Tag Archives: global warming

Mass haulouts of female Pacific walrus as a sign of population health

Posted on October 7, 2014 | Comments Off

Mass haulouts of female Pacific walrus and their calves in fall don’t happen all the time but they do occur. I recently pointed out (here and here) two instances of such incidents from the 1970s.

I said this provided evidence that the September 2014 incident reported in the media was not “a new phenomenon” for this region, as WWF spokepersons and Alaskan biologists have claimed (reiterated in this PBS interview).

Figure 1. Walrus females and calves hauled out on a beach in Svalbard, photo accompanying an October 6, 2014 news report in “Eye on the Arctic” of the rapidly increasing Atlantic walrus population there. (Photo: Thomas Nilsen, Barents Observer).

One aspect of the recent occurrence of a large herd on an Alaskan beach that apparently needs reiterating is that the population of walruses declined rather markedly after a 1970s peak and has rebounded since. This suggests that huge herds of females and calves hauling out on beaches in the fall to feed might only be seen when the population is very large.
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Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat, walrus

Tagged carrying capacity, Chukchi Sea, climate change, females and calves, global warming, haulouts, mass gatherings, mass mortality, migration, polar bear prey, population size, sea ice declines, stampede, walrus

High walrus numbers may explain why females and calves are hauling out in droves

Posted on October 4, 2014 | Comments Off

Are the recent mass gatherings of females and calves on the beaches of western Alaska and the Russian Far East a sign that population are again close to the limit the habitat can support, as they were in the 1970s?

At the risk of belabouring the point that lack of sea ice does not seem to be a reasonable explanation for this phenomenon (see my last two posts, here and here, and Andrew Montford’s excellent additions here), I think this is a possibility that needs to be considered.

Walruses at Point Lay Sept 27 2014 NOAA CMDA0007_sm

2014 Point Lay, NOAA photo

Walrus are well protected in the US and Russia, and population numbers have risen again since the 1990s, after significant declines in the early 1900s and again in the 1980s.

A paper from the late 1980s suggests that a return to high population numbers may be a more plausible cause for mass gatherings of females and calves that lead to stampede deaths than does reduced sea ice due to global warming.

Have a look and see what you think. It may not be the only reason but it may be a major contributing factor.

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Posted in Advocacy, Sea ice habitat, walrus

Tagged carrying capacity, Chukchi Sea, climate change, females and calves, global warming, haulouts, mass gatherings, mass mortality, polar bear prey, sea ice declines, stampede, walrus

Mass gatherings of walrus follow-up – sea ice maps for 1978 and 1972

Posted on October 2, 2014 | Comments Off

Walruses as polar bear prey and sea ice were on my mind last night and I remembered that we DO have detailed sea ice information for 1978 and 1972 – from the sea ice atlas put together by University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), which has ice concentration maps for Alaska going back to 1850 — and for every year up to 2013 (reported previously here).

Chukchi Sea walrus, June 2014. US Fish and Wildlife Service.

I’ve copied some of the ice maps below.

It is clear that ice was available close to Wrangel Island in 1972 when walruses chose to haul out on the island in huge numbers. And in 1978, there was ice present to the north of the walrus herd, but they had moved away from the ice to get to St. Lawrence Island, where they hauled out in large numbers.

This means it is more likely that food resources were the issue, not sea ice.
UPDATE OCTOBER 3 2014:

See another interesting follow-up elsewhere: Walrus inconsistencies
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Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat, walrus

Tagged Chukchi Sea, climate change, Fay, global warming, ice levels, Kelly, mass mortality, Point Lay, sea ice atlas, sea ice declines, sea ice maps, St. Lawrence Island, stampede, UAF, walus, Wrangel Island, WWF

Mass haulouts of Pacific walrus and stampede deaths are not new, not due to low ice cover

Posted on October 1, 2014 | Comments Off

Large haulouts of walruses — such as the one making news at Point Lay, Alaska on the Chukchi Sea (and which happened before back in 2009) — are not a new phenomenon for this region over the last 45 years and thus cannot be due to low sea ice levels. Nor are deaths by stampede within these herds (composed primarily of females and their young) unusual, as a brief search of the literature reveals.

The attempts by WWF and others to link this event to global warming is self-serving nonsense that has nothing to do with science.

UPDATE October 3, 2014: See below. Also, do see follow-up posts here, here, and especially, here.

UPDATE October 23, 2014: A briefing paper summary is here and a video version of that paper (“The Walrus Fuss” — 3 1/2 minutes long) here.

There is also a follow-up post on the situation here.

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Posted in Advocacy, Sea ice habitat, walrus

Tagged Chukchi Sea, climate change, Fay, global warming, ice levels, Kelly, mass mortality, Point Lay, sea ice declines, St. Lawrence Island, stampede, walus, WWF

About the time I asked a challenging question at a global warming workshop

Posted on September 24, 2014 | Comments Off

When you really want to challenge a speaker at a scientific meeting or public lecture, deciding what’s the best question to ask is often difficult. Here’s an example that might inspire you.

