In what looks like a follow-up to last week’s CBC documentary, The Politics of Polar Bears, the London (UK) based DailyMail published interviews with polar bear biologists Mitch Taylor and Andrew Derocher (September 9, 2014).
The CBC film did have a “one scientist vs. another” flavor about it and this article definitely echoes that approach. My comments below on Derocher’s insinuations and questions about starving bears and global warming.
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Comments Off on Andrew Derocher raises the “starving polar bears” issue in DailyMail interview
Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Sea ice habitat
Tagged caribou, conservation, DailyMail, Derocher, fasting, goose eggs, Gormezano, ice-free season, Mitch Taylor, polar bears, Rockwell, sea ice, sea ice decline, starving, survival, terrestrial foods, weight loss, western hudson bay
“Blizzards, we had fog — we had to sleep in the helicopter, on the sea ice one night, because we couldn’t fly anywhere,” Markus Dyck, senior polar bear biologist with the GN, told Nunatsiaq News Sept. 5.”
Fog was the theme of polar bear research this summer in Queen Maud Gulf, otherwise known as the M’Clintock Channel polar bear subpopulation region.
The ice has been heavy in that region as well, according to a the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and reported yesterday in another story (“Heavy pack ice in NW Passage ice creates tough conditions this year: Pack ice clogs Queen Maud Gulf“).
For maps showing where M’Clintock Channel and Queen Maud Gulf actually are, see the maps — and more quotes — below.
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Comments Off on M’Clintock polar bear survey’s first year plagued by fog in an area thick with heavy ice
Posted in Population, Sea ice habitat
Tagged biopsy dart, heavy sea ice, helicopter survey, M'Clintock Channel, Markus Dyck, Northwest Passage, NSIDC, polar bear, population estimate, population survey, Queen Maud Gulf, tagging
Here is the August 2014 follow-up to my post on the July 2013 track map for female polar bears being followed by satellite in the Beaufort Sea by the US Geological Survey (USGS) – “Ten out of ten polar bears being tracked this summer in the Beaufort Sea are on the ice.”
See that post for methods and other background on this topic, and some track maps from 2012 (also available at the USGS website here).
The USGS track map for August 2014 is copied below (Fig. 1).
Compare this to July’s map (Fig. 4). The 20 bears from May (down to 13 in June) are now down to 11. All seven of the bears outfitted with glue-on satellite transmitters in April [either males or subadult animals] have either moved out of the area or their tags have fallen off or stopped transmitting. This means that all of the bears shown on the maps below are females.
At the end of August, nearing the minimum extent of ice for this year, seven bears were on the ice and only four were on land.
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Comments Off on Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea – August 2014 map
Posted in Sea ice habitat
Tagged Alaska, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, polar bear habitat, polar bear movements, polar bears, satellite collars, sea ice, sea ice reference page, Southern Beaufort, tracking polar bears, USGS
Well, sort of — what they did was provide a logical fallacy reply to an almost incoherent comment by a PBI Facebook supporter who had watched the documentary and complained of bias (such a predictable response).
See what you think, screen-cap below (taken September 3, 2014 at about 2PM Pacific Time.
[UPDATE added September 4, 2014 at 8:30PM Pacific, see below]
Comments Off on Polar Bears International responds to “The Politics of Polar Bears”
Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Derocher, documentary, endangered, Environment Canada, Facebook, IPCC, IUCN, logical fallacy, man behind the curtain, Polar Bear Specialist Group, polar bears, Polar Bears International, politics of polar bears, sport hunting, threatened, trophy bears
Umbrage alert! Last night, a half-length short form of the powerful and balanced documentary “The Politics of Polar Bears” aired across Canada on the CBC’s flagship TV news program, The National.
Right after it aired, they followed up with a lengthy online summary by the producer of the film, Reg Sherren (“Polar bears: Threatened species or political pawn?”, September 2, with video of the 19 minute short program). Check out the comments below it! Excerpts and my comments below.
[Links to the full length film here and in my previous posts here and here]
UPDATED April 27 2015: Video now available on Youtube, imbedded below Full length video no longer available, short one at CBC here.
Comments Off on “The Politics of Polar Bears” lengthy excerpt airs across Canada – cue the outrage
Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Population
Tagged CBC, Derocher, documentary, endangered, global warming, Mitch Taylor, polar bear, politics of polar bears, population estimate, predictions, Reg Sherren, sea ice, The National, threatened, video, warm interglacials, western hudson bay
The CBC in Canada is pretty much a mirror image of the BBC in the UK, ABC in Australia and PBS in the US. So you might appreciate my shock at the almost unbelievable balance contained in the recently broadcasted CBC documentary, “The Politics of Polar Bears: Tracking the Celebrity Bear.”
