Last December, researchers vigorously promoted a possible 27% decline in Western Hudson Bay (WH) polar bear abundance but kept hidden the fact that adjacent Southern Hudson Bay (SH) numbers increased by 30% over the same period.
And surprise, surprise: the bombshell SH results call into question everything the ‘experts’ have been saying about polar bears in Hudson Bay for years.
Continue readingComments Off on Polar bear researchers hiding significant increase in Southern Hudson Bay numbers
Posted in Advocacy, Population, science, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Atkinson, Foxe Basin, health, Hudson Bay, missing bears, movement of bears, Northrup, polar bear, population decline, population increase, starvation
There is irrefutable evidence from Barents and Chukchi Sea subpopulations, among others, that polar bears are fat and reproducing well despite marked declines in summer sea ice over the last two decades. These indicators of physical and reproductive health, in any species, are signs of thriving populations. However, these facts negate the premise that polar bears require abundant summer sea ice to flourish, and that creates a problem for polar bear specialists who continue to make that claim (Amstrup et al. 2007; Crockford 2017, 2019).
In other words, the assessment that polar bears are currently thriving is not based solely on estimates of a slight increase in global population size but on published data gathered from field studies on the bears’ physical and reproductive health.
Oddly, biologists repeatedly turn to data from Western Hudson Bay to drive home to the public their preferred message that polar bear health and abundance are being negatively affected by recent summer sea ice declines. However, they fail to mention that robust field data from many other regions, including the Barents and Chukchi Seas, support the opposite conclusion. Moreover, wherever possible, they mumble under their breath (or leave out entirely) the fact that poor ice conditions could not be blamed for a 27% decline in polar bear numbers in Western Hudson Bay since 2016 — because their own data showed sea ice conditions had been strong!
Continue readingComments Off on Published field study observations – not population size – prove polar bears are thriving
Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Population, Sea ice habitat
Tagged body condition, cub production, cubs, data, facts, fat bears, health, observations, polar bear, population size, survival
There is no evidence that slightly less winter sea ice than the average since 1979 has had any negative impact on polar bear health or survival: the difference is simply not biologically meaningful to Arctic animals.
Polar bear on winter sea ice around the yearly maximum in the Beaufort Sea, 2010 (March 21).
NASA’s 23 March 2018 announcement regarding the Arctic sea ice maximum this year:
“Sea ice in the Arctic grew to its annual maximum extent last week, and joined 2015, 2016 and 2017 as the four lowest maximum extents on record, according to scientists at the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and NASA.”
Except, what they don’t tell you is that 2006 had almost the same extent as 2018 and 2006 wasn’t far behind according to the official, averaged data presented at NSIDC’s Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis:
Current conditions at the winter maximum (at 17 March 2018, from NSIDC Masie, extent measured at 14.7 mkm2, using software able to discern more ice than used for the figures in Table 1), shown below: Continue reading
Comments Off on At the winter maximum, still about the same polar bear habitat this year as 2006
Posted in Sea ice habitat
Tagged Arctic, climate change, global warming, health, maximum, melting, NASA, polar bear, sea ice, survival, warm, winter
Reports from Seal River, just north of Churchill at Churchillwild, at July 26 were crowing about seeing lots of bears onshore, with a veritable beehive of activity the weekend of 16/17 July:
“This has without a doubt been Churchill Wild’s most spectacular start to the summer polar bear watching season. …Bear numbers are up spectacularly this year and all are looking very fat and healthy, perhaps much to the chagrin of climate change “experts.” Our best day for the seductive white carnivores over the past week featured 21 polar bears sighted between the Lodge and our whale swim spot!
…
The ice pack, which was still visible a week ago [i.e, 17 July or so], has finally dissipated and pushed a large number of bears on to our coastline here at Seal River, with the end result being many very happy cameras!” [my bold]
And in Churchill proper, the Polar Bear Alert program has issued three reports so far this season (courtesy the Town of Churchill), which confirm that bears in the Polar Bear Capital of the World are also in great shape.
For the week of July 11-17, 2016:
“Bears are off the sea ice and on land. They are looking well fed and in great shape.”
See all three PBA reports below, compared to one from last year at this time (as well as a map and some ice charts).
More fat, healthy bears than last year, enough to keep the Polar Bear Alert folks hopping and tourists in the north happy. Sure doesn’t sound like a suffering population to me. Continue reading
Comments Off on Polar bears off the ice in W. Hudson Bay are “well fed and in great shape” this year
Posted in Conservation Status, Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged body condition, breakup, Churchill, extirpation, health, onshore, polar bears, Seal River, threatened, western hudson bay
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