Tag Archives: Environment Canada

Beaufort Sea polar bear subpopulation boundary has been changed

Posted on October 27, 2014 | Comments Off on Beaufort Sea polar bear subpopulation boundary has been changed

Environment Canada recently posted a set of maps on its website that show it has moved the boundary between the polar bear subpopulation it shares with the USA — without a word to the media or a note anywhere.

EC S_N Beaufort boundary change Sept 8 2014_cropped PolarBearScience

Continue reading

Comments Off on Beaufort Sea polar bear subpopulation boundary has been changed

Posted in Population

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Polar Bears International responds to “The Politics of Polar Bears”

Posted on September 4, 2014 | Comments Off on Polar Bears International responds to “The Politics of Polar Bears”

Well, sort of — what they did was provide a logical fallacy reply to an almost incoherent comment by a PBI Facebook supporter who had watched the documentary and complained of bias (such a predictable response).

See what you think, screen-cap below (taken September 3, 2014 at about 2PM Pacific Time.
[UPDATE added September 4, 2014 at 8:30PM Pacific, see below]

Continue reading

Comments Off on Polar Bears International responds to “The Politics of Polar Bears”

Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Sea ice habitat

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Furor over a tweet from the Moscow polar bear forum

Posted on December 10, 2013 | Comments Off on Furor over a tweet from the Moscow polar bear forum

The ousting of WWF and their cohorts from meetings to which they had initially been invited is the real story (so far) coming out of the International Forum on Conservation of Polar Bears (December 3-6, Moscow). However, that incident never made the mainstream media, so few people will ever know it happened.

What the public did hear about was the uproar over a tweet.

On the last day of the meeting, Canada’s Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq drove home, in less than 140 characters and a photo, the point she and her contingent had been trying to make at the meeting.

Aglukkaq tweet_Dec 5 2013
A twitter storm erupted that got really nasty — and the media picked up on it. Within hours, newspapers across Canada had themselves a story.

Continue reading

Comments Off on Furor over a tweet from the Moscow polar bear forum

Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

WWF and cohorts barred from Moscow polar bear forum

Posted on December 8, 2013 | Comments Off on WWF and cohorts barred from Moscow polar bear forum

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].

Continue reading

Comments Off on WWF and cohorts barred from Moscow polar bear forum

Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

International polar bear forum, Moscow: who’s invited

Posted on December 1, 2013 | Comments Off on International polar bear forum, Moscow: who’s invited

Re: International Forum on Conservation of Polar Bears: December 3-6, Moscow.

[Updates added Dec. 2 and Dec. 3, 2013, as noted below]

[Updated Dec. 4, 2013: Final agenda here; and as noted below]

On Tuesday, setup begins for the Moscow meeting of all Arctic nations that signed the original agreement to protect polar bears back in 1973. In my post last week, I introduced the agenda (pdf here).

I’ve also made notes on the interesting mix of folks who’ve been invited.
Continue reading

Comments Off on International polar bear forum, Moscow: who’s invited

Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,