Steve Amstrup has left a comment below his January 20, 2014 “starving polar bears’ article at The Conversation, which I discussed in my last post.
I’ve copied his comment below and the response to his comment that I left this morning, which is copied below his. See the entire comment sequence here.
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Comments Off on Amstrup’s comment on his starving polar bear article and my response
Posted in Advocacy, History, Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged activist scientists, advocacy, Amstrup, climate models, global warming, Polar Bears International, sea ice declines, sea ice extent, September sea ice, starving polar bears
As if on cue just before an important polar bear announcement, Steven Amstrup, full time employee of Polar Bears International (PBI), is crying “starving polar bears” yet again, with a laughable twist.
Over at “The Conversation” (a university supported forum for academics), in a piece titled “Cold weather in the US no solace for starving polar bears,” Amstrup uses his adjunct affiliation at University of Wyoming to unleash a bit of unpaid advertising for PBI’s alarmist message (I put it this way because while Amstrup does disclose his affiliation at PBI, he is more than just an affiliated member, he is their paid spokesperson).
Ironically, the headline photo (Fig. 1) is the notorious “Ursus bogus,” the photoshopped image used by the journal Science back in May 2010 to feature an article on the integrity of science, It was quickly exposed by Tim Blair at The Telegraph (also covered at WUWT), and the journal was obliged to acknowledge the error, replace the image and issue a correction.
In this case, commenter Brad Keyes at The Conversation defends the use of the “Ursus bogus” image with this astonishing statement [UPDATE Jan. 25/14: it has since transpired that this was almost certainly meant to be satire]:
“The problem is, only sensational exaggeration makes the kind of story that will get politicians’—and readers’—attention. So, yes, climate scientists might exaggerate, but in today’s world, this is the only way to assure any political action and thus more federal financing to reduce the scientific uncertainty.”
Figure 1. The headline photo from Steven Amstrup’s article at The Conversation. This infamous “Ursus bogus” image (for sale at IStock photos, listed under “Global warming images”), says “This image is a photoshop design. Polarbear, ice floe, ocean and sky are real, they were just not together in the way they are now.”
However, we now know that Amstrup is crying wolf — summer sea ice has been declining despite a hiatus in global warming and unusual numbers of polar bears are not starving. He seems to think that if he keeps repeating his Chicken Little message (with nary a recent photo of an actual starving polar bear) he will convince more people to believe him and donate to PBI. It’s his job to do so of course, so he’s not likely to stop. [pardon my mixed metaphor – Amstrup, if you recall, prefers a Titanic metaphor]
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Comments Off on Amstrup repeats starving polar bear nonsense, features “Ursus bogus”
Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Amstrup, extinction, global warming, hiatus, Polar Bears International, sea ice decline, starving polar bears, summer sea ice, threatened, Ursus bogus
I keep coming across mentions of a grandiose plan for future polar bear research and conservation called the “Circumpolar Monitoring Framework for Polar Bears.”
This “framework” plan was referred to extensively at the recent International Polar Bear Forum (aka the “Meeting of the Parties” that signed the 1973 conservation treaty) held in Moscow, December 3-6, 2013 (see posts about the meeting here, here, and here). In fact, government representatives of all Arctic nations present at that meeting agreed in principle to support the proposed plan.
No media reports that I’ve come across after the Moscow polar bear meeting explained what the “monitoring framework” involved, so I’ve composed a brief summary and commentary, aided by some images from Dag Vongraven’s presentation in Moscow (Vongraven 2013; pdf here).
In short, Arctic government representatives at the Moscow forum agreed that all future polar bear research should be constrained by the premise that increases in global temperatures over the next century will occur exactly as predicted by climate models and will negatively affect polar bears precisely as predicted by models devised by polar bear biologists. Under the plan, subpopulations that are already showing predicted effects of global warming will get the bulk of research funds, while regions that are paradoxically not responding as predicted will get much less money for research and survey efforts.
This strategy proposes a coordinated research plan that is blatantly agenda-driven: implementing it would seriously compromise the usefulness of all research results generated for decades to come. I don’t think it’s anything close to being a scientifically valid plan, but decide for yourself.
Figure 1. Vongraven 2013, Title slide.
Comments Off on The scientific abomination that is the “Circumpolar Monitoring Framework for Polar Bears”
Posted in Conservation Status, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Amstrup, Chukchi Sea, Circumpolar monitoring framework, contradictory evidence, Dag Vongraven, Davis Strait, Foxe Basin, Harris, PBSG, Polar Bear Specialist Group, population estimates, sea ice ecoregions, Southern Hudson Bay, Ursus journal, Vladimir Kattsov, western hudson bay
This time it was Steven Amstrup of Polar Bears International (PBI), via a radio interview on Saturday December 28 “A Scientist’s New Job: Keeping The Polar Bears’ Plight Public.”
