After a great start this year for Churchill-area polar bears of Western Hudson Bay – who came off the ice in better than usual condition after what must have been a good spring hunting season – ice maps suggest that freeze-up will be later than last year, an impression confirmed by on-the-ground observers.
Ice coverage this year at 7 November (2016):
Ice coverage last year at this date (7 November 2015), see this post for details:
UPDATED 23 November 2021: see below.
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Comments Off on Ice formation in W Hudson Bay slower than 2015 but not likely as slow as 1983
Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged attack, body condition, Churchill, freeze-up, Hudson Bay, polar bear, problem bears, sea ice, spring feeding
Two out of three polar bear females that were collared by USGS researchers near Barrow, Alaska last spring are hanging out on the northwest coast of Banks Island, Canada. The other bear (bright green icon) appears to have been collared on the ice off Prudoe Bay in April. And as I discussed last month, it’s unusual for bears from the western end of the Southern Beaufort subpopulation (or even the central region) to end up in the Northern Beaufort subpopulation territory.
Original caption: “Movements of 3 satellite-tagged polar bears for the month of October, 2016. Polar bears were tagged in 2016 on the spring-time sea ice of the southern Beaufort Sea. All 3 of these bears have satellite collar transmitters. Polar bear satellite telemetry data are shown with AMSR2 remotely-sensed ice coverage from 29 October, 2016.” See full resolution image here and close-up below.
Comments Off on Tracking west Alaskan polar bears in the Beaufort in October – all at Banks Is., CAN
Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Alaska, Beaufort, denning, facts, females, freeze-up, ice growth, polar bear, satellite collars, sea ice, subpopulation boundaries, tracking, USGS
The simple fact is that if polar bear experts had been right about the threat to polar bears from the loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic, there would be no polar bears in Churchill this fall. No bears for tourists to photograph, none for biologists to study, and certainly none for the BBC to film for an upcoming three-part TV special called “Arctic Live.”
The low-ice future that biologists said would doom polar bears to extinction by 2050 has already happened in 8 out of the last 10 years. The sea ice future has been realized.
Polar bears have experienced those supposedly deadly low-ice summers for almost a decade but the global population did not drop by 2/3 as predicted and not a single one of the ten subpopulations predicted to be extirpated under those conditions has been wiped out.
How much more wrong can you be than that? Will the BBC mention this conundrum in their show? Will the polar bear experts they consult share this fact with viewers? We’ll all have to watch and see [show times and summaries of each program here, 1-3 November] but here are some background facts that might enhance your viewing experience.
UPDATE: Sea ice condition of Hudson Bay at 1 November 2016 below from the Canadian Ice Service (some slushy ice looks to be forming along the coast north of Churchill – this is how freeze-up starts). See the animation for the last 10 days here:
Comments Off on If experts had been right about sea ice, there would be no polar bears in Churchill
Posted in Population, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Arctic Live, BBC, Churchill, extinction, extirpation, facts, future, minimum, observations, polar bear, predictions, resilience, sea ice, September, survival, threatened
PBS has published a bizarre poor-starving-polar-bears story that uses pictures of fat, healthy bears to illustrate the supposed desperation of malnourished bears of the Southern Beaufort Sea that is blamed on declining sea ice.
The photo of the fat bear above, taken by the Kaktovik resident quoted in the 15 October 2016 PBS story, Polar bears, growing desperate for food, threaten native Alaskans, accompanies this statement:
“While images of malnourished polar bears have become a national symbol of the effects of climate change, they are a front line reality for Native Alaskans, who face them on their own property and do not want them to get hurt.”
Except this is not a story about starving bears but too many fat bears hanging around one particular community looking for other kinds of food – after being lured in by the enticing smell of rotting whale meat left onshore by the residents.
If photos of starving Beaufort bears existed that PBS could have used to illustrate this story, I’m certain those photos would have been used. But virtually all of the pictures I’ve seen of Kaktovik bears are the epitome of health – fat and sassy – but none that could be described as starving.
It turns out that while native Kaktovik residents have profited from tourists and journalist who have shown up in droves to view the large numbers of bears attracted to the bone piles left after butchering summer-caught bowhead whales, the bears have also put the community at risk of personal attack and loss of stored food. Who would have thought?
Residents of Kaktovik (see map below) have unwittingly enticed these polar bears ashore and now must deal with the consequences. As the residents of Churchill discovered decades ago, having polar bears close to your community comes with benefits, problems – and danger.
There is no doubt that Kaktovik has a polar bear problem but it cannot plausibly be blamed on anthropogenic global warming, retreating sea ice, or starving bears – an irresistible attractant close to the community is the cause and solutions must be found to keep residents safe and their food secure. The PBS article discusses a few of those solutions. Some quotes and background below.
Comments Off on Kaktovik, AK has a polar bear problem but not because bears are desperate for food
Posted in Life History, Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Atwood, Barter Island, bone piles, climate change, desperate, facts, fat bears, global warming, Kaktovik, malnourished, polar bears, retreating sea ice, sea ice, Southern Beaufort, starving, stressed
Veteran Yale University research ecologist Dan Botkin has a new book coming out tomorrow (Saturday 15 October) that you might want to look at:
A number of chapters are relevant to polar bears, including these three:
“Myth 11: Without Human Interference, Earth’s Climate is Stable”
“Myth 13: Climate Change Will Lead to Huge Numbers of Extinctions”
“Myth 25: Compared to Climate Change, All Other Environmental Issues Are Minor”
I found the book clearly written in a readable style (Table of Contents here). It provides timely insight into critical issues related to conservation and species extinction, with many real-world examples that counter theoretical assumptions (polar bears are discussed in the Overview). I found the energy issues (Myths 23 and 24) an awkward distraction but others might find them of interest. It’s a good companion to Bjorn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist (an excellent reference from 2001 but much more detailed).
