Tag Archives: triplets

Polar bear triplet litter spotted near Churchill as ice starts to form along west coast of Hudson Bay

Polar bears, including a litter of triplet cubs (a sign of very good health), are gathering near Churchill, Manitoba where new ice is forming along the coast. This means the fall seal hunt will soon begin, depending on the winds (it might be a few days from now or a few weeks).

See below for some of the images of bears on the shore of Wapusk National Park taken by Explore.org video cams from Tundra Buggy-based cameras, as well as the most recent Churchill problem bear report.

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Churchill problem polar bear report for week 3 and a triplet litter of cubs spotted

Courtesy the Town of Churchill:

Also, note that a mother with a litter of triplets spotted along the coast of Wapusk National Park (just east and south of Churchill) in good condition, 15 September 2020 (see photo below). Biologist Nick Lunn falsely claimed in 2018 that no triplet litters had been born in Western Hudson Bay since 1996 – a correction made later claimed Lunn meant there hasn’t been any triplet litters seen in the fall, which was also not true in 2017 or in 2020:

Compare weekly stats above for this year to a few previous years at the second week in September:

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CBC hypes “bleak” Churchill polar bear fate with unsupported claims & falsehoods

Over the weekend in Canada, the CBC ran a polar bear news feature that is now available online (“Polar bears in peril: the bleak future of Churchill bears,” The National, CBC, 3 December 2018). It gave polar bear biologist Nick Lunn of Environment Canada free rein to spread unsubstantiated claims and outright falsehoods about the status of Western Hudson Bay polar bears and sea ice. Apparently, he and the CBC learned nothing from National Geographic‘s fiasco over their starving’ polar bear video last year: they still think the public will be swayed to “act” on human-caused global warming if a persuasive expert tells them that polar bears are on their way to extinction. I expect many were convinced otherwise, since the facts are available for all to see.

No triplet litters born since 1996? Nonsense, as the photo below (from 2017) shows.

Triplet litter at Seal River Lodge 2017 Quent Plett photo

The CBC video is described this way:

“They are a majestic icon of Canada’s North, but polar bears have also come to symbolize climate change. And scientists say the future for one particular population of polar bears in northern Manitoba is dire.

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Chukchi Sea polar bears number almost 3000 according to new survey results: update

The Chukchi Sea finally has a polar bear population estimate! According to survey results from 2016 only recently made public, about 2937 bears (1522-5944) currently inhabit the region, making this the largest subpopulation in the Arctic. This is exciting news — and a huge accomplishment — but the US Fish and Wildlife Service responsible for the work has been oddly mum on the topic.

beaufort-bears_-suzanne-miller-usfws-3-af-2c-on-spit-1.jpg

Not only that, but an extrapolation of that estimate calculated by USFWS researchers for Chukchi plus Alaska (the US portion of the Southern Beaufort Sea subpopulation) was estimated at 4437 (2283-9527), although with “significant uncertainty.” Nevertheless, it means the 2016 estimate for Alaska could be roughly three times what it was in 2010: a whopping 1500 or so, up from about 450 (or about 225-650) for the same area estimated during the last survey (Bromaghin et al. 2015: Fig. 5a).

Even if the real number for Alaska is only twice as large (~1000), that’s still a huge improvement. It would eliminate the Southern Beaufort as the only polar bear subpopulation in the Arctic to have shown a significant decline blamed on human-caused global warming (Crockford 2018). If the recovery is real, it means the 2004-2006 decline was a temporary fluctuation after all, just like previous declines in the region. I expect, however, that it will take a dedicated SB population survey for officials to concede that point.

There is not yet now a detailed report to cite (Regehr et al. 2018 in prep, see update below), but the numbers were announced at the 10th meeting of the Russian-American Commission on Polar Bears held at the end of July this year (AC SWG 2018) by Eric Regehr (formerly of the US Fish & Wildlife Service, as of 2017 at the University of Washington). [h/t to G.H.] This was the same report that raised the quota for subsistence hunting in the Chukchi from 58 to 85, based on these new figures, as I discussed last week.

Wrangel Island polar bear with cubs 2015 news story

From “Military bases to open on Wrangel Island and Chukotka” 22 October 2015.

Regehr was quoted as saying:

“Chukchi bears remain larger and fatter and have not seen downward trends in cub production and survival, according to new preliminary information on the health and numbers of bears.”

