Tag Archives: range contraction

Five facts that challenge polar bear hybridization nonsense

Posted on May 23, 2016 | Comments Off on Five facts that challenge polar bear hybridization nonsense

It was inevitable, I suppose, that the putative hybrid shot in Arviat, Nunavut last week (see my post here) would initiate the global warming blame game.

Hybrids again_Washington Post 23 May 2016_title screencap

Washington Post, 23 May 2016, Adam Popescu: “Love in the time of climate change: Grizzlies and polar bears are now mating”

Here are the five points you need to know about polar bear hybridization, as there are several nonsense statements contained in this Washington Post article.

UPDATE 24 May 2016: References adding below regarding grizzly sightings south of Churchill on the west coast of Hudson Bay (H/T Doug Clark).

UPDATE 28 May 2016: See this 27 May 2016 follow-up post (Most polar bear hybrids said to exist have not been confirmed by DNA testing) for details on unconfirmed sightings or reports of hybrids.

Continue reading

Comments Off on Five facts that challenge polar bear hybridization nonsense

Posted in Conservation Status, Hybridization, Sea ice habitat

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Polar bears roaming Labrador in winter due to climate change, says minister

Posted on February 7, 2016 | Comments Off on Polar bears roaming Labrador in winter due to climate change, says minister

This is a follow-up to a post on my book blog that I wrote this morning because it’s relevant to the scenario I describe in my novel, set in the year 2025 in northern Newfoundland. I’m cross posting it for the benefit of regular readers here.

It appears that most of the blame for this phenomenon of multiple sightings of hungry bears onshore in the dead of winter (creating havoc and roaming among houses in the coastal Labrador communities of Black Tickle and Charlottetown) has been placed squarely on…climate change. By a government minister. You have to hear this man’s words to believe it.

Labrador south and Fogo Nfld marked

Continue reading

Comments Off on Polar bears roaming Labrador in winter due to climate change, says minister

Posted in Advocacy, Polar bear attacks, Population

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Claim of range-contraction of polar bears due to declines in summer sea ice doesn’t hold up

Posted on January 28, 2015 | Comments Off on Claim of range-contraction of polar bears due to declines in summer sea ice doesn’t hold up

Have polar bears suffered a contraction of their historical range due to recent declines in summer sea ice? Buried in a recent journal article lies such a claim, one I can’t recall having seen before. That makes it worth close examination.

Figure 2. A drawing of polar bears on St. Matthew Island that accompanied the May 1, 1875 Harper’s Weekly Journal of Civilization article written by Henry Elliot. See here.

A drawing of polar bears on St. Matthew Island that accompanied the May 1, 1875 Harper’s Weekly Journal of Civilization article written by Henry Elliot. See here.

The assertion appears in the introduction of a recently published paper that got a lot of attention online (“Implications of the Circumpolar Genetic Structure of Polar Bears for Their Conservation in a Rapidly Warming Arctic” by Peacock and colleagues (2015), discussed previously here, news coverage here and here).

Here is how the authors put it:

“There is already evidence of change in the contemporary distribution of polar bears. For example, polar bears, once common in Newfoundland [29], are now seen there only infrequently and in small numbers. Similarly, polar bears once regularly summered on St. Lawrence and St. Matthew islands in the Bering Sea [30–32]. Now they are irregularly observed in the Bering Sea and do not spend summers on St. Matthew Island. Although these changes in polar bear distribution may also have been related to overharvest, the recent reductions in the extent of sea-ice due would prevent current and regular use of these areas.” [my emphasis]

There are three main reasons the claim doesn’t hold up to scrutiny:
Continue reading

Comments Off on Claim of range-contraction of polar bears due to declines in summer sea ice doesn’t hold up

Posted in History, Sea ice habitat

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,