Another pronouncement from conservation activists at Polar Bears International taken without a single check of facts makes the BBC look ineffective and gullible.
The photo above of a ‘green dot’ bear was taken 10 November 2022 by a Churchill resident. Bears released from the ‘polar bear jail’ when there is enough sea ice for them to resume hunting are marked with a green dot.
Continue readingComments Off on No evidence for BBC claim that Churchill is simply getting too warm for polar bears
Posted in Advocacy, Uncategorized
Tagged activist, Amstrup, Churchil, models, PBI, polar bear, Polar Bears International, sea ice, western hudson bay
Hudson Bay has been oddly slow to freeze this year, which has led to a predictable bit of hand-wringing from certain biologists reiterating prophesies of polar bear population collapse. However, since 2009, the last time that freeze-up was anywhere near this late was 2016. In other words, far from this years’ late freeze-up being a picture of ‘the new normal,’ conditions in 2021 are actually unusual compared to the last twelve years.
Moreover, considering that 2021 fall ice formation for the Arctic in general is well ahead of 2016 (and every year since, except 2018), it’s hard to see why human-caused global warming caused by ever-increasing CO2 emissions explains the slow freeze-up of Hudson Bay. Timing of Hudson Bay freeze-up has always been highly variable from one year to the next (Castro de la Guardia et al. 2017: Fig. 3, copied below). The average freeze-up date in the 1980s was 16 November ± 5 days, while from 2005-2015 this had shifted about a week to 24 November ± 8 days (Castro de la Guardia et al. 2017:230). This year freeze-up was later than usual but last year and the three years before that the ice froze as early as it did in the 1980s. Cue the zombie apocalypse.
UPDATE 11 December 2021: see chart below from Andrew Derocher on the position of tagged WH bears at 10 December.
Continue readingComments Off on Promoters of polar bear catastrophe in Hudson Bay gloss over recent good ice conditions
Posted in Conservation Status, Life History, science, Sea ice habitat
Tagged breakup, Derocher, freeze-up, ice-free season, PBI, polar bear, sea ice, time on shore, western hudson bay, York
All of the bears within view of the coastal web cams on the shore of Wapusk National Park near Churchill on Western Hudson Bay seem to be in very good shape this year, despite having come off the ice a few weeks earlier than they have over the last few years. Despite this, problems with bears in Churchill seem to have been below average this year. Some great action can be seen via several Explore dot org live web cams that are streaming from shore right now.
No ice forming yet along the west coast of Hudson Bay as of today, which is a bit later than it has been for the last few years. That means some of these bears will likely have spent almost 5 months onshore by the time they get back on the newly-formed ice and resume hunting seals.
Comments Off on Polar bear watching in high gear near Churchill as everyone waits for the sea ice to form
Posted in Advocacy, Life History, Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Churchill, climate change, fall, migration, PBI, PBSG, polar bear, predictions, sea ice, western hudson bay
Polar Bears International is the non-profit organization that virtually rules the town of Churchill when it comes to informing naïve tourists about polar bears. A million-dollar donation last year guaranteed the creation of a new building to permanently display PBI-generated information in downtown Churchill – previously limited to those visitors wealthy or influential enough to ride Tundra Buggies run by Frontiers North.
PBI is an organization dedicated to the promotion of climate change rhetoric that currently purports to present unbiased scientific information about polar bears and climate change. It was founded by a retired marketing director and “polar bear enthusiast” in 2002 but its current leader is ‘chief scientist’ Steven Amstrup. Amstrup was almost single-handedly responsible for the failed survival model that got polar bears classified as ‘threatened’ under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in the US (Crockford 2017, Crockford 2019; Crockford and Geist 2018).
Amstrup’s model predicted that 2/3 of the world’s polar bears would be gone if sea ice got as low as it has been since 2007 but it was spectacularly wrong: polar bears are healthier and more numerous than 50 years ago.
Global polar bear population size estimates to 2018. From Chapter 10 of The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened (Crockford 2019).
Amstrup presented his firmly-held opinions as if they were scientific facts but observations have shown his guesses were incorrect. But he refuses to acknowledge this and PBI continues to spead a message of impending doom [my bold]:
“This year’s polar bear season is going to be big for our team, perhaps our biggest yet. Not only do we have an amazing schedule of Tundra Connections webcasts and live chats, but we’re also working with an array of media to tell stories and spread awareness about polar bears and the threats they face in a warming Arctic. This is especially important following another summer of massive sea ice loss in the Arctic and amidst overwhelming global momentum pressuring world leaders to address the climate crisis.”
