Tag Archives: Greenland

Newly-discovered SE Greenland polar bear subpopulation: another assumption proven false

Posted on June 16, 2022 | Comments Off on Newly-discovered SE Greenland polar bear subpopulation: another assumption proven false

Researchers have discovered that the 300 or so polar bears living in SE Greenland (below 64 degrees N) are so genetically distinct and geographically isolated that they qualify as a unique subpopulation, adding one more to the 19 subpopulations currently described by the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group.

NASA photo, SE Greenland glacier-front habitat with a polar bear and two cubs.

Previously, polar bear researchers simply assumed all of the bears in East Greenland were part of the same subpopulation but no field work had been conducted in the extreme southern area until 2015-2017. When they included this region, they got a big surprise: now they are spinning it as significant for polar bear conservation (Laidre et al. 2022).

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False starving polar bear meme from 2019 making social media rounds with Greenland added

Posted on January 17, 2022 | Comments Off on False starving polar bear meme from 2019 making social media rounds with Greenland added

I have discovered that an entirely false meme has been circulating social media. For the record, here it is with an explanation of what’s wrong with it, which is everything.

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Polar bear attack in Greenland gratuitously blamed on recent ‘heat wave’

Posted on August 4, 2021 | Comments Off on Polar bear attack in Greenland gratuitously blamed on recent ‘heat wave’

A polar bear bit the hand of a member of a film crew near the Danish military base of Daneborg in East Greenland on Monday (2 August) and predictably, this has been blamed on recent warm temperatures in the region. There is no specific evidence of cause and effect, of course. The news outlet reporting the incident cites some non-specified ‘experts’ as providing the generic ‘warming makes polar bears starve or behave badly’ excuse that makes no sense in this particular instance.

Here is what the news report had to say (3 Aug), my emphasis:

Early on Monday, while the sun does not set in summer at this latitude, the bear poked his head through a poorly closed window of a research station where the documentary team was staying about 400 metres from the small base of Daneborg.

A Danish Arctic military unit based in Greenland said the bear bit the hand of one of the three male team members before they used warning pistols to force the animal to flee.

Transported first to Daneborg, the injured documentary maker had to be evacuated to Akureyri, a town in Iceland.

Already blamed for five incidents until now, the bear returned again later in the morning and then again overnight Monday to Tuesday when it broke a window of the research station before fleeing.

“The local authorities have from now on categorised the bear as ‘problematic,’ which allows for it to be shot dead, if it returns,” the Danish military unit said.

Daneborg is marked on the map below:

Any bear causing problems in this region would have just come off the ice, since three weeks ago there was plenty of ice available offshore a bit to the north (see chart below for 7 July). Virtually all bears are at their best condition at this time of year, except for young, inexperienced bears or those that are sick or injured. Warm temperatures would not be causing any bear to be desperately looking for food unless it was desperate for some other reason (sick, injured, or an under-nourished young bear). However, nothing is stated in this report about the physical condition of the bear, its approximate age or its sex, even though it has been seen multiple times. Young male bears, for example, are far more likely to become problems near communities than any other age class (Wilder et al. 2017), because these bears have to compete with older, larger bears to keep whatever seals they manage to kill.

Note the reliance on un-named ‘experts’ at the end of the same news report:

Experts say the retreat of the ice pack, the hunting ground of the polar bear, forces them to stay on land more often and they find it harder to find food and sustain a species already considered vulnerable.

Although still rare, the close encounters with humans are increasing as bears more frequently approach inhabited areas in their search for food, environmental protection officers say.

What generic pap! The community has a problem bear on its hands, a situation which northern communities across the Arctic must contend with on a continual basis. Even if there was ice offshore, there would be the possibility of bears coming ashore and causing problems.

There is also the issue no one wants to talk about because it has nothing to do with declining sea ice: with more bears comes more problem bears.

References

Wilder, J.M., Vongraven, D., Atwood, T., Hansen, B., Jessen, A., Kochnev, A., York, G., Vallender, R., Hedman, D. and Gibbons, M. 2017. Polar bear attacks on humans: implications of a changing climate. Wildlife Society Bulletin, in press. DOI: 10.1002/wsb.783 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wsb.783/full

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New paper says Baffin Bay polar bears may have been affected by less summer sea ice

Posted on February 5, 2020 | Comments Off on New paper says Baffin Bay polar bears may have been affected by less summer sea ice

A new paper on Baffin Bay polar bears reports data on body condition and litter sizes collected as part of a major study of the region completed in 2013 compared to sea ice declines since the 1990s; based on a computer model, the authors predict that in 37 years time (if sea ice declines continuously), the incidence of twin litters could “largely disappear.” However, no decline in population numbers was predicted and a critical caveat acknowledges that factors other than changes in sea ice could have affected the body condition and litter size data the authors analyzed, which means the conclusions are scientifically inconclusive.

polarbearatthulerobindavies-500x349-sm

Fat polar bear, summer 2012 near Thule, NW Greenland (Baffin Bay subpopulation). Robin Davies photo.

