Today, polar bear biologist Andrew Derocher posted a progress report via twitter on the annual journey ashore of the Western Hudson Bay bears tagged by his University of Alberta research team that shows virtually all of the bears are still out on the sea ice.
After months of gloomy reports on the state of the Hudson Bay sea ice, it’s clear from the map Derocher posted (below) that only one bear out of 12 still transmitting has come ashore so far, although he comments that “some tags haven’t reported lately” (the purple icons are ear tags put on males &/or young bears while the blue icons are collars put on adult females):
Oddly, the same comment was made almost a month ago about these same bears and the suggestion was made that these animals “may be swimming to shore”:
Money quote: Today Derocher remarked that “bears may be shifting behaviour to stay out on less ice” to explain why the tagged bears have still not come ashore as he expects them to do.
Perhaps if he used a different ice chart, it might make more sense (see below). However, the same thing has been happening year after year: WHB polar bears stay on the ice much longer than Derocher predicts but he does not change his expectations or the type of ice chart he uses to track the bears.
As I’ve pointed out before (because this is what field researchers have stated), polar bears have a tough time catching seals after about mid-June or so but they may still prefer to be on the sea ice than on land, even if it’s low concentration ice.
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