Below is an excerpt from an interesting story from 2010 on how PBI controls the ‘polar-bears-are-doomed/save-our-sea-ice‘ narrative presented to the media and innocent tourists who just come to see polar bears in the wild.
Comments Off on People go to Churchill to see polar bears in the wild and PBI controls the info they get
Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Sea ice habitat
Tagged activist, advocacy, Amstrup, canary in the coal mine, Churchill, climate change, ESA, extinction, icon, PBI, polar bear, Polar Bears International, predictions, propaganda, sea ice, threatened, tourists
Ten years of summer sea ice levels expected to kill 2/3 of the world’s polar bears by 2050 instead saw polar bear numbers grow. And this year, there are also two fabulous books about polar bears and their outstanding success story to celebrate on International Polar Bear Day (Monday 27 February 2017).
One is suitable for kids (Polar Bear Facts & Myths) and another for adults and teens who want the details (Polar Bears: Outstanding Survivors of Climate Change) – see the right sidebar to buy on Amazon or my author website for details on all additional formats. A couple of excerpts from them are below.
So forget turning down your thermostat in a pointless gesture to “reduce your carbon emissions and help polar bears” — as Polar Bears International advocates for Polar Bear Day. Instead, treat yourself or a friend and order a book with a rational approach to species survival.
Speaking of species survival, think about the inconsistency in how some species are treated according to the US Endangered Species Act (ESA). Humpback whale numbers recovered after decades of protection; in 2016, after the state of Alaska filed a petition to delist, most populations were officially removed from the ESA list of ‘threatened’ species.
Humpback whale and calf, NOAA image.
In contrast, by 2015, polar bear numbers had also recovered despite years of low sea ice loss not predicted until 2050, yet remain officially ‘threatened’ with extinction.
Fat bear family at Kaktovik, Alaska (Southern Beaufort), April 2016. USGS photo.
US National Marine Fisheries Service defended the delisting of humpback whales against activists who insisted human-caused global warming threatened the species, but the US Fish and Wildlife Service defends flawed polar bear prophesies.
Polar bears have not been driven to the brink of extinction by global warming. In fact, they are thriving (see my final conclusions on pg. 30 of Polar Bears: Outstanding Survivors of Climate Change, above and pg. 32 of Polar Bear Facts & Myths below.
If you’d like to support my efforts to bring this to everyone’s attention, please consider buying a copy or two of my books. If you’ve already done so, keep in mind that your local library might be glad to have copies donated. They also make great gifts.
Comments Off on Thriving numbers – & two great books – are ample reason to rejoice on Polar Bear Day
Posted in Advocacy, Conservation Status, Population, Sea ice habitat
Tagged celebrate, climate change, delist, excerpt, extinction, facts, global warming, humpback whale, International Polar Bear Day, myths, PBI, prophesies, survivors, threatened
This is a follow-up to my last post and this time, I’ll address the implied correlation between freeze-up dates for Hudson Bay and Churchill temperatures in November that is being made by folks who should know better .
Monday, 14 November 2016 a.m, over at Polar Bears International [my bold]:
“As a new week starts in Churchill, the weather is the warmest we’ve ever seen at this time of year. The tundra is muddy, with remnant patches of snow, and the bay is ice-free.” PBI Blog (no author designated)
Well, that may be true for the last few years – the high on 14 November 2016 (-1.20C) was the highest since 2012.
Andrew Derocher made a similar statement on the 4th (my bold):
“There’s no sea ice anywhere in Hudson Bay yet—not even in the northern part of the Bay where ice should be forming. It’s above freezing today and if the forecast holds, it will be a record high for this date. It was 10 degrees colder last year at this time.”
Derocher is being unscientifically vague here and also misleadingly cites highs and lows as if they were the same. In fact, according to weather records kept by Environment Canada, for 4 November 2016 at Churchill, the daily high was +1.50C (compared to –1.50C in 2015). The daily low in 2015 was -15.30C, a 10 degree difference. The next-highest temp. for that date since 2012 was +0.70C in 2014 – hardly an earth-shattering difference.
However, if you are trying to draw conclusions about climate, you should go back at least 60 years (two climate periods of 30 years each). Temperature records for Churchill go back to 1943, which can be used to assess the claim for the 14th of November made by PBI.
According to weather records kept by Environment Canada, for 14 November at Churchill, the year with the highest temperature was 1975 (+2.20C):
That was Monday. But as of yesterday, the weather recorded – and the forecast for the following week (17-23 November) was quite different, as the screencap below shows:
The final recorded max. for yesterday (Thurs. 17 Nov) was -9.70C vs. a min. of -17.70C. So, a bit warmer during the day than predicted but as cold as expected overnight.