The last (2013) polar bear population survey of Baffin Bay (SWG 2016) generated an estimate of almost 3,000 (2,826; range 2,059-3,593), which means that regardless of some slight changes in body condition and litter size over the last two decades (which may or may not have been caused by loss of sea ice), there are currently a lot of bears in Baffin Bay.

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Sea ice silly season: Wadhams spouts fake facts about polar bears of northern Greenland

Posted on August 22, 2018 | Comments Off on Sea ice silly season: Wadhams spouts fake facts about polar bears of northern Greenland

As the seasonal minimum for Arctic sea ice approaches, the media get carried away by hyperbole. Tha’t been true since 2007. This year, other outlets will need to work hard to beat yesterday’s bit of nonsense from The Independent trying to out-do The Guardian: it not only includes false polar bear facts (from sea ice researcher Peter Wadhams) but leads with last year’s controversial SeaLegacy video of an emaciated polar bear. Sea ice silly season has truly begun.

East Greenland Scorsby Sound March 2011 on Kap Tobin_Rune Dietz_press photo

Wadhams (described as “one of the UK’s leading sea ice scientists” although not a particularly respected one) was interviewed about the small area of open water that opened up over the last few days in northern Greenland (see NSIDC photo below), driven by offshore winds (not melt). This region is the eastern-most part of the area that is considered the “last holdout” for Arctic sea ice: an immense band of very thick (4-20m) multiyear ice that stretches across the Arctic Ocean shores of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

The open water is expected to last a few days at most but Wadhams was absolutely breathless with dire warnings of what this might mean for the future of polar bear in the region (about which he knows nothing), rhetoric ramped up even further by the news outlet with quotes from co-director of the Grantham Institute (London), Martin Siegert, and predictions on how low the sea ice minimum might be.

Greenland north open water_13 Aug 2018 NASA_NSIDC 15 Aug 2018 report

Cape Morris Jesup on 13 August 2018. W. Meier, NSIDC/NASA.

I think this is a truly spectacular example of the ignorance of scientists speaking outside their area of expertise used to mislead the public but decide for yourself.

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Histrionics over Arctic temperatures & sea ice extent: implications for polar bears

Posted on February 25, 2018 | Comments Off on Histrionics over Arctic temperatures & sea ice extent: implications for polar bears

Panic over Arctic temperatures got smeared across news networks last week, so I think a bit of perspective is in order, including an assessment of what this means for polar bears and their prey (because some of the hysteria is being amplified from that corner).

The region causing all the kerfuffle is at the northernmost tip of Greenland (see map below), where there is a weather station at Cape Morris Jesup. Next-nearest stations are at Alert, Canada (to the west) and Longyearbyen, Svalbard (Norway, to the east).

Cape Morris Jesup location Greenland_Google map

Arctic temps spike over 30 degrees in the midst of winter (The Weathern Network, Friday, February 23, 2018) included the tweet below, showing a fracture of sea ice north of Greenland so transient that it does not show up on daily sea ice maps:

“Along with those spikes in temperature, Lars Kaleschke’s tweet, above, also shows the large rift in the sea ice that opened up just north of Cape Morris Jesup, at the same time. Kaleschke is a professor of sea ice remote sensing at the Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability, at the University of Hamburg, in Germany.“

Summary: Temperature and sea ice “abberations” in northern Greenland are transient phenomena that have clearly happened before (e.g. 2011) without major consequences except perhaps through impacts on eastern Arctic and subArctic weather conditions (including the UK).

Lack of sea ice north of Svalbard in the Barents Sea occuried last year and in 2012 in Februrary. But by mid-to-late March, when seal are beginning to give birth on the ice and polar bears are busy hunting them, ice had again covered the region. This year is likely to be the same. However, we won’t know until the end of March or ealry April if a recovery will or won’t happen, so any alarm-ringing about impacts on Arctic fauna surival have no foundation in fact until then.

East Greenland Scorsby Sound March 2011 on Kap Tobin_Rune Dietz_press photo

Scorsby Sound, East Greenland bear in March 2011. Rune Dietz, press photo.

In the Bering Sea, ice extent is well below average for this time of year but studies show the one consistent feature of Bering Sea ice is its variability. Low ice levels have distressing impacts for St. Lawrence island seal and whale hunters. However, there is certainly enough ice in the Bering Sea/Chukchi Sea region for polar bears and Arctic seals to do what they do this time of year (which is try to survive until early April, at which time seals start giving birth to their pups and polar bears start to eat them, with gusto). And the ice season isn’t over: maximum extent of ice in the Bering sea doesn’t usually come until late April or May, and the dramatic decline of mid-February already shows signs of reversing.