Amstrup – co-author of the models that predict the extinction of polar bears by the end of this century – had this to say about the polar bear situation in Hudson Bay:
“This year, the ice was frozen longer, so he says the bears seem to be in pretty good shape.
“But over the last two or three years, my impression has been, ‘Man, there’s a lot of skinny bears out here.’ “
On average, the sea ice in the Hudson Bay is frozen about a month less per year than it was 30 years ago. Amstrup says bears don’t eat much on land, so they lose about 2 pounds of body fat every day they’re off the ice.
“They’re 60 pounds lighter now than they might have been at this time of year 30 years ago,” he says.” [my bold]
For the last two or three years Amstrup has been seeing “a lot of skinny bears” but hasn’t taken a single photograph that he’s offered for publication or posted at PBI? Makes you wonder, doesn’t it – where are the photos of all the starving bears these guys keep talking about?
Here is a picture of a polar bear that was spending the summer on the shore of Western Hudson Bay 30 years ago, taken in July [bears were on the shore in July this year as well]. Continue reading
Comments Off on Another unsupported claim of starving polar bears in Western Hudson Bay
Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Amstrup, evidence, global warming, polar bear, skinny bears, starving polar bears, western hudson bay
Despite the fact that the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) apparently provided a significant portion of the funding for the recently concluded International Forum on Conservation of Polar Bears (December 3-6, Moscow), it appears in the end they and their NGO cohorts were prevented from having an undue amount of influence at the meeting. For that we can thank the delegates of the five Arctic nations: three cheers for common sense!
This news did not emerge until late yesterday (Friday, Dec. 6), after the meeting had concluded: no mention was made of NGOs being excluded in the press releases and stories written before then. For example, see IUCN story, Dec. 5; WWF story, Dec. 4; Times of India report, Dec. 5 and this Arctic Journal story Dec. 6. There was nothing in any of them about NGOs and journalists being barred from parts of the meeting they thought they would be allowed to attend.
Note that biologist Mitch Taylor, booted-out of the Polar Bear Specialist Group because he did not agree with the group’s position on global warming, attended as part of the Canadian contingent (see list at the end of this post), which was a bit of a surprise. However, the exclusion from the meeting of WWF and their buddies is the big news as far as I’m concerned.
[The media seems more interested in the fallout from a twitter message sent on the final day of the meeting by Canada’s Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq — more on that in my next post].
Comments Off on WWF and cohorts barred from Moscow polar bear forum
Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status
Tagged Amstrup, Circumpolar Action Plan for Polar Bear Conservation, conservation, Environment Canada, environmental organizations, Humane Society International, Leona Aglukkaq, Mitch Taylor, NGOs, polar bear, Polar Bear Specialist Group, Polar Bears International, twitter storm, Vongraven, World Wildlife Fund, WWF
The latest polar bear propaganda emanating from The Guardian is unscientific nonsense fed to them by activist Canadian polar bear researchers: “Polar bear numbers in Hudson Bay of Canada on verge of collapse.”
This episode of Goldenberg’s polar bear grandstanding includes a photo caption with a totally unsubstantiated claim that some folks might call a lie:
“Melting ice is cutting polar bears off from their food source in Hudson Bay, and death rates have soared.”
“Death rates have soared”? Where are all the bodies? Show us the starving bears!
In fact, the ice of Hudson Bay melts every summer and always has done. When it does, polar bears go ashore and live off the many inches of stored blubber they put on during their spring feasting on fat baby seals. The last three years, the open-water season has been only about two weeks longer than it was in the 1980s. There has been no steady increase but lots of variability.
Below I dismantle the rest of this transparently political posturing ahead of the international polar bear forum next week.
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Comments Off on Polar bear researchers still withholding Hudson Bay data
Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Amstrup, breakup, climate change, conservation, death rates, Derocher, Environment minister, freeze-up, Goldenberg, Hudson Bay, melting ice, Nick Lunn, open-water season, polar bear, starving polar bears, Stirling, western hudson bay
International Forum on Conservation of Polar Bears
December 3-6, Moscow.
[Updated November 30, 2013]
If you’ve wondered why there’s been so much polar bear hype circulating over the last couple of weeks, the reason is almost certainly this upcoming meeting.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the signing of an international agreement to protect polar bears from commercial and unregulated sport hunting. Next week, the five Arctic nations that signed the original agreement will meet again, in Moscow, to renew their vows.
