A 2 year old male polar bear died yesterday (10 September 2020) during the sedation procedure used by Svalbard researchers. Although most polar bear research is on hold this year due to Covid-19, apparently the annual fall research in Svalbard conducted by Norwegian biologists has been able to continue.
See details of this incident below, as screen caps; entire original in English at Polar Journal. Continue reading
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Posted in Polar bear attacks, science
Tagged invasive research, Nunavut, polar bear, research, sedation, Svalbard, tranquilizer drugs
A report at CBC News (“Photo shows polar bear injured by tight radio collar,” Martin Zeilig, 28 October 2015) shows the bloodied neck of a male Southern Beaufort Sea polar bear, taken near Kaktovik, Alaska, whose radio collar is too tight.
Researchers should not be putting collars on young animals and male bears – they know the problems! Who did the USGS have working for them that did not know this – or couldn’t tell a male bear from a female? [see below] The other question is: how many more bears are in the same condition but out of sight on the sea ice – or dead due to their injuries? Don’t forget, this is a population that researchers claim is endangered because of climate change but which really declined recently due to thick spring ice in 2004-2006. [SJC – ambiguity fixed]
UPDATE 28 October 2015: 5:41 pm – in a comment under the CBC story, Churchill polar bear guide Kelsey Eliasson wrote (“4 hours ago”):
“This isn’t a he, it’s a she. Saw this bear during our trip, its a female with one cub.
Male polar bears are not radio collared.”
The statement in the CBC article that the bear with the collar is a male thus seems to be an error. That makes more sense but does not negate the suffering of the animal.
UPDATE 5 November 2015: 8:30 am – I just received an email from a reader who contacted USGS about this bear and with their permission, I have copied the response below (leaving out the USGS contact person’s details), my bold:
Hello xxxx,
I do not believe USGS banded the bear. I have talked with staff at the USGS Alaska Science Center and found that the polar bear in the news was an adult male. The USGS scientists will band female polar bears, but not male bears. If you have questions, see this site. there is a link to the staff on the left. Click it and you will see a list with the project manager at the top. http://alaska.usgs.gov/science/biology/polar_bears/tracking.html
It may be that USGS is accepting the word of one of the experts quoted in the story [Vince Crichton] that the bear is a male and have denounced their involvement on that basis. Obviously, other polar bear researchers must be working in the area, and Geoff York statements (below) suggest a crew from University of Alberta, led by Andrew Derocher. But if Kelsey Eliasson is right that this is a female with a cub (see above update), it may indeed be a USGS bear, perhaps one who’s collar has stopped transmitting. The plot thickens.
Continue reading
Comments Off on Sickening effect of satellite radio collars polar bear researchers don’t want you to see
Posted in Conservation Status
Tagged Beaufort Sea, injured, invasive research, Kaktovik, neck, PGSG, polar bear, satellite collars, Southern Beaufort, tight, USGS, western hudson bay, WWF, York
In a polite but misleading article today in a BBC magazine (The polar bears are coming to town) about the relationship of polar bears and Inuit in Arviat, Western Hudson Bay, there is no mention of the on-going feud between Nunavut Inuit and Canadian polar bear scientists regarding invasive research.
Nor is there a mention of the fact that according to the most recent research, there has been no trend in sea ice conditions since 2001.
Continue reading
Comments Off on BBC perspective on Arviat polar bears – those not included in the last mark-recapture study
Posted in Polar bear attacks, Population, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Arviat, BBC, breakup, freeze-up, invasive research, Lunn, mark-recapture, Nunavut, polar bear, sea ice, Tyrrell, western hudson bay
Apparently, some biologists think that outputs from complex computer models will convince native Arctic residents that invasive mark-recapture work has no long-term effect on the health and well-being of polar bears.
Photo by Jake Steven Arnatsiaq. Original here.
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Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Amstrup, Bromaghin, Government of Nunavut, handling, Inuit, invasive research, mark-recapture, models, observations, Peacock, polar bear, Rode, satellite collars, tranquilizer drugs
What exactly are Western Hudson Bay (WHB) polar bear researchers hiding? Since 2004, research on the body condition and cub production of Western Hudson Bay (WHB) polar bears has been carried out but none of the results of these mark-recapture studies have been made public.
The researchers all claim that WHB polar bears are struggling to survive because of recent sea ice changes but won’t release the 10 years worth of updated information they possess on the bears or the sea ice.
Comments Off on Polar bear biologists doing mark-recapture work in Hudson Bay may have misled the world
Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Population, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Amstrup, body condition, climate change, cub mortality, Derocher, global warming, invasive research, litter size, Lunn, mark-recapture, misinformation, photo ops, polar bear, polar bear survival, polar bear week, Polar Bears International, population estimate, propaganda, vital rates, western hudson bay
Inuit residents of Cambridge Bay in the Central Canadian Arctic are resisting requests by the Nunavut Government to tranquilize, collar and tag polar bears to assist in their population survey.
“A female polar bear and her two cubs dash across the ice near Gjoa Haven, where the polar bear hunt has been limited for nearly 15 years. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)” Story here, also by Jane George.
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Posted in Conservation Status, Population
Tagged aerial survey, Cambridge Bay, counting bears, Gulf of Boothia, handling, Inuit, invasive research, M'Clintock Channel, mark-recapture, Markus Dyck, Nunavut, polar bear, population surveys, tranquilizer drugs
This is a guest post by Kelsey Eliasson, who blogs at Polarbearalley, with his thoughts on the issue of the invasive research involved in polar bear mark-recapture studies around Churchill, Manitoba — which, as you’ll see, is a far different situation than I described for Nunavut (previous posts here, here, and here on this topic. Map below to get you oriented).
Kelsey is a writer, artist and polar bear guide who has spent 14 bear seasons watching the polar bears of Churchill. For five years, he ran Churchill’s monthly newspaper published occasionally, the Hudson Bay Post. Currently, he divides his year between the Yukon, Churchill and, occasionally, Riverton, home of Manitoba’s largest moose statue.
Churchill lies in the Western Hudson Bay (WHB) polar bear subpopulation, governed by the Province of Manitoba, while the community of Arviat, also in the Western Hudson Bay subpopulation, is overseen by the Government of Nunavut – different governments, different rules – as Kelsey points out below.
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Invasive Research is Alive and Well in Canada, by Kelsey Eliasson
The recent post about Foxe Basin was of particular interest to me, as I have been following the growing gap between the north and science for some time now. The stance taken by the Inuit is viewed as an inspiration by the guides over here in Churchill. For many years, we have tried to voice our deep concerns over the levels of handling and drugging that our bears (the Western Hudson Bay population) are subjected to on an annual basis.
This time last year, I tried to raise the topic for discussion after Andrew Derocher announced that ‘everything was on the table’ including feeding bears. At that time, the top polar bear researchers had sat down to discuss options for saving bears – except reducing handling and research – i.e. chasing bears down by helicopter and then shooting them with tranquilizers. Continue reading
Comments Off on Guest Post: Invasive Research is Alive and Well in Canada
Posted in Guest post, Population
Tagged Churchill, Derocher, failed collars, helicopters, invasive research, Kelsey Eliasson, Manitoba, mark-recapture, Nunavut, objections to mark-recapture, polar bear, PolarBearAlley, satellite collars, Stirling, Telazol, tranquilizer drugs, western hudson bay
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