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Even with Inuit lives at stake, polar bear specialists make unsupported claims

Posted on April 23, 2019 | Comments Off

The standoff between Inuit and polar bear specialists regarding the status of polar bears in Canada is not going to end until someone in authority demands to see the data scientists insist contradict Inuit knowledge.

Macleans to kill a polar bear headline 21 April 2019

An article in Maclean’s Magazine (15 April 2019), entitled “To Kill a Polar Bear”, explores some of the feelings and opinions of folks involved but fails to ask whether the data support the rhetoric advanced by scientists. Author Aaron Hutchins takes the scientists at their word, that seeing more bears than 20 years ago is all because of lack of sea ice. However, from what I’ve seen, he might as well trust a fox in a hen house.

Ian Stirling is quoted by Hutchins insisting that polar bears in Western Hudson Bay continue to suffer from the effects of declining sea ice, without mentioning that ice cover has been essentially static on Hudson Bay since at least 2001 (Castro de la Guardia et al. 2017; Lunn et al. 2016) and fall freeze up dates for the last two years were earlier than most years in the 1980s:

“This year saw the seventh-lowest Arctic sea ice levels since the National Snow and Ice Data Center ﬁrst started gathering satellite data 40 years ago, with the long-term trend clearly downwards. And the negative effects on polar bears can be clearly seen in the science, says Stirling, pointing to the closely studied subpopulation along western Hudson Bay: “They’re losing body condition. Reproductive rates have dropped. Survival rates of young have plummeted. Every indication you would expect from a declining population is there.”

However, as I’ve pointed out previously (last year and in 2012), there are no recent data published that support these claims: the only information that exists is at least 25 years old. And the fact that no such data have been published suggests strongly that it either does not exist or does not show what Stirling claims it shows.

Yet, the government of Canada is willing to bet the lives of Inuit on their belief that polar bear specialists would never stretch the truth to qualify for government grants.

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Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Polar bear attacks, Population, Sea ice habitat

Tagged attacks, conservation, declining, fatalities, government, Inuit, Maclean's, polar bear, problem bears, scientists, sea ice, status, too many bears

Polar bears walking the streets on Novaya Zemlya are habituated garbage bears, not victims of climate change

Posted on February 14, 2019 | Comments Off

What a bunch of sensationalist claptrap about the polar bears on Novaya Zemlya but I guess it sells papers and raises donations (WWF and PBI, I mean you).¹

Nilsen_when the internet came to Novaya Zemlya_cites my blog post_14 Feb 2019

Seriously, if the bears were coming for us, people in Belushaya Guba would have died already, probably EATEN. These particular bears know there is stored food and refuse available that does not come packaged in human form and they know from experience that humans won’t hurt them. As I pointed out in my last post, these bears have known this since early December, when they chose to stay on land over the winter and ignored the sea ice when it arrived.

Lack of sea ice is not the problem here. These are habituated garbage bears that are no longer safe to have around: the responsible option is to shoot them. It’s harsh, I know, but the population will recover from the loss.

Belushaya Guba garbage dump_Daily Mail_11 Feb 2019

If you suddenly cut off their passive food supply (fence or close the dump, deal more carefully with individual refuse and stored food), all of these bears in the photos and videos being flashed across the Internet will become desperate and truly dangerous. Remember, just last summer an emaciated, desperate bear almost killed a cruise ship guard: he had a loaded gun and was actively looking for bears, yet the bear managed to ambush him. He’d have died if he’d been alone.

Of course the refuse and stored food problem needs to be dealt with, in Belushaya Guba and elsewhere across the Arctic, but these particular bears cannot be saved. Cleaning up these issues takes time, coordination, and money. Ask Churchill, Manitoba, who for years wrestled with these issues before a workable solution was agreed upon. And while few Arctic communities can afford to do it the Churchill way, virtually all must contend with the very real threat of polar bears both inside and outside their communities. Ask the Inuit of Arviat and Naujaat, who each lost a young man last summer to a predatory attack by a polar bear that happened well outside their respective villages and where lack of sea ice was not an issue.

Blaming this on climate change is the Paul Nicklen starving polar bear video all over again. You remember the one, the video that National Geographic got so much push-back about that they had to make a public apology for spreading misinformation?