Details below this ice map for 24 February 2018, courtesy NSIDC Masie:

masie_all_zoom_4km 2018 Feb 24

PS. I’m off within hours to Toronto for the launch of my State of the Polar Bear Report in honour of International Polar Bear Day, 27 February. Watch for reports in the news and for my op-ed 27 February at the Financial Post.

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Horse killed by a polar bear in southern Greenland this week

Posted on February 19, 2016 | Comments Off on Horse killed by a polar bear in southern Greenland this week

“Until Wednesday, Malik Frederiksen owned nine horses at his property in southern Greenland. After an attack by a polar bear, he now owns eight.”

Nanortalik Greenland_in context Google maps

So begins an article published in The Arctic Journal yesterday (18 February) about more problem bears onshore in mid-winter. But this time, the location is the south-west tip of Greenland and this time, the polar bear killed something before it was shot. It could just as easily have been a person.

In addition, according to this report, this is the second time in two days that a polar bear has been shot onshore in Greenland because it got too close for comfort.

It’s also the second report in as many weeks of multiple polar bears onshore causing problems in the middle of winter – the other reports were from southern Labrador in late January/early February.  This is a new pattern: it’s different and it means something. Continue reading

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The 32,000 population estimate for polar bears is not an error due to counting overlapping territories twice

Posted on January 9, 2013 | Comments Off on The 32,000 population estimate for polar bears is not an error due to counting overlapping territories twice

UPDATE FEBRUARY 19, 2014 – The misleading “State of the Polar Bear” graphic is now GONE (as of January 31, 2014). A new 2013 status table is offered by the PBSG here. It has detailed text explanations and harvest information, with references, hyperlinked to each subpopulation entry (“Press the subpopulation hyperlink and more information will appear“) and may have replaced the “State of the Polar Bear” graphic that the PBSG commissioned for upwards of US$50,000, although the PBSG website says it is being “updated” [A pdf copy of the 2013 colour table is here, and my commentary on it is here.] I have left the original post as is, below.

[UPDATE April 1, 2013: see updates here and here ]

This is a brief follow-up to my last post.

I got an email from a reader suggesting that the high numbers for the world’s polar bear population, as given by the Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) on their website in their State of the Polar Bear (SoPB) summary feature – as tallied by nation (22,600-32,000) – may simply be an error resulting from counting overlapping territories twice (i.e. where a subpopulation with one population estimate is shared by two nations, the total amount has been attributed to each nation, rather than giving each of them half of the total).

That is not the case and I’ll tell you why.

If you haven’t yet seen the last post, pop back and have a look – it’s short.

Then note the following:
1) Re: the numbers given for Russia (given as 2,700-4,800 in SoPB-by-nation). Russia has three subpopulations of polar bears: Chukchi (shared with the USA), Kara Sea and Laptev Sea. See previous post here on these estimates by the PBSG.

Chukchi officially has a population of zero because it has never been surveyed. The same is true for the Kara Sea: its population is officially zero and always has been. The Laptev Sea is given a tentative estimate of 800-1,200 in most subpopulation estimates but on the “State of the Polar Bear” summary, it is given as zero. Thus, at the very most, the total for Russia could be 800-1,200.

Conclusion: the estimate of 2,700-4,800 for the Chukchi Sea is not a result of an overlap in count. It’s a new number and there is no information given about where it comes from (it’s remotely possible that the SoPB-by-nation number comes from a recent survey of the Chukchi Sea, see previous post here, but that number has not been made public and the study results have not yet been published).

2) Re: numbers for the USA (given as 1,200-1,800 in SoPB-by-nation). The US has two subpopulations: Southern Beaufort (which it shares with Canada) and the Chukchi Sea (which it shares with Russia). The number usually given for the Southern Beaufort is 1,200-1,800 – so the US share is something like 600-900. While the US shares the Chukchi population with Russia, the Chukchi has never been surveyed – its population is officially zero (half of zero is still zero).

Conclusion: if there has been any “doubling up” going on, it is here. The official (documented) number for the US should be about 600-900.

3) Re: numbers for Greenland (given as 3,500-4,400 in SoPB-by-nation). East Greenland has never been surveyed and the official estimate for that subpopulation is zero. West Greenland comprises three polar bear subpopulations that it shares with Canada: Baffin Bay (total count 1,544-2,604), Davis Strait (total count 1,811-2,534) and Kane Basin (total count 94-234). That comes to 3,449-5,372. Conclusion: if there had been a “doubling” of shared population numbers, the number for Greenland should have been listed in the SoPB-by-nation map as 3,449-5,372 (not 3,500-4,400).

The estimate for the world’s polar bear population, as given by the Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) on their website in their State of the Polar Bear summary feature – as tallied by nation (22,600-32,000) – is not simply an error resulting from counting overlapping territories twice.

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