Polar bears vanishing from ‘polar bear capital of the world’ in Canada

W. Hudson Bay polar bear population decline stories are unethical and ignore critical caveats
Posted on December 28, 2022 | Comments Offon W. Hudson Bay polar bear population decline stories are unethical and ignore critical caveats
Canadian government scientists created headline news worldwide last week when they told the media that Western Hudson Bay polar bear numbers appeared to have declined by 27% between 2017 and 2021, based on a survey report that has not been made public. This is called ‘science by press release’. Its practice is rightfully considered unethical, as it is usually associated with “people promoting scientific ‘findings’ of questionable scientific merit who turn to the media for attention when they are unlikely to win the approval of the professional scientific community.”


Not surprisingly, all of the stories stated or implied a strong association between this purported population decline and lack of sea ice due to ‘climate change’. However, sea ice conditions have been particularly good over the last five years–for both freeze-up and breakup dates–calling into question how ‘lack of sea ice’ could possibly be to blame for the apparent decline.

A Reuters story (dated 23 December 2022) admits this is the case and included another critical caveat that only one news outlet I saw bothered to mention, which happened to be BBC News:

Scientists cautioned a direct link between the population decline and sea ice loss in Hudson Bay wasn’t yet clear, as four of the past five years have seen moderately good ice conditions. Instead, they said, climate-caused changes in the local seal population might be driving bear numbers down.

For example, an Associated Press story published the day before (22 December 2022), picked up by many other outlets, did not include these critical pieces of information about recent good sea ice conditions and possible declines in seal abundance.

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State of the Polar Bear 2021: polar bears continued to thrive
Posted on February 26, 2022 | State of the Polar Bear 2021: polar bears continued to thrive
The current health and abundance of polar bears continues to be at odds with predictions that the species is suffering serious negative impacts from reduced summer sea ice blamed on human-caused climate change.

Press Release

London, 26 February: Polar bears are thriving says prominent Canadian zoologist.

In the State of the Polar Bear Report 2021, published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) ahead of International Polar Bear Day (27 February) zoologist Dr. Susan Crockford explains that while the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) promotes the impression that polar bear population numbers are declining, the results of recent studies indicate otherwise.

Crockford further clarifies that the global population estimate used by the PBSG has not been updated since 2015, even though the results of numerous surveys have been published since then. These additions bring the global population total to almost 32,000, up from about 26,000, albeit with a wide range of potential error. This modest increase is consistent with a species recovering from low numbers brought about by overhunting that affect it before focused international protection was introduced in 1973.


. . . .

 

It looks more and more like (ahem) "motivated reasoning" was the basis for the recent claim about declining bear numbers.

Where were the starving W. Hudson Bay polar bears in 2020 if the population had declined by 2021?
Posted on January 3, 2023 | Where were the starving W. Hudson Bay polar bears in 2020 if the population had declined by 2021?
Polar bears are supposed to starve before they die, the experts said. They said only a few years ago that dead or emaciated individuals onshore were evidence that many polar bears would soon be dying of starvation out on the sea ice. So, if the Western Hudson Bay (WH) subpopulation had indeed dropped by 27% by late summer 2021 as researchers claimed, where are all the photos of starving bears in the fall of 2020, the year before the count? The photo below of a thin female and cub was taken in late fall of 2021 (the year of the count) by a stationary web cam. In other words, some bears came off the ice without an optimal amount of fat because of poor hunting conditions over the winter but they were still alive. We know that 2020 had the shortest ice-free season in at least 20 years (and no similar images were captured), so bears went into the winter of 2020/2021 in good condition. Ditto for 2017-2019. In contrast to 2021, in 2016 (the year of the previous survey that also indicated a declining population size), bears reportedly came off the ice in good condition.


All I’ve seen are photos of fat bears and fat cubs, even a triplet litter in fall 2020. The shore of WH near Churchill should have been abounding with starving bears in 2020 (and in 2015), if the experts were right about starving bears preceding a population decline. More importantly, where are the studies on food-deprived bears onshore, as were done in the 1980s when WH bears were emaciated and cub survival poor (e.g. Ramsay et al. 198? WH bears are being used exclusively to model an implausibly pessimistic future for polar bears across the entire Arctic (Molnar et al. 2010; 2020), which means lack of good science for WH polar bears has big consequences. Covid restrictions in two of those ten years don’t excuse lack of study on this phenomenon.

