Tag Archives: desperate

More starving polar bear nonsense from National Geographic & a better video to watch

This time National Geographic’s ‘Hostile Planet’ series laughably claims a fat polar bear that’s caught a beluga calf off the coast of Western Hudson Bay has been saved from starvation! The message: here is a prime example of climate change pushing a species to its limit. This is nonsense, of course: polar bears hunting beluga whales from rocks has nothing to do with climate change or desperately hungry bears. More importantly, there is a much better video of the action that is both more informative and truthful.
Polar bear hunting beluga_Nat Geo 11 April Hostile Planet clip starving

See both below and decide which you’d prefer your kids or grandkids to watch.

Continue reading

Attenborough’s tragedy porn of walruses plunging to their deaths because of climate change is contrived nonsense

A recent Netflix ‘Our Planet’ program with David Attenborough delivering a disturbing message of doom about walruses falling off a cliff to their deaths because of climate change is contrived nonsense on par with the bogus National Geographic starving polar bear video of 2017.  The walruses shown in this Netflix film were almost certainly driven over the cliff by polar bears during a well-publicized incident in 2017, not because they were “confused by a combination of shrinking ice cover and their own poor eyesight“.

Walrus plunging cliff_The Sun headline 5 April 2019

Apologies for neglecting to add, h/t to Charles the Moderator from WUWT!

UPDATE 8 April 2019: Falling off cliffs is not a new phenomenon. Here is video of US Fish and Wildlife officials in 1994 trying to explain a situation where walruses are falling even without the impetus from polar bears, at Cape Pierce in the southern Bering Sea (a haulout for adult males during the ice-free season). Explanation? Overcrowding (too many walruses)! h/t to Mark Sullivan.

Also, see this 8 April 2019 piece from The Atlantic that confirms the ‘Our Planet’ footage was filmed in 2017, and that “the sequence includes footage from two separate beaches—one with the 100,000-strong congregation and one with the falls.”

UPDATE 9 April 2019: For the details on why the two events described below (the one filmed by Attenborough’s ‘Our Planet’ crew and the event reported by the Siberian Times in 2017) are almost certainly one and the same, see Andrew Montford’s post at The Spectator. The Global Warming Policy Foundation has issued a press release.

UPDATE 14 April 2019: New details show that the film crew are still lying about the walrus death event in the Netflix ‘Our Planet’ episode, summarized by me here.

Continue reading

Kaktovik, AK has a polar bear problem but not because bears are desperate for food

PBS has published a bizarre poor-starving-polar-bears story that uses pictures of fat, healthy bears to illustrate the supposed desperation of malnourished bears of the Southern Beaufort Sea that is blamed on declining sea ice.

pbs-newshour-headline_15-october-2016

The photo of the fat bear above, taken by the Kaktovik resident quoted in the 15 October 2016 PBS story, Polar bears, growing desperate for food, threaten native Alaskans, accompanies this statement:

“While images of malnourished polar bears have become a national symbol of the effects of climate change, they are a front line reality for Native Alaskans, who face them on their own property and do not want them to get hurt.”

Except this is not a story about starving bears but too many fat bears hanging around one particular community looking for other kinds of food – after being lured in by the enticing smell of rotting whale meat left onshore by the residents.

If photos of starving Beaufort bears existed that PBS could have used to illustrate this story, I’m certain those photos would have been used. But virtually all of the pictures I’ve seen of Kaktovik bears are the epitome of health – fat and sassy – but none that could be described as starving.

polar_bear-US FWS_young bear Alaska maybe Kaktovik no date.jpg

It turns out that while native Kaktovik residents have profited from tourists and journalist who have shown up in droves to view the large numbers of bears attracted to the bone piles left after butchering summer-caught bowhead whales, the bears have also put the community at risk of personal attack and loss of stored food. Who would have thought?

Residents of Kaktovik (see map below) have unwittingly enticed these polar bears ashore and now must deal with the consequences. As the residents of Churchill discovered decades ago, having polar bears close to your community comes with benefits, problems – and danger.

kaktovik-composite

There is no doubt that Kaktovik has a polar bear problem but it cannot plausibly be blamed on anthropogenic global warming, retreating sea ice, or starving bears – an irresistible attractant close to the community is the cause and solutions must be found to keep residents safe and their food secure. The PBS article discusses a few of those solutions. Some quotes and background below.

Continue reading