Pre-0rders now being taken:
Twenty-five Myths That Are Destroying the Environment: What Many Environmentalists Believe and Why They Are Wrong. Daniel B. Botkin 2017. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., Lanham, MD 20706. $12.71 PAPERBACK; $7.51 KINDLE
Peak inside via Amazon, more about Dan Botkin and his publication record, and the book below.
Comments Off on New ecology book: 25 MYTHS THAT ARE DESTROYING THE ENVIRONMENT
Posted in Book review, Conservation Status, Population
Tagged conservation, Daniel Botkin, ecology, extinction, marine mammals, myths, new book, polar bear, review, sea ice, walrus
A quiet year for problems in the polar bear capital of the world (Churchill, Manitoba) so far – despite this year tying for the second-lowest minimum since 1979 – and the ice is growing fast. In fact, Arctic ice growth in the second half of September was rapid and there is now more ice than there was at this date in 2007 and 2012 (when polar bears in those regions considered most at risk did not die off in droves).
Pessimistic polar bear specialists are wrong – polar bears are much more resilient to low sea ice levels in summer than they assume: their own data from low summer ice years proves it. If you’ll recall from my previous post, polar bears seem to have barely survived the extensive sea ice coverage during the Last Glacial Maximum – in other words, too much ice (even over the short term) is their biggest threat. Polar bear numbers, as confirmed by the latest estimates in the 2015 IUCN Red List assessment, are higher now than they have been since the 1960s, despite almost 10 years of summer sea ice minimums below 5.0 mk2.
Churchill Polar Bear Alert reports and Arctic sea ice comparisons at this date, in detail below.
Comments Off on Arctic sea ice grows & Churchill polar bears into their 4th month of fasting
Posted in Conservation Status, Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Arctic, attacks, biggest threat, Churchill, facts, ice growth, last glacial maximum, minimum, polar bear, polar bear alert, population size, problem bears, Refuge, resilience, sea ice, September, summer, thick spring ice
All three polar bear females tagged in the Southern Beaufort Sea far west of Kaktovik (near Barrow) spent all or most of September onshore in the Northern Beaufort area of Canada.
Comments Off on Tracking Western Alaskan polar bears in the Beaufort in Sept – all 3 chose Canada
Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Banks Island, Barrow, Beaufort Sea, boundaries, Kaktovik, mixing, polar bear, satellite radio collars, sea ice, subpopulations, tracking polar bears, USGS, Western Arctic
A report from the CBC this morning (with video) of a large polar bear wandering about the village of Tuktoyaktuk on the (Canadian) shore of the Eastern Beaufort Sea on Thursday (29 September) that got very close to a group of children playing outside. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
That this was a rare event is evident in the awe and excitement in the voices of the residents as someone recorded the movements of the bear through town (picture quality is not the best, but clear enough).
As I’ve said before, with more bears we can expect more interactions with people and more sightings like this that haven’t happened in decades. Map and quotes below.
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Comments Off on Polar bear onshore in Tuktoyaktuk got so close to kids they heard it breathing
Posted in Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat
Tagged attacks, Beaufort Sea, conflicts, declining sea ice, encounters, polar bear, sea ice, sighting, summer, thick spring ice
Arctic sea ice tied 2007 for extent at the September minimum less than 3 weeks ago but with the refreeze proceeding much faster than 2007, seals will soon be returning to the ice edge and polar bears will be back to feeding like they did in 2010.
Sea ice extent less than 5.0 mkm2 lasted less than 6 weeks (23 August – 28 September), according to NSIDC.
Comments Off on Polar bear habitat this fall shaping up fast – more like 2010 than 2007
Posted in Conservation Status
Tagged Barents Sea, Chukchi Sea, extent, feeding, freeze-up, habitat, Hudson Bay freeze-up, hunting, ice-free, polar bear, sea ice, seals, September ice minimum
A large polar bear population with lots of adult males – due to bans on hunting – means more survival pressure on young bears, especially young males. To blame more problems with young male bears on lack of sea ice due to global warming ignores the downside to the reality Norway asked for when it banned hunting more than 40 years ago.
More hungry young males coming ashore looking for food is one of the potential consequences of living with a large, healthy population of polar bears. Biologist Ian Stirling warned of such problems back in 1974.
UPDATE: added below 6 Oct. 2016, statistics of defense of life shootings of polar bears in Svalbard since 1973.
Svalbard area polar bear numbers have increased 42% since 2004 and more hungry young polar bears almost certainly mean more polar bear problems, as folks in Svalbard (see map and quotes below) have experienced this year.
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Comments Off on The polar bear problem no one will talk about – the downside to large populations
Posted in Conservation Status, Life History, Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat
Tagged attack, competition, facts, feeding, global warming, human-polar bear conflicts, numbers, polar bear, population size, problem bears, sea ice, subadult males, Svalbard, young bears
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