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New Research Finds Polar Bear Numbers Up 42% Since 2004 – Survival Rates Unaffected By Sea Ice Avail

Derocher admits Western Hudson Bay polar bear population may not be declining

Posted on December 30, 2018 | Comments Offon Derocher admits Western Hudson Bay polar bear population may not be declining
Earlier this year, I challenged a journalist to ask to see the data used by Andrew Derocher and his colleagues to support their repeated claims that Western Hudson Bay polar bears are having trouble surviving. It almost happened.
polar-bears_gordon-court_committee-on-the-status-of-endangered-wildlife-in-canada-dec-2018.jpg

David Rose, writing for The Mail on Sunday, has produced an excellent feature on the conflict between Nunavut Inuit and biologists about polar bear management, got Andrew Derocher to tell the truth about current polar bear health and survival.
Or, to be more precise, to waffle a bit on his standard message of doom:
“Even Prof Derocher, who is convinced the bears’ long-term future is bleak, accepts that ‘the wheels are not coming off yet’, while ‘some bear populations are doing fine’. In West Hudson Bay, there has been ‘a recent period of stability’, he says, and though ‘we were seeing starving bears, starving cubs on land, that seems to have slowed down’. Then again, the computer models ‘are not great on the 5 – 10 year time-frame’, and it was possible that although the Arviat bears might look healthy now, they may be about to ‘fall off a cliff’.” [my bold]
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This concession by Derocher suggests that Western Hudson Bay bears indeed are thriving, because he’s the guy who holds all the data. But he couldn’t help adding that disaster might be just around the corner.
But did he actually produce the data that show what’s been happening with cub survival or the body condition of females since 2004? Apparently not — but his admission that conditions are not as bleak as he continually portrays them suggests he is covering for data that says the same: polar bears in Western Hudson Bay are doing just fine and Inuit are right to be worried.
This may be as good as it gets unless the people of Nunavut can force Derocher to show his data.
 
I’ve al aye been intrigued by them since reading that Noble and crew left the liver alone after they ate the rest.
 
Well, sure. They may be thriving in the North, but you'll notice that there are NO polar bears in Antarctica. They've gone extinct! Good job, global warming.
 
flogger said:
Yer all just filthy capitalist deniers here is what is really happening ......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxis7Y1ikIQ

...... are you feeling guilty yet :wink:
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Speaking of an ugly thought, think of all those penguins who evolved without any land based predators, getting along with a
polar bear that only eats meat, and can run down slow flightless birds on land?
 
[h=2]Heads up Newfoundland & Labrador: polar bear season has begun[/h]Posted on January 2, 2019 | Comments Offon Heads up Newfoundland & Labrador: polar bear season has begun
There is now enough sea ice off southern Labrador and the northern tip of Newfoundland for Davis Strait polar bears to come ashore looking for food. Baby seals won’t be available for months yet. And since winter is the lean season for these bears, some may seek food sources onshore. The bears come down from the area of Hudson Strait and southern Baffin Island: as the sea ice expands south, so do the bears.
Polar-bear-tracks_25-Feb-Labrador-2015-CBC.jpg

Continue reading
 
[h=2]Polar bear voted newsmaker of the year in Nunavut: A climate change emblem becomes a symbol of bitter conflict[/h]Posted on January 2, 2019 | Comments Offon Polar bear voted newsmaker of the year in Nunavut: A climate change emblem becomes a symbol of bitter conflict
This Nunatsiaq News editorial is worth a read (2 January 2019): Meet our newsmaker of the year: the polar bear.

Polar-bear-newsmake-of-the-year_2-Jan-2019-Nunatsiaq-News.jpg

“But for this year, we’re not choosing a person. For 2018, our newsmaker of the year designation goes to an entire species: the polar bear.
To earn that, the humble polar bear didn’t have to do much of anything. All they had to do was what polar bears have always done: hunt, eat, mate and protect their young.
In doing so, they caused two heart-rending Nunavut tragedies: the death of an Arviat man in July, followed by the death of a Naujaat man in August. These events have aggravated a bitter regional controversy that’s unlikely to be resolved anytime soon, especially in the Kivalliq region.”
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It continues (my bold):
“But in Nunavut, the damage that environmentalists have inflicted on their cause will likely last for generations. Growing numbers of people in Nunavut not only believe polar bears are a threat to public safety. Growing numbers also believe that scientists and government wildlife managers are their enemy.
On that last point, the condescending attitudes of some researchers and government officials has been rather less than helpful.
For example, the federal Department of Environment and Climate Change said last fall, in a submission to the wildlife management board, that the Inuit position is “inconsistent with the federal listing of the polar bear as a species of special concern in Canada.”
That tone-deaf response simply reinforces the Inuit belief that governments value the lives of polar bears more than they value the lives of human beings.”
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Read the whole thing here.



 
[h=2]Svalbard polar bears doing fine with much less sea ice say Norwegian biologists[/h]Posted on January 8, 2019 | Comments Offon Svalbard polar bears doing fine with much less sea ice say Norwegian biologists
“…despite the loss of good denning areas and a shrinking habitat for hunting, Svalbard’s bears seem to be doing fine.…The sea ice season is now several months shorter, and the ice edge typically lies several degrees further north than what was normal 20-40 years ago….Polar bears can survive long periods without food, provided they have accumulated a good fat reserve during the few months in spring and summer when sea ice is present, and seals are abundant.” [Jon Aars, Norwegian Polar Institute, 2018]
lying-bear-shutterstock_244419640_cropped_web-size.jpg

Jon Aars from the Norwegian Polar Institute has written an update on the status of Svalbard polar bears for the general public (The Barents Observer, 8 January 2019, republished from a story published by The Fram Centre in their newsletter: Population changes in polar bears: protected, but quickly losing habitat).
franz_josef_land_location_wikipedia.png

