Retired Mountie and bird photographer Clare Kines captured on film one of those ‘canaries of in the coal mine’ of the Canadian Arctic we hear so much about. Kines is from Arctic Bay and took the photo a few weeks ago, on 9 September, on the north end of Baffin Island (just east of where the famous National Geographic ‘starving’ bear was filmed in 2017). His photo was published 14 September by Nunatsiaq News.
Comments Off on Fat polar bear of late summer in Arctic Canada
Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Canada, fat bears, Lancaster Sound, polar bear, sea ice, starving
Here is a quick compare and contrast of sea ice habitat for polar bears in Canada and the Southern Beaufort region of eastern Alaska near the end of June, 2012-2020.
Similarities between Hudson Bay ice/open water in the sea ice charts below are striking. Ice cover at the end of June shown in these charts since 2012 reinforces the fact, documented in the peer-reviewed literature, that there has been no continued declining trend in dates of sea ice breakup for Western and Southern Hudson Bay since 1998 at least (Castro de la Guardia et al. 2017; Lunn et al. 2016). WH bears are still on the ice.
As a consequence, recent declarations of impending doom for Hudson Bay polar bears, based on claims of reduced population size and health of these subpopulations – which in any case are statistically insignificant for WH and SH (Obbard et al. 2018; Dyck et al. 2017) – must be due to some other cause (Crockford 2020).
In all areas, winds rather than melt due to increased temperatures drive much of the expansion of open water at this time of year.
Comments Off on Polar bear habitat in Canada and eastern Alaska compared at end of June 2012-2020
Posted in Conservation Status, Population, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Alaska, Beaufort, breakup, Canada, cause and effect, Hudson Bay, melt, polar bear, population decline, sea ice, western hudson bay
An anti-hunting Norwegian activist-photographer has again made unsupported claims about legal polar bear trophy hunting in Canada and its impact on the survival of the species, promoted by two UK tabloid newspapers (The Sun and The Mirror) over the weekend. The reality is that polar bears are no more being driven to extinction by trophy hunting than they are battling to survive the effects of climate change: they are currently thriving.
According to the Mirror, “Awarding-winning wildlife photographer and conservationist Ole Liodden has warned the iconic Arctic species will die out if trophy hunting is allowed to continue” but no reputable biologist or conservation organization says this, including the IUCN Red List, CITES, the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group, or Polar Bears International. This should tell any rational individual that photographer Ole Liodden is misrepresenting the truth to support his rabid anti-hunting stance.
I understand that some people object to hunting (especially trophy hunting) and wish more people felt like they do – but Liodden’s opinion is nothing more than the emotional rant of a conspiracy theorist and should be ignored. Continue reading
Comments Off on Activist Norwegian makes more false claims that trophy hunting threatens polar bears
Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, hunting
Tagged activist, anti-hunting, Canada, conservation, hunting, polar bear, status, survival, trophy
January is the first month of the Arctic winter, the season when most polar bears really struggle to find enough to eat.
Here is what the sea ice looked like around the Arctic at the end of this month.
Compare to last year:
Comments Off on Abundant polar bear habitat across the Arctic at the start of winter
Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Arctic, Barents Sea, Canada, denning, Derocher, East Coast, Franz Josef Land, polar bear, sea ice, Svalbard, winter
During a meeting of polar bear range states (Canada, Russia, Greenland, Norway, and the USA) in late January 2018 to discuss conservation issues, Canada — home to ~2/3 of the world’s polar bears — included in its presentation an updated population status and trend map approved by the Polar Bear Technical Committee in its presentation. This 2017 map replaces one from 2014 but is not yet available on the Environment Canada website.
UPDATE 11 June 2018: More recent versions of population and status assessment maps, published by Environment Canada 6 June 2018, conclude Southern Hudson Bay and Western Hudson Bay subpopulations have “likely declined.” See 11 June post here for more details and copies of the maps.
Comments Off on Status of Canadian polar bears updated map from Environment Canada
Posted in Conservation Status, Population
Tagged Canada, ecoregions, map, polar bear, Polar Bear Technical Committee, population, sea ice, status, trends
Fourteen bears tagged by the US Geological Survey (USGS) on or near the central Southern Beaufort Sea coast in April 2018 (near Kaktovik) will be tracked online over the coming months.
The break in published USGS tagging data from March 2017 to April 2018 was the first since the project began in December 2009 but no explanation for the hiatus has been provided. It is therefore unclear whether no tagging occurred in spring 2017 or data was simply not published online. The last bears followed were tagged in March 2016.