In 2009, I asked polar bear biologist Lily Peacock what appeared to be an innocuous question about Foxe Basin sea ice¹ at a scientific workshop that got everyone’s attention.

The question — and the reaction — might surprise you.

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Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Sea ice habitat

Tagged Arctic marine mammals, breakup, Foxe Basin, global warming, Hudson Bay, International Polar Year, late breakup, Peacock, polar bear ecology, polar bears, public lectures, scientific meetings, sea ice, Society for Marine Mammalogy, spring sea ice, Stirling, workshop

“The Politics of Polar Bears” lengthy excerpt airs across Canada – cue the outrage

Posted on September 3, 2014 | Comments Off

Umbrage alert! Last night, a half-length short form of the powerful and balanced documentary “The Politics of Polar Bears” aired across Canada on the CBC’s flagship TV news program, The National.

Right after it aired, they followed up with a lengthy online summary by the producer of the film, Reg Sherren (“Polar bears: Threatened species or political pawn?”, September 2, with video of the 19 minute short program). Check out the comments below it! Excerpts and my comments below.

[Links to the full length film here and in my previous posts here and here]

UPDATED April 27 2015: Video now available on Youtube, imbedded below Full length video no longer available, short one at CBC here.

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Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Population

Tagged CBC, Derocher, documentary, endangered, global warming, Mitch Taylor, polar bear, politics of polar bears, population estimate, predictions, Reg Sherren, sea ice, The National, threatened, video, warm interglacials, western hudson bay

Polar bears and melting ice: three facts that shouldn’t surprise you

Posted on July 20, 2014 | Comments Off

If I was invited by USA TODAY to discuss how climate change is affecting polar bears now – summed up in three talking points – this is what I’d say. I’d use some meaningful images rather than cute pictures of cuddly bear cubs and I’d provide links to my work with references and details to back up my answers.

Compare my responses to those supplied by Steve Amstrup in his capacity as spokesperson for Polar Bears International (“Save our sea ice!”) to Jolie Lee at USA TODAY last week, who’s word is expected to be taken as gospel.

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Posted in Advocacy, Cannibalism, Polar bear attacks

Tagged Amstrup, Arviat, cannibalism, climate change, disappearing population, fasting, global warming, hibernation, human-bear conflicts, melting ice, polar bear, polar bear attacks, starving bears, Stirling

Are Polar Bears Really Endangered?

Posted on July 5, 2014 | Comments Off

Christina Wu at the Urban Times (July 3, 2014) recently asked this question. She came up with a surprisingly balanced argument but some predictable responses from IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) biologists. As a consequence, she overlooked some critical facts that make a big difference to the answer.

Figure 1. Are polar bears really endangered? The US Fish and Wildlife Service thinks so, but only because Steven Amstrup, based on a computer model projecting sea ice out to 2050, said so (Amstrup et al. 2007). This information has been used by the Center for Biological Diversity and other NGOs, like WWF and Polar Bears International (where Amstrup is now employed), to solicit donations.

Figure 1. Predictions of polar bear population declines by 2050 are being used by the Center for Biological Diversity, WWF and Polar Bears International to solicit donations.

UPDATED 18 May 2015 – see below.

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Posted in Conservation Status, Population

Tagged Amstrup, Center for Biological Diversity, Chukchi Sea, computer models, endangered species, global warming, IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group, more polar bears, PBSG, Peacock, polar bear, population increase, predictions, sea ice decline, Southern Hudson Bay, threatened with extinction, western hudson bay, York

Polar Bear Specialist Group just had another secret meeting

Posted on July 1, 2014 | Comments Off

Well, well, well — it looks the Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) just had itself another secret meeting with some extra special guests.

Polar bear scientists and PBSG-approved activists got together a few weeks ago (June 9-13), with no notice beforehand, “to continue discussions how (sic) to solve issues of future capacity.”

This was their “second intersessional members-only meeting in a row” (the first one was in October 2012), but they still haven’t had their regular, now long-overdue, “working meeting.” [they had the last one in 2009].

I came upon a notice about this meeting on the PBSG website, which apparently went up June 26, while looking for something else. There has been nothing about it in the media that I’ve seen.

And guess who were “invited specialists” at this meeting of “members-only,” called “to discuss internal matters crucial for the future functioning and capacity of the group”?

Three “climate scientists“!

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Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Population

Tagged climate change, climate scientists, global warming, Jennifer Kay, Marika Holland, Mark Serreze, PGSG, polar bear, polar bear estimates, Polar Bear Specialist Group, Russia, TEK, traditional ecological knowledge

Center for Biological Diversity provides a public disservice on polar bear status

Posted on June 18, 2014 | Comments Off

Media agency Aljazeera gave free advertizing the other day (June 16, 2014, “New TV ads focus on plight of polar bears in warming world,” by Renee Lewis) to the Center for Biological Diversity’s TV fear-mongering campaign about polar bears.