Posted onFebruary 13, 2024|Comments Off on When polar bears die, they die of starvation: new Nature paper is propaganda, not news
Is it a coincidence that a paper reporting the results of a no-news study on polar bears, but which predicts future starvation due to climate change, was published two weeks to the day ahead of a climate change marketing event made up by the activist organization Polar Bears International? I doubt it.
And do I think the high-profile journal Nature Communications would not only agree to publish such a useless bit of propaganda but also rig the timing to advance the climate change emergency narrative? Silly question. And the media worldwide are of course lapping it up, happy for an excuse to promote the perils of climate change, see here, here, and here using images of fat polar bears. Image above is from the BBC headline, 13 February 2024.
They believe this strategy is effective because they think the public is stupid, but they are deluding themselves. Most people are now laughing at their obvious acts of desperation.
Except for the lying and obfuscation that most of us have come to expect, I’ve mostly been left to reiterate that polar bears are not “canaries in the coal mine” indicators of climate change and to point out that Arctic sea ice extent and polar bear survival are not inextricably tied. For example, in some specific areas of interest, like Western Hudson Bay, there has not been a consistent decline in sea ice over the last few decades and bears are not attacking people at increased rates because they are desperately hungry. In other areas, like the Svalbard area of the western Barents Sea, sea ice has declined dramatically in recent years yet polar bears have not been attacking people more than usual.
Contradictions and failed predictions abound.
All in all, a rather boring year for the anticipated implosion of polar bear health and survival, despite my constant tracking of publicly-available information. That said, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all again for your continued support, and especially those who have donated hard-earned cash over the last few months: your support makes it possible for me to continue my work keeping polar bear science honest. Together, we have made a difference and I know it’s worth the fight. Because if we let evidence-based science die without challenge, we lose our ability to make sense of the world.
Posted onDecember 12, 2023|Comments Off on Churchill end-of-season problem polar bear reports finally published
Today the Town of Churchill finally published the final problem bear reports of the season, which presents an opportunity to do a quick comparison to recent years.
This season lasted 24 weeks, the longest I can remember but apparently only the 5th longest on record. There were a total of 265 incidents by the end of November, more than 100 less than the most recent late-freeze-up year of 2016, which didn’t end until the first week of December (after bears had spent 22 weeks onshore). However, two recent years when freeze-up didn’t come until the end of November (2017 and 2020) had far fewer incidents (more than 100 less each compared to this year).
Posted onDecember 9, 2023|Comments Off on Despite hand-wringing about Churchill polar bears this year, 2023 wasn’t their worst summer
For months, the media has been bleating about the poor polar bears of Churchill suffering from lack of sea ice blamed on human-caused climate change during the so-called ‘hottest year’ on record: in April, July, August, November, and December.
From a Churchill Wild report on the condition of WH polar bears, January 2023
However, while breakup of sea ice on Hudson Bay was indeed early this year and freeze-up came later than usual, Western Hudson polar bears apparently spent only the fifth-longest time on land since 1979, according to a polar bear specialist. How is that even possible, given that sea ice conditions should be getting worse and worse as CO2 levels increase and average global temperatures rise? As I’ve pointed out before, it is apparent that Arctic sea ice is not closely coupled to CO2 levels (as the ‘experts’ claim), which makes me wonder if there is any ecologically-relevant correlation between CO2 and sea ice at all.
Money quote from Geoff York, from Polar Bears International: “As of Nov. 28 this year, the bears in western Hudson Bay had spent 164 days on shore, he said. That’s tied for the fifth-longest amount of time the bears have spent off the ice since 1979.” CBC, 9 December 2023 [my bold]
Posted onNovember 30, 2023|Comments Off on Western Hudson Bay polar bears on their way offshore to hunt seals: freeze-up has begun
Official confirmation has come in this morning that polar bears that have spent the summer fasting along Western Hudson Bay now have enough ice to move offshore. That makes this year a bit later than usual (average is 16 November) but is not one of the extremely late freeze-ups, as happened in 1981, 2016 and 2021 when bears didn’t leave until the first week of December (Castro de la Guardia et al. 2017; Miller et al. 2022). Since breakup of sea ice came earlier than usual this summer, this means (as of 30 November) many bears will have been off the ice and without food for 166 days or 5.5 months.
Courtesy Andrew Derocher, University of Alberta, who monitors WH bears:
Close-up of the tracking map below. Note that pregnant females will stay ashore to give birth so not all of these tagged bears are expected to head onto the ice this fall to hunt for seals:
Still not a word from the Polar Bear Alert folks in Churchill, who as of today, haven’t released any of their weekly reports since 23 October 2023.