In contrast to previous years, this spring all fourteen of the bears have glue-on ear transmitters, which means they are either adult males or juvenile bears rather than females (which are fitted with satellite collars):
“In collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service we are also experimenting with glue-on and ear tag satellite transmitters, which can be deployed on adult male bears and younger, still-growing bears.”
Comments Off on Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea resumes after a one year hiatus
Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Alaska, Barrow, Beaufort Sea, Canada, ear tags, movements, polar bear, satellite collars, sea ice, subpopulation boundaries, tracking, USGS, Utqiafvik
Sea ice charts for 18 January from NSIDC Masie show exactly as much sea ice in 2017 as there was back in 2006 – 13.4 mkm2.
Comments Off on Polar bear habitat update: as much sea ice in 2017 as 2006 at 18 January
Posted in Sea ice habitat
Tagged Canada, habitat, polar bears, sea ice, winter
Since mid-August, Vancouver Sun columnist Daphne Bramham has been filing a series of articles from an expedition cruise through the Northwest Passage for a feature called “Above the Arctic Circle”. One of these appeared on August 18, along with a video called “What to know about polar bears and global warming” and it contained an egregious error that should have stood out to any educated person as being wrong by several orders of magnitude:
We are not talking about a difference of opinion or interpretation but a simple fact that was outrageously wrong by a wide margin. You see it, don’t you? Continue reading
Comments Off on Columnist admits video on polar bears and global warming contained a serious error
Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Population
Tagged advocacy, Canada, climate change, error, extinction, facts, false, global warming, misinformation, polar bear, population decline, population size, Postmedia, Vancouvern Sun, video
Five years worth of sea ice maps for the same date is hard to come by in this country, since the Canadian Ice Service does not archive their daily sea ice maps. However, due to some forethought, I have at hand ice maps going back to 2012 for the longest day of the year for Canada and archives for other regions provide similar perspective at the solstice.
Few photos of polar bears in June likely exist – too early for most bears to come ashore and the ice too unstable for humans to be offshore [photo above is dated March].
Compare the five maps for Canada and eastern Alaska below. Notice the differences for Hudson Bay: it may seem ironic, but 2012 (which had the lowest September minimum since 1979 due to an August storm) had the most typical Hudson Bay breakup/melt pattern compared to previous years. [Keep in mind this recent post about how much ice can remain even when almost none is visible on the ice maps]
In many regions, polar bear hunting efforts are seldom successful after early June because young-of-the-year seal pups have taken to the water to feed, which means the only prey still on the ice are predator-savvy adults and subadults that have an easy time escaping in the rapidly breaking up ice fields. Bears that come ashore in June likely are not missing much – a little less ice than usual at this time of year is not going to make much difference.
Overall, despite doom and gloom predictions we heard in March 2016 (“wintertime extent hits another record low”), sea ice extent (courtesy NSIDC) at 20 June 2016 was the same at this date as it was in 2010 and 2012 at this time of year – which essentially marks the end of the primary feeding period for polar bears (except for those that live in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, where seals give birth a bit later in the spring).
And did polar bears die in droves due to conditions in 2010 or 2012, in any subpopulation around the Arctic affected by low sea ice levels? No, they did not. In fact, the subpopulation that had the most recent survey done (Svalbard portion of the Barents Sea – 2015) was not only found to be thriving but numbers had increased markedly (42%) over 2004 levels. Now that’s resilience!
Comments Off on Five years of polar bear habitat at June 20 around the Arctic
Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Barents Sea, breakup, Canada, facts, Hudson Bay, polar bear, record low, resilience, sea ice, seals, solstice, Svalbard
Although there are only two confirmed polar bear X grizzly hybrids (see recent posts here and here) – one in 2006 and a 2nd generation back cross in 2010 – there have been a few other unconfirmed sightings and/or hunters reports in addition to the Arviat animal shot last week, but how many?
In a CBC radio interview today (27 May 2016), polar bear biologist Andrew Derocher claimed there have now been 9 polar bear/grizzly hybrids reported in Canada (with the Arviat animal shot last week being the 9th).
I think I’ve tracked down the details on those six unconfirmed Canadian sightings, plus another from Alaska. But as you will see, some of the reports are so vague it’s hard to know whether these are the animals Derocher counts as hybrids or not.
Continue reading
Comments Off on Most polar bear hybrids said to exist have not been confirmed by DNA testing
Posted in Conservation Status, Hybridization, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Alaska, Canada, Derocher, grizzly, grolar, hybrid, pizzly, polar bear, sightings
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