also have exclusive access to audio podcasts, so if you prefer to listen to long essays rather than read them, you may find it worth the price of a subscription.

There’s also an option to make a single or recurring donation of an amount you can afford, if the price of a monthly subscription is too daunting. I have the option of “gifting” a subscription to those who donate.

Head over and check it out. I’ve got a few posts up already and you don’t have to subscribe to access most of the content. If you sign up, even as a free subscriber, each new post will arrive as an email.

And just for fun, below is a summary of activity at PolarBearScience from late July 2012 to early September 2024.

Note that December 2017 (the very dark blue square) was when National Geographic released their video of an emaciated polar bear it claimed was “what climate change looks like” but also just days after the Harvey et al. BioScience paper attacking my scientific integrity was released in late November. Both topics got a lot of media attention and brought tons of traffic to this blog. In part, these events prompted the writing of my hugely popular 2019 book, The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened.

April 2019 (the medium-dark blue square) was when media promoted the David Attenborough/Netflix documentary episode that blamed climate change for hundreds of walrus falling off a cliff to their deaths, which I called “tragedy porn” and “contrived nonsense.” Again, the media storm brought a lot of traffic here. I was able to show readers that this Netflix claim was a deliberate lie and wrote a book with all the receipts. Fallen Icon: Sir David Attenborough and the Walrus Deception also discussed in detail the 2017 National Geographic starving polar bear incident mentioned above, since both used emotionally-shocking imagery in an effort to gain public support, only to have it backfire bigtime.

I’ve done some good work here and will keep this blog going as an important internet archive. I will likely add to it from time to time as issues arise.

But I think the time has come to do the same elsewhere for other topics that interest me.

Wish me luck. I hope to see some of you over at Biology Bites.