The film is a profound change from the hype and pessimism that has dominated the polar bear issue in Canada and abroad, supported unchallenged by the CBC. Finally, TV viewers were given some decently balanced perspective on the status of polar bears in Western Hudson Bay.
If the take-away message tipped towards reason and optimism rather than panic over the status of polar bears, it’s because the evidence was strongly in that direction.
Comments Off on Has the tide turned on polar bears as icons of global warming?
Posted in Conservation Status, Population, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Churchill, declining sea ice, Derocher, endangered, he who must not be named, Mitch Taylor, PBSG, polar bear attack, polar bears, population estimate, qualified guess, sea ice models, Steve McIntyre, threatened, western hudson bay
This powerful, balanced documentary, with a focus on the bears of Western Hudson Bay, can now be watched online. A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) production, it includes interviews with polar bear biologists Mitch Taylor (screen-cap below) and Seth Stapleton – juxtaposed with statements from outspoken polar bear conservation advocate Andrew Derocher.
I was not mentioned by name (making me “she who cannot be named” yet again?) but host Reg Sherren did discuss the contents of the email I received from PBSG chairman Dag Vongraven earlier this summer about their proposed clarification to the global population estimate (and posted here).
It can be viewed online at “CBC Player,” in its entirety (45 minutes long), without commercials – see it http://www.cbc.ca/player/Shows/Shows/Absolutely%20Canadian/Absolutely%20Manitoba/ID/2499492515/?cmp=rss
I can’t guarantee those outside Canada will be able to view it but I watched it Sunday night (August 31) from British Columbia. It’s well worth the time.
[Aired originally on “Absolutely Manitoba” (Season 2014, Episode 5, Aug 30, 2014), by Reg Sherren. See announcement article here]
[Note: the “Sharon Crockford” interviewed in the film is no relation to me, as far as I know!]
Comments Off on Must watch – “The Politics of Polar Bears: Tracking the Celebrity Bear”
Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Summary
Tagged CBC, Dag Vongraven, declining sea ice, Derocher, documentary, endangered species, global population estimate, Mitch Taylor, polar bears, politics of polar bears, Reg Sherren, Seth Stapleton, threatened with extinction, western hudson bay
From CBC News (28 August 2014):
“The Politics of Polar Bears” airs Saturday, August 30, at 7 p.m. on CBC Manitoba. (CBC)
Which of the following statements do you think is true?
A) Polar bear populations have been in decline for some time
B) Polar bear populations are healthy
The answer may surprise you
…
“In The Politics of Polar Bears, Reg Sherren will pick his way through the message track to help you decide what is really happening with the largest land carnivore on the planet.”
See the rest here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/are-polar-bears-an-endangered-species-1.2747376?cmp=rss
[Includes a short video trailer]
Will we finally see some balance?
UPDATE: Reg Sherren tells me that “A shorter version will air next Tuesday on The National” an hour-long news and current affairs CBC program which can be viewed live online 9-10PM ET.
Comments Off on CBC to air “The Politics of Polar Bears” Tomorrow (Saturday, August 30)
Posted in Conservation Status
Tagged CBC, CBC Manitoba, Derocher, endangered species, healthy polar bears, Markus Dyck, polar bear, politics of polar bears, Reg Sherren, television special
Here is an excerpt of an essay I wrote reflecting on the recent (11 June 2014) lecture I gave at the House of Lords in London (“Healthy polar bears, less than healthy science”). The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has just published that 14 page essay in its entirety as its 10th such report but you can get a taste of it here.
My piece addressed the following issues that I talked about in the lecture or which came up afterwards during the question period and discussions later:
• On what do you base your assertion that polar bear populations are “healthy”?
• Are the media — or polar bear scientists — to blame for hyping the “polar bears are dying” meme?
• How significant was the recent dismissal of a petition to force Canada into listing polar bears as ‘threatened with extinction’?
• What do the recent actions of the Polar Bear Specialist Group say about their commitment to good science?
• Is my blog helping to “self-correct” the science on polar bears?
The highlighted point is copied in full below. See the full essay here.
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Comments Off on Reflections on my House of Lords lecture: Healthy polar bears, less than healthy science
Posted in Conservation Status, Population, Summary
Tagged activist scientists, arctic sea ice, good news, GWPF, IUCN, media hype, Polar Bear Specialist Group, polar bears, polar bears are dying, save the polar bear, science blog, self-correcting science, threatened
Here’s an excerpt of my article “Polar bears miss the message on global warming,” just out in the Fall 2014 issue of RANGE Magazine.
Comments Off on “Polar bears miss the message on global warming” – my article in RANGE Magazine
Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Summary
Tagged activist organizations, activist scientists, arctic sea ice, Center for Biological Diversity, Ian Stirling, magazine article, polar bears, Polar Bears International, population status, World Wildlife Fund, WWF
polarbearscience 
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