Ice Conditions in Canada
At 30 November 2023, courtesy Canadian Ice Services shows the expanding band of ice developing along the western shore of Hudson Bay but note also that the rest of the Canadian Arctic, as well as the Beaufort Sea, is completely covered in ice, as is most of Baffin Bay and Foxe Basin:
References
Abrahms, B., Carter, N.H., Clark-Wolf, T.J., et al. 2023. Climate change as a global amplifier of human–wildlife conflict. Nature Climate Change 13:224-234. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01608-5
Castro de la Guardia, L., Myers, P.G., Derocher, A.E., Lunn, N.J., Terwisscha van Scheltinga, A.D. 2017. Sea ice cycle in western Hudson Bay, Canada, from a polar bear perspective. Marine Ecology Progress Series 564: 225–233. http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v564/p225-233/
Miller, E.N., Lunn, N.J., McGeachy, D., and Derocher, A.E. 2022. Autumn migration phenology of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) in Hudson Bay, Canada. Polar Biology 45:1023-1034.
Stirling, I. and Derocher, A.E. 2012. Effects of climate warming on polar bears: a review of the evidence. Global Change Biology 18(9): 2694–2706.
Wilder, J.M., Vongraven, D., Atwood, T., et al. 2017. Polar bear attacks on humans: implications of a changing climate. Wildlife Society Bulletin 41(3):537-547. https://doi.org/10.1002/wsb.783
Comments Off on Western Hudson Bay polar bears on their way offshore to hunt seals: freeze-up has begun
Posted onNovember 16, 2023|Comments Off on Polar bear sea ice habitat update at 15 November & problem bears in Western Hudson Bay
Abundant polar bear habitat this fall across the Arctic so far, with only Hudson Bay sea ice formation a bit behind schedule. However, Churchill has not seen the anticipated spike in problem bear reports, given the vocal pronouncement by polar bear specialists that it should be experiencing more and more problems with bears when they spent more than 4 months ashore in summer and fall.
News of the most egregious attack by a bear I could find world wide this fall is shown in the video below, filmed 14 November 2023: apparently, the offending bear had spent several days displaying this offending behaviour.
Posted onOctober 26, 2023|Comments Off on Churchill so far has few problems with polar bears despite predictions of a record bad year
Despite misleading warnings in mid-August that a record number of incidents had already taken place, and that Churchill was on track for a record-number of bear problems this fall, the number of incidents and bears captured so far have been well below other years after the same number of weeks ashore. And while this is shaping up to be the longest ice-free season on record for Western Hudson Bay bears, it may not be a record year for problem bears in Churchill.
“On average, officers receive around 250 calls from residents and detain around 50 bears every year, according to statistics provided to Live Science by the Manitoba government. The record number of bears captured in a single year was 176, in 2003.” LiveScience, 16 August 2023
Posted onOctober 6, 2023|Comments Off on Feeding time for Russian polar bears as shorefast ice returns to Laptev Sea, ice-generator of the Arctic
Fall is the second-most important feeding season for polar bears after spring but it comes at different times for different subpopulations. Sea ice formation along shorelines attracts fish and seals and that means polar bears which spent the summer onshore will soon eat again after their summer fast. As usual, the earliest ice formation this year is along the coast of the Laptev Sea, which is one of the primary ‘ice-generators’ of Arctic sea ice. Western and Southern Hudson Bay bears will have longer to wait but the ice will eventually come to them too.
Three adult male polar bears share a seal kill on the newly-formed ice off Wapusk National Park, Western Hudson Bay. 5 November 2020. Buggy cam, Explore.org
Posted onAugust 30, 2023|Comments Off on W. Hudson Bay polar bear numbers declined 27% in 2021 but not because of missing ice: secret paper
As will become apparent tomorrow, Western Hudson Bay polar bear numbers apparently declined 27% between 2017 and 2021 but not because of sea ice loss. This fact, gleaned from a secret government report leaked to the media, emerged just before Christmas last year and spread around the world. I commented on it here at the time.
It will also be apparent tomorrow why that government report is still unavailable. Thursdays are when the big two science magazines publish their papers, which means associated news stores promoting preferred narratives are embargoed until then. Stay tuned.
Posted onJanuary 12, 2023|Comments Off on Recent paper on W. Hudson Bay polar bears includes new official sea ice freeze-up data
Even though it’s in graph form only, we finally have an update on sea ice freeze-up dates for Western Hudson Bay for 2016-2020 (but not breakup dates).
This graphed data published by Miller et al. 2022 extends by five years that published in 2017 by Castro de la Guardia and colleagues, which contained graphed data for breakup and freeze-up dates from 1979-2015 (with exact dates for 2005-2008 only).
It confirms a statement I made last month, that between 2016 and 2021 “there has been only one ‘late’ freeze-up year (2016)–but five very early ones.” Of course, 2021 was not included in this new dataset, so that would be “four very early ones” up to 2020.
Watch polar bear habitat reform in the Canadian Arctic: “last 10 days” Canadian Ice Service animation (works anytime) HERE.
See Quote archive for details.
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