UPDATE 15 November 2018: The scientific paper describing the entirely new method (yes, yet another one: see Bromaghin et al. 2015) used to estimate the size of the Chukchi Sea population is now available (University of Washington press release here), in an open-access paper: Regher et al. 2018. News reports (see one here) spin the positive outcome as something that researchers expected all along but that’s simply not true. They expected Chukchi Sea bears and Southern Beaufort Sea bears to respond similarly to reduced amounts of summer sea ice, as explained here and in Crockford 2017).
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Chukchi Sea polar bears number almost 3000 according to new survey results

The Chukchi Sea finally has a polar bear population estimate! According to survey results from 2016 only recently made public, about 2937 bears (1522-5944) currently inhabit the region, making this the largest subpopulation in the Arctic. This is exciting news — and a huge accomplishment — but the US Fish and Wildlife Service responsible for the work has been oddly mum on the topic.

beaufort-bears_-suzanne-miller-usfws-3-af-2c-on-spit-1.jpg

Not only that, but an extrapolation of that estimate calculated by USFWS researchers for Chukchi plus Alaska (the US portion of the Southern Beaufort Sea subpopulation) was estimated at 4437 (2283-9527), although with “significant uncertainty.” Nevertheless, it means the 2016 estimate for Alaska could be roughly three times what it was in 2010: a whopping 1500 or so, up from about 450 (or about 225-650) for the same area estimated during the last survey (Bromaghin et al. 2015: Fig. 5a).

Even if the real number for Alaska is only twice as large (~1000), that’s still a huge improvement. It would eliminate the Southern Beaufort as the only polar bear subpopulation in the Arctic to have shown a significant decline blamed on human-caused global warming (Crockford 2018). If the recovery is real, it means the 2004-2006 decline was a temporary fluctuation after all, just like previous declines in the region. I expect, however, that it will take a dedicated SB population survey for officials to concede that point.

There is not yet now a detailed report to cite (Regehr et al. 2018 in prep, see update below), but the numbers were announced at the 10th meeting of the Russian-American Commission on Polar Bears held at the end of July this year (AC SWG 2018) by Eric Regehr (formerly of the US Fish & Wildlife Service, as of 2017 at the University of Washington). [h/t to G.H.] This was the same report that raised the quota for subsistence hunting in the Chukchi from 58 to 85, based on these new figures, as I discussed last week.

Wrangel Island polar bear with cubs 2015 news story

From “Military bases to open on Wrangel Island and Chukotka” 22 October 2015.

Regehr was quoted as saying:

“Chukchi bears remain larger and fatter and have not seen downward trends in cub production and survival, according to new preliminary information on the health and numbers of bears.”

UPDATE 15 November 2018: The scientific paper describing the entirely new method (yes, yet another one: see Bromaghin et al. 2015) used to estimate the size of the Chukchi Sea population is now available (University of Washington press release here), in an open-access paper: Regher et al. 2018. News reports (see one here) spin the positive outcome as something that researchers expected all along but that’s simply not true. They expected Chukchi Sea bears and Southern Beaufort Sea bears to respond similarly to reduced amounts of summer sea ice, as explained here and in Crockford 2017).
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More Davis Strait polar bears onshore in the last two days

Four bears were photographed outside of Red Bay, Southern Labrador on Thursday 8 March and a bear was spotted ashore in NE Newfoundland overnight on Wednesday.

Red Bay Labrador polar-bears 8 March 2018_Vicki Hancock photo_CBC 9 March 2018

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Russia confirms Chukchi Sea polar bears not at risk from climate change or poaching

A statement yesterday from Yegor Vereshchagin, wildlife conservation manager from Chukotka, Russia  (Polar Bears Adjust to Climate Change, 20 February 2018) confirms that Chukchi Sea polar bears are currently doing extremely well.

Rode and Regehr 2010_Chukchi_report2010_Fig1_triplets_labelled

Contrary to previous reports and predictions (e.g. Amstrup 2011; Amstrup et al. 2007, 2008; Durner et al. 2009), there appears to be no threats due to recent declines in summer sea ice (Rode and Regehr 2010; Rode et al. 2013, 2014, 2018) or from poaching.
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New Chukchi Sea polar bear survey – exciting preliminary results

Back in October, I wrote about US Fish & Wildlife biologist Eric Regehr comments about a recent survey of Chukchi Sea polar bears, the results of which are still not published. Since then, I’ve been able to track down a bit of information.