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There are plenty of published papers showing little to no summer sea ice cover in the current interglacial period, here is a link to 7 papers.

Little to no Summer ice in the Arctic

LINK

 

Thanks for bumping my thread!

 

Merry Christmas who cares the bear population drops it cures that they would go extinct? 98% of all living things planet are extinct

 

Inuit in Arctic Canada now observing higher numbers of polar bears, says government report
Posted on January 4, 2023 | Comments Offon Inuit in Arctic Canada now observing higher numbers of polar bears, says government report
A 2021 publication by the government of Canada released last month called Species at Risk in Nunavut says the region is “now observing higher numbers of polar bears“, and that management goals are “more focused on maintaining or reducing numbers in communities and in sensitive areas (i.e. bird colonies)“. Local Inuit are said to be “concerned about the increasing number of encounters and property damages” caused by polar bears.


Polar bear in Arviat, Nunavut, 3 October 2022. Chris Mikijuniak photo.
Polar bears in Canada are considered a species of ‘special concern’ (COSEWIC 201, not threatened as they are in the USA. See the map of Nunavut below.

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Lomborg responds to polar bear abundance challenge
Posted on January 27, 2023 | Comments Offon Lomborg responds to polar bear abundance challenge
Money quote from Bjorn Lomborg’s response to being ‘fact-checked’ on polar bear numbers, Wall Street Journal, 26 January 2023:

“It does more good for polar bears, and the rest of us, if those trying to help them use accurate facts.”


Lomborg responds himself after I challenged the ‘fact-checkers’ last week:

Relying on the data I referenced used to be uncontroversial. When a CNN science journalist did an investigation similar to AFP’s in 2008, he spoke to numerous scientists and they agreed “that polar bear populations have, in all likelihood, increased in the past several decades.” When polar bears in 2008 were listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, the decision noted that the population “has grown from a low of about 12,000 in the late 1960’s to a current worldwide estimate of 20,000-25,000.” The data here haven’t changed, only the media’s willingness to disregard annoying facts.

The result is that the public is denied access to accurate data and open debate about these very important topics. Ridiculous points on one side are left standing while so-called fact-checking censors inconvenient truths. If we’re to make good climate policy, voters need a full picture of the facts. Lomborg 2023, backup link

I would add this fact: in 1982, polar bears were listed by the IUCN as ‘vulnerable’ but by 1996, that had changed to ‘lower risk/conservation dependent’–now called ‘least concern‘ (see screencap below) because population numbers had rebounded after more than 20 years of international protection from over-hunting. The reversion to ‘vulnerable’ in 2006 was based entirely on predictions that population numbers would decline in the future due to see ice loss, which so far has not happened (Crockford 2017, 2019; Crockford and Geist 201.

 

Game. Set. Match.
Climate activists are silent on polar bears because their doom-mongering blew up in their faces
Posted on August 8, 2023 |Climate activists are silent on polar bears because their doom-mongering blew up in their faces
A Grist article last week pandered to activist polar bear specialists over their failed climate change agenda as it tried to minimize why the climate movement doesn’t talk about polar bears anymore. Apparently, the Arctic icon has “largely fallen out of fashion” through “overexposure” resulting in polar bear images invoking “cynicism and fatigue.” But that isn’t really true, is it?


While there is an admission that the over-hyped lies about starving bears promoted by National Geographic in 2017 and 2018 were a factor, there is no mention in the article of the well-known, documented evidence of scientists’ own failed assumptions that polar bears require summer sea ice for survival have had any impact on public opinion (Amstrup et al. 2007; Crockford 2015, 2019, 2022, 2023; Lippold et al. 2019; Rode et al. 2021).

Thriving populations in the Chukchi Sea and elsewhere amid low summer ice levels have busted the myth that polar bears need ice year-round.


Andrew Derocher was also allowed to repeat, unchallenged, the ridiculous narrative he and his activist supporters have peddled before, that insists the polar bear had become a climate change icon by accident rather than design, a lie I addressed in detail last year. Some excerpts from that 2022 post are copied below.

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