Researchers at the Norwegian Polar Institute have finally updated their spring data, which show male polar bears in 2024 were even fatter than they were in 1993 and litter sizes of new cubs were just as high, despite continued low sea ice in the region over the summer months especially.
Comments Off on New data show Svalbard polar bears are fatter than they were in 1993 despite continued low sea ice
Posted in Conservation Status, Life History, Population, Sea ice habitat
Tagged body condition, Hopen Island, litter size, Norwegian Ice Service, Norwegian Polar Institute, polar bear, sea ice, spring, survey, Svalbard
A sow and a pair of half-grown cubs recently paid a visit to the Polish Research Station in southwestern Svalbard without causing any more trouble than racing heart-rates, according to a report in The Guardian today.
Money quote from the leader of the expedition [my bold]:
This year the team had seen more polar bears than usual, he added. Usually there were around 20 bear sightings a year, but this year there had been close to 40 sightings since June and they expected to see more in their final three months.
“So far, we have not observed any clearly emaciated individuals. This year is probably a good year for Svalbard’s polar bears because there is a lot of sea ice here compared to recent years,” he said [The Guardian, 2 April 2024, see photo above].
Continue readingComments Off on A good year for Svalbard polar bears due to abundant sea ice coverage
Posted in Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat
Tagged polar bear, problem bears, sea ice, sightings, Svalbard, warmest year ever
As this year draws to a close, it is worth noting that over the last 12 months — and contrary to predictions and headlines, including claims about “the warmest year ever” — polar bears have not been reported dying, starving, or eating each other in large numbers, or relentlessly attacking people. On top of that, summer sea ice coverage in the Arctic has stalled for the last 17 years, not melted out in a death spiral of rotten ice.
Except for the lying and obfuscation that most of us have come to expect, I’ve mostly been left to reiterate that polar bears are not “canaries in the coal mine” indicators of climate change and to point out that Arctic sea ice extent and polar bear survival are not inextricably tied. For example, in some specific areas of interest, like Western Hudson Bay, there has not been a consistent decline in sea ice over the last few decades and bears are not attacking people at increased rates because they are desperately hungry. In other areas, like the Svalbard area of the western Barents Sea, sea ice has declined dramatically in recent years yet polar bears have not been attacking people more than usual.
Contradictions and failed predictions abound.
All in all, a rather boring year for the anticipated implosion of polar bear health and survival, despite my constant tracking of publicly-available information. That said, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all again for your continued support, and especially those who have donated hard-earned cash over the last few months: your support makes it possible for me to continue my work keeping polar bear science honest. Together, we have made a difference and I know it’s worth the fight. Because if we let evidence-based science die without challenge, we lose our ability to make sense of the world.
All the best for 2024 to you all.
Continue readingComments Off on Polar bears and sea ice fail to implode in 2023 as predicted, with special thanks for your support
Posted in Advocacy, Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat, Summary
Tagged attacks, breakup, conflicts, contradictions, ecology, extent, freeze-up, Hudson Bay, predictions, problem bears, productivity, sea ice, Svalbard
Sea ice extent for Svalbard was above average yesterday and has been since 17 July, despite “record-breaking” sea surface temperatures in June.
Comments Off on Polar bear habitat around Svalbard Norway above average despite high temps in N. Atlantic
Posted in Sea ice habitat
Tagged Barents Sea, polar bear, sea ice, sea surface, Svalbard
Despite more CO2 in the atmosphere (424 vs. 392, for June), there was more sea ice cover in the Barents Sea at mid-July this year than there was in 2012.
This region has seen about 6 times the amount of summer sea ice loss as any other region of the Arctic (Regehr et al. 2016): Barents Sea bears now have a longer ice-free season than the famous Western Hudson Bay bears that we hear so much about.
Yet contrary to predictions, which insisted that protracted poor ice conditions in summer would inevitably result in catastrophic rates of starvation and death (Amstrup et al. 2007; Crockford 2017, 2019), polar bears in the Svalbard region have so far not had any documented any harm to their health or population size. In fact, field data show bears in Svalbard are in better condition than they were in the late 1990s (Lippold et al. 2019), almost certainly due to the documented increase in primary productivity that has resulted from longer ice-free summers since 2003 (Frey et al. 2022; Crockford 2023).