This project appears to have run for five years, from 2008 to 2011. The work was confined to the eastern (US) portion of the Chukchi, see maps below (Polar Bear News 2010; Rode and Regehr 2010). Researchers were doing mark-recapture work with helicopters, putting radio collars on some females and radio ear tags on a few males. They worked primarily in March and April (mating season for polar bears), operating entirely on the offshore sea ice – working, I might add, on bears that technically speaking do not exist, since the official population estimate for this region is “zero” (they are not included in the global estimate of 20,000-25,000, see pdf here,, discussed here).

Figure 1. Chukchi Sea – getting you oriented. Note the location of Kotzebue Sound, northeast of the Bering Strait. Map from Wikipedia.

Figure 1. Chukchi Sea – getting you oriented. Note the location of Kotzebue Sound, northeast of the Bering Strait. Map from Wikipedia.

In 2012, US Fish & Wildlife biologist Eric Regehr told reporter Jill Burke at Alaska Dispatch that they found the bears were “reproducing well and maintaining good body condition.” I’ve finally found some details regarding what he meant by that statement (although no final reports or peer-reviewed papers are out, see footnote below).

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Extirpated polar bears of St. Matthew Island spent five months on land during the summer

Did you know there used to be resident polar bears on two small islands in the Bering Sea? Given how much we don’t know about the polar bears of the Bering Sea, the bears that used to den and spend their summers on the St. Matthew Islands are a bright spot. These islands lay at the southern-most limit of the modern “Chukchi Sea” subpopulation (see Fig. 1) and were uninhabited by people when they were discovered in the 1760s – but they were a haven for polar bears.

We have details of the polar bears that gave birth and summered there because a US government biologist (Henry Wood Elliott) and a US navy Lieutenant (Washburn Maynard) surveyed the islands in 1874. Elliott wrote both an official report and a popular magazine article (for Harper’s Weekly Journal of Civilization) in 1875 describing the polar bears they saw; Maynard wrote a separate report in 1876. By 1899, there were none left, victims of the relentless slaughter of polar bears everywhere in the Arctic in that era (see previous discussion here).

Figure 1. St. Matthew Island is in the Bering Sea off the west coast of Alaska: north of the Pribilofs and south of St. Lawrence Island, at about 60°N latitude. Compare this to the southern end of James Bay, Canada – which has a stable population of polar bears – at about 53 0N and Churchill, Manitoba – the “polar bear capital of the world” – at 58 046’N. Maps from Wikipedia.

Figure 1. St. Matthew Island is in the Bering Sea off the west coast of Alaska at about 60°N latitude. Compare this to the southern end of James Bay, Canada (which has a stable population of polar bears) at about 53 0N and Churchill, Manitoba (the so-called “polar bear capital of the world) at 58 046’N. Maps from Wikipedia.

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.

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.

[UPDATE: Jan. 27, 2013: a follow-up to this post is here.]

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Western Hudson Bay polar bears are not like the others – Part 2

In Part 1 of the Western Hudson Bay (WHB) polar bear story, I promised to explore the idea that rather than declining due to the effects of global warming, WHB polar bear populations may simply be returning to ‘normal’ after the rapid population increase that followed the intense over-harvests that occurred between 1890 and 1930 and again from 1945 to 1970.

Derocher and Stirling (1995:1664) had this to say about the life history features (like incidence of triplets and age of weaning) that made the polar bears of WHB unique:

The results of our analyses suggest that the unique reproductive characteristics of polar bears in western Hudson Bay in the 1960s and 1970s were either a function of a population increasing from a depleted state and feeding on a relatively abundant prey base, or density-independent fluctuations in prey population size, or availability due to sea ice variation.

In my last post, I discussed some of the evidence for how polar bear reproductive characteristics had changed since 1985. But how different were WHB polar bears, before and after 1985, from the other populations that had been dramatically reduced between 1890 and 1970, such as those in Svalbard/Barents Sea and Davis Strait?

There are two factors to consider in this recovery from over-harvest: population size changes and reproductive characteristics. Turns out, we don’t know much about the Davis Strait subpopulation but we do know a bit about Svalbard/Barents Sea bears since the 70s. And the Svalbard/Barents Sea vs. WHB comparison is a bit of an eye-opener.
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