One of stated goals of the meeting is to redefine the original agreement, which focused on over-hunting (see the complete draft agenda here). Can you guess what the changes will involve?
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Comments Off on International polar bear forum Moscow, Dec. 3-6
Posted in Conservation Status
Tagged Amstrup, Arctic nations, Bayesian models, Circumpolar Action Plan for Polar Bear Conservation, conservation meeting, international agreement, IUCN, Leona Aglukkaq, meeting of the parties, Moscow, polar bear conservation, polar bear forum, Polar Bear Specialist Group, polar bears, sea ice, USGS
[Update Nov. 23, 2013: I’ve added a few comments, noted, in the text]
This is a follow-up to an earlier post, Polar bear problems in N Hudson Bay not due to late freeze-up, to counter some misinformation that’s being circulated about the history of Hudson Bay freeze-up dates.
Polar bear biologists working in Western Hudson Bay published new definitions of breakup and freeze-up earlier this year. The new method better reflects how polar bears interact with seasonal changes in sea ice on the bay.
Formerly, 50% ice coverage levels were used to assign the date when major ice change phenomena were reached each year (breakup in summer, freeze-up in fall (e.g. Gagnon and Gough 2005). The new method (Cherry et al. 2013, see discussion here) defines breakup at 30% ice coverage and freeze-up at 10%.
Cherry and colleagues had a fairly complicated method of defining 30% coverage for breakup in Western Hudson Bay. However, freeze-up in the fall is much simpler because ice always forms first along the western shore, starting in the north.
This means that the weekly graphs of ice development provided by the Canadian Ice Service for Hudson Bay, which are expressed as a percentage (just like the Cherry et al. study), can be used to compare freeze-up dates historically.
These graphs refute the absurd claim that freeze-up on Hudson Bay has been “one day later each year” over the last 30 years – an assertion repeated just the other day at PBI. Let’s take a closer look, shall we?
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Comments Off on Hudson Bay freeze-up has not been a day later each year since 1981
Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Amstrup, Canadian Ice Service, freeze-up, Hudson Bay, Polar Bears International, Seth Cherry, weekly ice graphs
What a difference a few decades makes to attitudes about human-polar bear conflicts:
Ian Stirling, 1974:
“Dr. Stirling felt that complete cessation of hunting, such as exists in Norway, may increase bear-man conflicts. Dr. Reimers replied that the careful harvesting of polar bears was probably desirable, but the total ban now in effect was largely an emotional and political decision rather than a biological one. Last year four bears were killed in self-defense.” [my bold]
(1974 PBSG meeting “Norway – progress reported by [Thor] Larsen”; Anonymous 1976:11).
Stephen Amstrup, 2013:
“We have predicted in no uncertain times [sic – terms?] that as bears become hungrier as the sea ice absence period is longer, more and more of these animals are going to be venturing into communities, venturing into villages, raiding food caches, getting into garbage, and even attacking people. So we predict these kinds of events are going to be more frequent and more severe because of climate change.” [my bold]
(The Guardian, November 4, 2013).
Comments Off on Human-polar bear conflicts: Stirling 1974 vs. Amstrup 2013
Posted in Advocacy, Cannibalism, Polar bear attacks
Tagged Amstrup, anecdotal observations, climate change, DeBruyn, Hepa, human-polar bear conflicts, Nunavut meeting, polar bear, Polar Bear Agreement, polar bear attack, Stirling
Steven Amstrup, spokesperson for Polar Bears International, has ramped up his “save the polar bear” rhetoric over last week’s nonsense.
Last night (November 13), the NBC News online story (here) that accompanied their evening news clip (h/t DB) included this appalling analogy:
“…Amstrup said greenhouse gases created by humans threaten future generations of bears by threatening their ice. He said he likes to compare climate change’s effect on polar bears to the infamous Titanic ocean liner.
“[It] didn’t matter how many people were on the Titanic or how well they were doing,” he said. “When the Titanic slipped beneath the waves and they lost their habitat, that was it. So polar bears will also go away because of their dependence on sea ice.” [my bold]
Amstrup really wants people to believe that all the polar bears in the world will die some day, all at once, in some mega ice-loss catastrophe!
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Comments Off on Amstrup compares climate change to a Titanic for polar bears
Posted in Advocacy, Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Amstrup, Churchill, climate change, polar bears, Polar Bears International, save the polar bear, Titanic, western hudson bay
polarbearscience 
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