Continue readingComments Off on More Barents Sea polar bear habitat at mid-July 2023 than in 2012 despite more atmospheric CO2
Posted in Conservation Status, Population, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Barents Sea, climate change, food chain, global warming, polar bear, primary productivity, sea ice, survival, Svalbard
Historical records show that sea ice extent along the west coast of Svalbard, Norway varied greatly in the 1600s and that there is currently more ice than was usually present at this time of year in the 17th century.
April through early June is when polar bears need sea ice the most–for feeding on newborn seals and for finding mates–and so far this spring, bears in the Western European Arctic around Svalbard, Norway have had an abundance of ice. In fact, there is only a little less ice than was normal for the late 1970s and apparently, quite a bit more than was often present in the 1600s.
Continue readingComments Off on 17th century documents & 1970s ice maps show sea ice habitat in Svalbard has always varied greatly
Posted in Sea ice habitat
Tagged 17th century, climate change, history, Little Ice Age, pack ice, Spitzbergen, Svalbard, Western European Arctic, whaling
Early in the morning on Good Friday (7 April), a mature polar bear sow with a cub at heal was chased with snowmobiles away from a recreation area used by locals on the west coast but drowned after she escaped into the water. Her cub, likely a yearling male, attacked authorities trying to retrieve her body and was shot.
It turns out this 17 year old female was well known to locals and is considered Svalbard’s most famous polar bear. They call her ‘Frost.’ She featured in the 2019 Attenborough-narrated Netflix documentary Our Planet, in the sequence showing the stalk of a newborn ringed seal pup (see screencap above), which was likely filmed in early 2018 after the cliff-falling walrus scenes in Russia that were filmed in October 2017. h/t Sheila.
Continue readingComments Off on Netflix polar bear star dies in Svalbard days after being tranquilized; her orphaned cub is shot
Posted in Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Attenborough, damage, fatal attack, Frost, glacier-front, habituated, problem bears, Svalbard, tranquilizer drugs
This is the most important time of year for Arctic marine mammals that spend time above the ice: birthing, breeding, and feeding. And there is plenty of the right kind of ice available for those activities this year, as there was two years ago at the same time.
Comments Off on Earth Day sea ice habitat during critical spring season for Arctic seals, polar bears, and walrus
Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged bearded seal, Earth Day, East Greenland, Hudson Bay, ice thickness, polar bear, ringed seal, sea ice, Svalbard, walrus
In another failed prediction, a new study on the number of polar bears killed in self-defense in Svalbard, Norway did not find the expected correlation with lack of sea ice or more tourists (Vongraven et al. 2023). Contrary to expectations, fewer bears were actually killed in self-defence as sea ice declined between 1987 and 2019.
Money Quote from the abstract:
“…ice cover had no significant impact on the odds for a [polar bear] kill.”
It seems the warning from polar bear specialist Andrew Derocher a few months ago was just plain wrong:
“Poor ice conditions for polar bears at Svalbard this year. Low ice will make tough hunting conditions this coming spring. Time to plan for more human-bear conflicts unless conditions change.” [13 Feb 2023 tweet, my bold]
Comments Off on ‘Less ice means more conflicts with polar bears’ narrative not supported by scientific evidence
Posted in Advocacy, Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat
Tagged attacks, fatal, polar bear, predictions, problem bears, sea ice, Svalbard, tourists
It seems that every fall and winter for the last decade at least, there has been hand-wringing about the lack of Svalbard sea ice and what a tragedy this is for polar bears. And like clockwork, before the end of winter (30 March) every year, the pack ice returns in time for spring: for ringed and bearded seals to give birth–and for the polar bears to gorge themselves on the fat newborns.
This year there is even ice as far south as Bear Island (Bjørnøya) and it’s only 15 March. This has happened several times now in the last 10 year. So much for the catastrophe! And soon Norwegian biologists will be out checking on the health of these bears, which they do every year and report their results online for everyone to see.
Continue readingComments Off on Return of Svalbard sea ice in time for seal births and the polar bear feeding bonanza
Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Bear Island, feeding, pack ice, polar bear, prey, pupping, Svalbard
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