Another fat bear onshore in late winter, this time along the Quebec shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence (22 March 2017) – and this time, one of the witnesses to the sighting took some great photos. Courtesy CBC News (Polar bear makes rare appearance on Quebec’s Lower North Shore 24 March 2017).
Quotes, location map, and sea ice charts below.
Comments Off on Another fat bear onshore in late winter, along Gulf of St. Lawrence north coast
Posted in Life History, Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Davis Strait, Gulf of St. Lawrence, Labrador, onshore, polar bears, Quebec, sea ice, sightings, spring feeding, winter
I’ve just returned from a few days in Washington DC, where I presented the details on the global warming icon that refused to die as modeled (see my slide #12 below) to an enthusiastic and influential audience at The Heartland Institute‘s 12th International Climate Change Conference (ICCC-12).
Polar bear science got some long overdue scrutiny by a large number of people at this meeting. Not unexpectedly, a good many folks were surprised and outraged to learn how the polar bear/sea ice situation has actually unfolded compared to the predicted outcome and on-going media hype.
Comments Off on Exposing the failed polar bear scare to a an enthusiastic and influential audience
Posted in Conservation Status, Population, Sea ice habitat, Summary
Tagged books, catastrophe, communication, conservation status, decline, facts, Heartland, ICCC, lecture, science
A story that broke in Alaska newspapers a month ago made the UK press this weekend about the archaeological discovery of 1,300 year old polar bear skull that may be associated with an unusual body type known to Inuit hunters. See the Mail Online cropped headline below, full story here – and some quotes and critical background below.
Comments Off on Prehistoric polar bear find has elongated body type Inuit know as a ‘weasel bear’
Posted in History, Life History
Tagged ancient, archaeological remains, body type, genetics, history, king bear, polar bear, race, subspecies, weasel bear
Seven polar bears came ashore this week, either passing through or exploring, in Black Tickle, Labrador. It’s not that unusual an occurrence but the take home quote sure is:
“They look really healthy … they have been eating good, these ones have.”
Lucky for them – residents in my novel – EATEN – were not so lucky.
A bear onshore along eastern Hudson Bay late last month was also described as fat.
Quotes from the CBC News report (8 March 2017: “7 polar bears visit stormbound Black Tickle“) below.
Comments Off on Several fat polar bears sighted in southern Labrador early this week
Posted in Life History, Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Black Tickle, Labrador, onshore, polar bears, sightings, winter
Late February is still the dead of winter in the Arctic, a time when most polar bears are at their leanest and out on the sea ice trying to find seals – and that means yesterday’s report of a “very fat” polar bear onshore outside Inukjuak is unusual at face value – but my followup inquiry revealed details that make it even more startling.
CBC North facebook entry 27 Feb 2017
At my request, CBC North reporter Priscilla Hwang reached out to the hunter involved, who is the mayor of the community. She was told the incident took place on Saturday 25 February 2017 and the very fat bear in the story was actually a young, subadult female.
Subadults are more likely to be in poorer condition than adults at any time of year, due to their lack of hunting experience and competition with adult males. So to see a young bear that’s very fat before the feeding begins is quite astonishing: it suggests that feeding opportunities out on Hudson Bay have been very good over the winter and/or this bear was a savvy hunter despite her youth.
According to the mayor’s report, this community hasn’t had a bear onshore in nearly 30 years. Polar bears in Hudson Bay travel with the retreating ice to the western and southern shores, so with some exceptions, bears usually only have access to the east coast during winter through spring.
Last winter saw an extraordinary number of reports of bears on shore in winter, most of them causing trouble (see summary here). This Inukjuak sighting is the second I’ve come across this year – the other was in Svalbard (a female with cubs). Whether this new pattern is due to more bears or lack of hunting leading to bears having less fear of people – or a bit of both – it’s not yet possible to say.
So under the circumstances, the mayor of Inukjuak’s decision to kill this bear for the protection of the community seems quite reasonable (given the extensive resources required in Svalbard to drive their problem bears away rather than kill them).
Excerpts from the CBC story, and some maps and charts, are below.
Continue reading
Comments Off on Report of Hudson Bay polar bear onshore in winter is rare indeed – here’s why
Posted in Life History, Polar bear attacks
Tagged attacks, facts, fat, Hudson Bay, onshore, polar bear, problem bears, spring feeding, subadults, winter
Announcing the publication today of Version 3 2 of my paper that tests the hypothesis that polar bear population declines result from rapid declines in summer sea ice, updated with recently available data. Version 2 provides the scientific support for the information presented in the GWPF video published yesterday, “Polar Bear Scare Unmasked: The Sage of a Toppled Global Warming Icon” (copied below).
[The graphic above was created by me from the title page and two figures from the paper]
Updated 1 March 2017: I added an important reference to the paper below that got overlooked in previous versions (the work of Armstrong et al. 2008, see this post), making Version 3 the latest and most up-to-date.
Crockford, S.J. 2017 V3. Testing the hypothesis that routine sea ice coverage of 3-5 mkm2 results in a greater than 30% decline in population size of polar bears (Ursus maritimus). PeerJ Preprints 2 March 2017. Doi: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.2737v3 Open access. https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.2737v3
Version 3, published 2 March 2017, adds an important reference; Version 2, published 28 February, incorporates additional reviewer comments and suggestions received on Version 1, as well as the updates noted above.