Read the whole thing below (original has awesome photos). It reports the truth of the current situation with the usual caveats about what mighthappen decades into the future. Continue reading



 
[h=2]Southern Beaufort polar bear attack far from the Alaskan coast: another winter example[/h]Posted on January 15, 2019 | Comments Offon Southern Beaufort polar bear attack far from the Alaskan coast: another winter example
A man from Arctic Village (Alaska), out checking his trap-line, killed a polar bear at his cabin when it came after him: only odd things were it was the first week of January and the cabin was more than 100 miles south of the Beaufort Sea coast.
polar_bear_in-fall-terry-debruyne_usfws-nov-10-2010_w-label_sm.jpg

Winter is hard for polar bears, as I’ve mentioned before: it’s cold, dark, and hard to find seals. Most bears are at their lightest weight at the end of winter (March). Looking for food in the dead of winter, the bears can be very destructive as well as dangerous. See previous posts here,here, here, and here.
The map below shows how far south Arctic Village is from the Beaufort coast. This hunter is lucky he had his wits about him and his gun handy, because he came awfully close to being a polar bear’s dinner.
arctic-village-ak-map-google.jpg

Here’s an excerpt of the story (my bold): “Polar bear encounter reported in Arctic Village, many miles south of normal range” (KTOO, Ravenna Koenig, 15 January 2019):
Continue reading



 
[h=2]Images from 2017 and 2018 show polar bears thriving in a warming world[/h]Posted on January 18, 2019 | Comments Offon Images from 2017 and 2018 show polar bears thriving in a warming world
Candid images of fat, healthy bears taken over the last two years by unbiased photographers across the Arctic are representative of the state of polar bears in a world that’s warmer than it was in 1980.
chukchi-sea-polar-bear-arctic_early-august-2018_a-khan-nsidc-e1547829613329.jpg
Chukchi Sea polar bear on the sea ice, early August 2018. A Khan, NSIDC. Chukchi Sea bears are thriving, according to a new survey of the population.
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It may seem counter-intuitive but it’s true: polar bears are thriving with less summer sea ice and there are more bears now than there were in 2005 (not a statistically significant amount more, but more nevertheless).
Continue reading



 
Jack Hays said:
It may seem counter-intuitive but it’s true: polar bears are thriving with less summer sea ice and there are than there were in 2005 (not a statistically significant amount more, but more nevertheless).
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If you knew anything about basic science and the fundamentals of statistics, you’d understand that this means... there is no increase in the polar bear population.

But that’s Susan Crockford for ya!
 
Threegoofs said:
If you knew anything about basic science and the fundamentals of statistics, you’d understand that this means... there is no increase in the polar bear population.

But that’s Susan Crockford for ya!
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It may seem counter-intuitive but it’s true: polar bears are thriving with less summer sea ice and there are more bears now than there were in 2005 (not a statistically significant amount more, but more nevertheless).
 
Jack Hays said:
It may seem counter-intuitive but it’s true: polar bears are thriving with less summer sea ice and there are more bears now than there were in 2005 (not a statistically significant amount more, but more nevertheless).
Click to expand...

You don’t understand what statistically significant means.

Got it.

Abject ignorance is a feature for you, not a bug, I guess.
 
Threegoofs said:
You don’t understand what statistically significant means.

Got it.

Abject ignorance is a feature for you, not a bug, I guess.
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Please note that Crockford herself states the increase is not statistically significant. I thought perhaps you missed that.
 
Jack Hays said:
Please note that Crockford herself states the increase is not statistically significant. I thought perhaps you missed that.
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That means THERE IS NO INCREASE.

She should know this. But she’s saying there’s an increase to snow the scientifically illiterate schlubs.

And the fact that you can’t understand that says a lot.
 
Threegoofs said:
That means THERE IS NO INCREASE.

She should know this. But she’s saying there’s an increase to snow the scientifically illiterate schlubs.

And the fact that you can’t understand that says a lot.
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No. There's a difference between an increase and a statistically significant increase. The real point is that the decrease predicted by her (perpetually wrong) opponents has not happened.
 
Jack Hays said:
No. There's a difference between an increase and a statistically significant increase. The real point is that the decrease predicted by her (perpetually wrong) opponents has not happened.
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LOL.

No.

That’s why we do statistics, dude.
 
[h=2]Two polar bears onshore in coastal Labrador, one relocated for public safety[/h]Posted on February 1, 2019 | Comments Offon Two polar bears onshore in coastal Labrador, one relocated for public safety
Just in (VOCM, 1 February 2019) from a community called Makkovik on the coast of Labrador: one of two bears sighted prowling the local dump has been relocated for public safety. The community is still on high alert until the other bear can be located.
black-tickle-polar-bear-7-march-2017-kim-penney-photo-shared-cbc.jpg
Polar bear spotted near Black Tickle Labrador on 7 March 2017.
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Polar bears are extraordinarily dangerous at this time of year because they are usually at their leanest weight and can be desperate for food of any kind. See the most recent example here, others here and here (with references).
See below for a map showing the location of Makkovik, population about 360.
Continue reading



 
[h=1]Ben Pile explains climate scepticism to Scott Adams[/h]Posted on 01 Feb 19 by PAUL MATTHEWS • 22 Comments
A sequence of tweets from Ben today, strung together with threadreaderunwrap. The key point is that you don’t need to be an expert scientist to see that many of the claims made by climate scientists are unjustified or nonsense. Here, @ScottAdamsSays that the debate between ‘scientists’ and ‘sceptics’ (his framing) is impossible for a layperson …
 
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