And for today, the current temperature in Churchill, as I write this is, is -190C (-310C with the wind chill) and the year with the highest temperature recorded for 18 November was 1944 (0.00C) – which was also the highest temperature for the 19th, recorded in 1943.
Ice maps and historical background below. See last post for recent multi-year comparison.
Continue reading
Comments Off on No correlation between freeze-up dates for WHB sea ice & Churchill temperatures
Posted in Advocacy, Sea ice habitat
Tagged advocacy, Churchill, correlations, Derocher, freeze-up, historical records, Hudson Bay, observations, PBI, polar bear, sea ice, temperatures, western hudson bay
Guess which year between 2006 and 2016 had the latest start to freeze-up on Hudson Bay, given that 2012 had the lowest September average and 2007 and 2016 tied for second-lowest (see graph below, from NSIDC), and that sea ice in the Arctic right now is the lowest it’s been for this date since 1979?
If you guessed anything other than 2010, you guessed wrong – in addition, 2006 (not 2016) was second latest.
There is no correlation between Arctic sea ice coverage and freeze-up dates for Western Hudson Bay.
Yet, Polar Bears International (“Save Our Sea Ice”) – who were surely in and around Churchill in 2010 and 2006 watching polar bears – just posted an alarming statement about local conditions, implying that slow freeze-up of Hudson Bay this year is a reflection of the fact that “sea ice is at a record low across the Arctic.”
They also claim that “…the weather is the warmest we’ve ever seen at this time of year.” That may be true, but if so, it is also meaningless with respect to the progress of freeze-up.
Does no one at PBI remember the very late freeze-up of 2010 or 2006? Odd, that.
Comments Off on No correlation between freeze-up dates for Hudson Bay & total Arctic ice cover
Posted in Conservation Status, Life History, Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Arctic, attack, Derocher, fall, fatality, freeze-up, Hudson Bay, Lunn, minimum ice extent, PBI, polar bear, Polar Bears International, population size, problem bears, sea ice, western hudson bay
Viewers outside the UK can now watch polar bear scientist Steve Amstrup live (Episode 2, filmed 2 November 2016), state that there are “20,000-25,000” polar bears in the world, almost a full year after the IUCN Red List put the worldwide polar bear population size at 22,000-31,000.
[even though Amstrup (now chief scientist and spokesperson for Polar Bears International) was a co-author of that 2015 Red List report, Wiig et. al. 2015]
Watch Steve Amstrup, live (Episode 2, filmed 2 November 2016) state that sea ice is only “usually” present in March/April when females with cubs emerge from their dens to feed – as if there has ever not been sea ice present at this critical time of year!
Watch Amstrup , live (Episode 2, filmed 2 November 2016) not point out that the prediction he was responsible for making in 2007 (that got polar bears listed as ‘threatened’ in the USA) has been a total failure: even though the USGS models predicted that polar bear numbers worldwide would decline by 67% and Western Hudson Bay polar bears (as well as nine others) would be wiped out completely when summer sea ice reached the levels they’ve been at since 2007, he pretends that prediction was scientifically valid.
We’ve had sea ice levels not predicted to occur until 2050 for 8 out of the last 10 years and polar bears are still going strong. If Amstrup had been right about the relationship of summer sea ice and polar bear numbers, there would have been no polar bears in Churchill for the BBC to film this year.
Watch all three hour-long episodes below as these two organization team up to promote fear of future global warming with polar bears (or polar bears, as Humble says it). Decide for yourself if polar bear science is being fairly represented.
Continue reading
Comments Off on BBC Arctic Live for viewers outside the UK: watch scientist distort polar bear facts
Posted in Advocacy, Population, Sea ice habitat
Tagged advocacy, Amstrup, BBC, carbon footprint, ESA, PBI, polar bear, population size, predictions, Red list, threatened, USGS, youtube video
Polar bears in virtually all regions will now have finished their intensive spring feeding, which means sea ice levels are no longer an issue. A few additional seals won’t make much difference to a bear’s condition at this point.
The only seals available on the ice for polar bears to hunt in early July are predator-savvy adults and subadults but since the condition of the sea ice makes escape so much easier for the seals, most bears that continue to hunt are unsuccessful – and that’s been true since the 1970s. So much for the public hand-wringing over the loss of summer sea ice on behalf of polar bear survival! Continue reading
Comments Off on Critical spring feeding for polar bears is over – sea ice levels are now irrelevant
Posted in Advocacy, Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged adaptation, bearded seals, extirpated, harp seals, hunting, hype, PBI, polar bears, prey, ringed seals, save our sea ice, sea ice, spring feeding, stalking, summer, threatened
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