Comments Off on Science behind the video Polar Bear Scare Unmasked – updated paper now available
Posted in Conservation Status, Population, Sea ice habitat
Tagged decline, global warming, hypothesis, IUCN Red List, observations, polar bear, population size, predictions, sea ice, USFWS
For more than ten years, we’ve endured the shrill media headlines, the hyperbole from conservation organizations, and the simplistic platitudes from scientists as summer sea ice declined dramatically while polar bear numbers rose.
Now, just in time for International Polar Bear Day, there’s a video that deconstructs the scare. It runs about 8 minutes, written and narrated by me, produced by the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
Polar Bear Scare Unmasked: The Saga of a Toppled Global Warming Icon
Update 28 February 2017 See my follow-up post for the science behind the video, featuring a new version of my sea ice/polar bear hypothesis paper, just published (and updated with new data).
Crockford, S.J. 2017 V3. Testing the hypothesis that routine sea ice coverage of 3-5 mkm2 results in a greater than 30% decline in population size of polar bears (Ursus maritimus). PeerJ Preprints 2 March 2017. Doi: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.2737v3 Open access. https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.2737v3
Comments Off on Polar Bear Scare Unmasked: The Saga of a Toppled Global Warming Icon [video]
Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Population, Sea ice habitat, Summary
Tagged conservation status, ESA, global warming, International Polar Bear Day, polar bear, sea ice, video
Ten years of summer sea ice levels expected to kill 2/3 of the world’s polar bears by 2050 instead saw polar bear numbers grow. And this year, there are also two fabulous books about polar bears and their outstanding success story to celebrate on International Polar Bear Day (Monday 27 February 2017).
One is suitable for kids (Polar Bear Facts & Myths) and another for adults and teens who want the details (Polar Bears: Outstanding Survivors of Climate Change) – see the right sidebar to buy on Amazon or my author website for details on all additional formats. A couple of excerpts from them are below.
So forget turning down your thermostat in a pointless gesture to “reduce your carbon emissions and help polar bears” — as Polar Bears International advocates for Polar Bear Day. Instead, treat yourself or a friend and order a book with a rational approach to species survival.
Speaking of species survival, think about the inconsistency in how some species are treated according to the US Endangered Species Act (ESA). Humpback whale numbers recovered after decades of protection; in 2016, after the state of Alaska filed a petition to delist, most populations were officially removed from the ESA list of ‘threatened’ species.
Humpback whale and calf, NOAA image.
In contrast, by 2015, polar bear numbers had also recovered despite years of low sea ice loss not predicted until 2050, yet remain officially ‘threatened’ with extinction.
Fat bear family at Kaktovik, Alaska (Southern Beaufort), April 2016. USGS photo.
US National Marine Fisheries Service defended the delisting of humpback whales against activists who insisted human-caused global warming threatened the species, but the US Fish and Wildlife Service defends flawed polar bear prophesies.
Polar bears have not been driven to the brink of extinction by global warming. In fact, they are thriving (see my final conclusions on pg. 30 of Polar Bears: Outstanding Survivors of Climate Change, above and pg. 32 of Polar Bear Facts & Myths below.
If you’d like to support my efforts to bring this to everyone’s attention, please consider buying a copy or two of my books. If you’ve already done so, keep in mind that your local library might be glad to have copies donated. They also make great gifts.
Comments Off on Thriving numbers – & two great books – are ample reason to rejoice on Polar Bear Day
Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Population, Sea ice habitat
Tagged celebrate, climate change, delist, excerpt, extinction, facts, global warming, humpback whale, International Polar Bear Day, myths, PBI, prophesies, survivors, threatened
The results of three recently-released studies that were not included in the last IUCN Red List assessment add more than 2,050 bears (on average)1 to the official 2015 global polar bear estimate, a point you won’t likely hear next Monday (27 February) from most polar bear specialists, conservation organizations, their cheerleaders and corporate sponsors on International Polar Bear Day.
This means the adjusted 2015 global estimate for polar bears should be about 28,500 (average), a marked increase over the official estimate of 26,500 (average) for 2015 — and an even larger increase over the 2005 estimate of about 22,500 (average)2, despite the dramatic loss of summer sea ice since 2007 that we hear about endlessly.
It is increasingly obvious that polar bears are thriving despite having lived through summer sea ice levels not predicted to occur until 2050 – levels of sea ice that experts said would wipe out 2/3 of the world’s polar bears (Amstrup et al. 2007; Crockford 2017 v3).
Update 26 March 2019: see “Latest global polar bear abundance ‘best guess’ estimate is 39,000 (26,000-58,000)”
Updated 1 June 2017: see addition to Footnote 2.
Continue reading
Comments Off on Global polar bear population larger than previous thought – almost 30,000
Posted in Population, Sea ice habitat
Tagged captive breeding, captivity, estimate, increase, International Polar Bear Day, loss of summer ice, population size, predictions, sea ice, timeline, zoos
It’s just an observation but NSIDC Masie ice charts show 14.7 mkm2 of sea ice for 2017 at 19 February (Day 50) but only 14.3 mkm2 for 2006 (see them copied below).
In contrast, the NSIDC interactive graph shows almost the opposite: 14.3 mkm2 for 2017 and 14.4 mkm2 for 2006 (but with both below 2 standard deviations of average).
Comments Off on Polar bear habitat update: Masie charts show more ice in 2017 than 2006
Posted in Sea ice habitat
Tagged habitat, sea ice, spring ice, winter ice
polarbearscience 
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