Tag Archives: captivity

Zoos abrogate their position of trust by misleading the public about polar bears

Posted on May 23, 2019 | Comments Off

Since at least 2007, zoos around the world have proudly partnered with climate change activist organization Polar Bears International to ‘educate’ the public about the plight of polar bears. Although contrary to all expectations, polar bear numbers have increased slightly since the abrupt decline of sea ice in 2007 yet zoos are still promoting the false message that polar bears have already been gravely harmed by lack of sea ice.

CTV News on pb sightings Labrador as climate change warning

A news clip that aired on Canadian television in April 2019 was ostensibly about recent sightings of polar bears in Labrador (which I discussed here). But it digressed rapidly into a baseless diatribe about polar bears as victims of climate change, delivered by an animal keeper from the Toronto Zoo presented as an ‘expert’ on this topic.

See it here (about 4 minutes long).

And while I have no doubt that Toronto Zoo curator Maria Frankie is indeed an expert in keeping mammals in captivity, she appears to have zero qualifications to speak with any critical scientific authority on climate change, sea ice variability, or polar bear survival in the wild.

Frankie is complicit in spreading misinformation about polar bears to an unwary public (including children) as a method of spurring political action on climate change as surely as David Attenborough is to blame for spreading misinformation about Pacific walrus. She is being used by PBI but is too naive to realize it.

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Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Sea ice habitat

Tagged Attenborough, captivity, children, CTV, declining, education, extinction, indoctrination, polar bear, Polar Bears International, population size, propaganda, risk, sea ice, Toronto Zoo, zoos

Global polar bear population larger than previous thought – almost 30,000

Posted on February 23, 2017 | Comments Off

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.

global-pb-population-size-graphic2_2017-feb-polarbearscience-corrected

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.
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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

Zoos use polar bears to spur action on climate change – not to save them

Posted on February 11, 2016 | Comments Off

Media outlets have recently been having collective orgasms over photos and videos of a three month old polar bear cub born at the Columbus Zoo in Ohio, which has again raised the issue of why it is now acceptable for polar bears to be held and bred in captivity.

Zoo bear at Columbus_after birth in November 2015

Newborn polar bear cub ‘Nora’ Columbus Zoo handout

The myth being propagated by zoos and their supporters is that it’s necessary to save polar bears from extinction.

Actually, nothing could be further from the truth – this is all about pressuring people to care about climate change. Polar bears are merely a marketing tool to spur action on climate change. That’s not my opinion but the plan put in place in 2012 by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and Polar Bears International.

Oddly, few animal rights activists are objecting (or at least, not objecting very strenuously) to zoo displays of captive polar bear cubs – obvious money-making draws for zoos – which were so vehemently condemned in the 1970s that most zoos gave them up.

Now, the practice is defended and everyone seems to feel this is the greatest thing since the invention of the telephone. [Update 19 February 2016: courtesy the BBC, we can add Highland Wildlife Park in Scotland to the list of zoos using “we’re saving the polar bears” justification for breeding the bears in captivity]

The surprise is that disgraced climate scientist Michael Mann, promoter of the infamous hockey stick of global temperatures, is involved in all this.

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Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Population

Tagged activists, ambassador, animal rights, Association of Zoos and Aquariums, breeding, captivity, climate change, climate scientist, cubs, education, facts, IUCN, Michael Mann, myths, polar bear, Polar Bears International, primer, Red list, reintroduction, sea ice, Steven Amstrup, threatened, vulnerable, zoo

Zoos use myth of disappearing polar bears to breed them in captivity

Posted on December 16, 2013 | Comments Off

Ironically, just as I was about to remind readers that we are entering the peak period of polar bear births around the Arctic (see previous post, “December is polar bear nativity month”), I came across an article about breeding polar bears in captivity — getting the bears to give birth in zoos.

Hudson the polar bear cub moved in January 2013 from the Toronto Zoo, where he was hand-raised after being rejected by his mother, to the Assiniboine Park Zoo, Winnipeg. The Assiniboine Park Zoo were also the recent recipients of a cub orphaned when its mother was shot in the aftermath of a polar bear attack in Churchill.

Hudson the polar bear cub is a zoo-born polar bear. He moved in January 2013 from the Toronto Zoo, where he was hand-raised after being rejected by his mother, to the Assiniboine Park Zoo, Winnipeg. The Assiniboine Park Zoo were also the recent recipients of a cub orphaned when its mother was shot after a polar bear attack in Churchill. Photo from Toronto Zoo.

The newspaper article I saw was all about how technically difficult the generation of polar bear cubs has been for the Toronto Zoo (Canada) but it was the premise for the breeding program itself that caught my attention: to save them from extinction.

The zoo is not waiting until the bears are down to the last few hundred (or even thousands) – no, the zoo is starting now, while polar bears are as plentiful as they have been in the last 40 years, to prepare for their demise.
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Posted in Advocacy, Population

Tagged animal activists, Assiniboine Park Zoo, captive breeding, captivity, Hudson, polar bear, polar bear births, polar bear cubs, polar bears in winter, pregnancy, Stanley Park Zoo, Toronto Zoo