Polar Bears Are Thriving

Democrats/progressive folks just trying to make a buck off of the manufactured angst they believe they are good at creating...

 

Eastern Canadian Arctic has much more sea ice than usual while Svalbard polar bears deal with less
Posted on November 24, 2022 | Comments Offon Eastern Canadian Arctic has much more sea ice than usual while Svalbard polar bears deal with less
Svalbard is still ice-free this fall, which it has been rather consistently for at least ten years but the amount of sea ice greater than ‘normal’ in the Eastern Canadian Arctic at this date is something to behold. Yet contrary to predictions, polar bears in Svalbard are thriving.




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Another New Study Indicates Polar Bears Benefit From Sea Ice Loss Due To Enhanced Prey Accessibility
By Kenneth Richard on 1. December 2022

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Polar bear populations are stable to increasing with improved body condition in the 21st century.
The alarmist narrative that says polar bears are threatened by sea ice losses is strongly at odds with real-world observations.

A new study assesses the body condition of polar bears in the Gulf of Boothia – an immense 67,000 km² study region in Canada – has vastly improved in the last decades.

The recent thinning ice in this region seems to have “facilitated a short-term boost in hunting opportunities for bears,” and declining ice thickness and extent “may be partly responsible for the observed improvement in body condition of GB bears.”

The subpopulation of polar bears in this region is considered “stable to likely increasing.”



Image Source: Dyck et al., 2022

 

Polar bear habitat update: Winter conditions well on their way across the Arctic except in Svalbard
Posted on December 11, 2022 | Comments Offon Polar bear habitat update: Winter conditions well on their way across the Arctic except in Svalbard
December is late fall in the Arctic: winter conditions are gearing up but are not in full swing everywhere. Sea ice is developing quickly over Hudson Bay and moving slowly towards the Bering Sea but the Svalbard archipelago is still devoid of pack ice.


Such conditions north of Norway have existed most years since 2005: it’s certainly not a new development for Svalbard to be free of surrounding pack ice in December (although there was lots of ice in 2019 and 2021 by late November). This means traditional denning areas on the eastern islands again cannot be used by pregnant polar bear females, because they must be ensconced in their dens by at least late November or so.

Some seem to think this is a calamity: that such ‘loss of habitat’ is a huge concern for the survival of the subpopulation, if not the entire species. However, the same conditions existed in 2011 and did not result in a dramatic decline in the population as measured in 2015 (Aars et al. 2017) because the bears knew how to respond. They have apparently moved north to make maternity dens on the sea ice or east to the Franz Josef Land archipelago in Russia (Aars 2015). These areas are still within the Barents Sea subpopulation boundaries and researchers have known for two decades that bears have moved around within it (Andersen et al. 2012; Derocher 2005; Maurizen et al. 2002).

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Arctic Report: primary productivity still high & sea ice flatline continues despite warmer temperatures
Posted on December 14, 2022 | Comments Offon Arctic Report: primary productivity still high & sea ice flatline continues despite warmer temperatures
NOAAs annual Arctic Report Card is, for the most part, a valiant effort to turn good and ambiguous news into harbingers of climate change disaster. Primary productivity is up across most of the region (good news for wildlife) and despite Arctic temperatures being “twice as high” as the rest of the world in recent years, the summer sea ice ‘death spiral’ has failed to materialize.


Oddly, there is no bad news about polar bears (last mention was 2014). However, the media were told that the few hundred sea birds that died this year in the enormous Bering/Chukchi Sea region over the four months of summer in 2022 is a portend of climate change catastrophe–even though the authors of the NOAA report admit they have no conclusive evidence to explain the phenomenon. However, here are also some honest figures that are quite illuminating.

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No evidence for BBC claim that Churchill is simply getting too warm for polar bears
Posted on December 18, 2022 | Comments Offon No evidence for BBC claim that Churchill is simply getting too warm for polar bears
Another pronouncement from conservation activists at Polar Bears International taken without a single check of facts makes the BBC look ineffective and gullible.




The photo above of a ‘green dot’ bear was taken 10 November 2022 by a Churchill resident. Bears released from the ‘polar bear jail’ when there is enough sea ice for them to resume hunting are marked with a green dot.

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Whaddayknow, the Svalbard study published 2018. Not about the effects of climate change.

Here's another study:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2351989422003213?via=ihub

"to maintain body condition and associated reproduction and survival, increased durations onshore that are associated with a negative energy balance (i.e., bears lose weight while onshore) would have to be offset by increased energy intake when sea ice is available"

Conflict with humans is the main factor affecting carnivore conservation worldwide.

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More polar bears are coming on land for longer in response to summer sea ice loss.

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We forecasted future land use based on observed bear and ice patterns, 1985–2017.

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50–88% of bears in our study populations may spend 90–126 days onshore by 2040.

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Land use increases overlap with humans elevating risk of bear-human conflict.

 

The post includes data as recent as 2022. The bears are doing fine, alarmist hand-wringing notwithstanding.

 

'doing fine'?

They're vulnerable & if you read some of the science, i.e. papers losing their sea-ice has innumerable consequences, further than being able to eat and survive.

Easy to pop out that glib epithet when you're in the lounge chair.

 

As Crockford demonstrated in her refutation of the hypothesis that projected sea ice loss would harm the bears, the data are on my side. There is no link between sea ice extent and the bear population or bear welfare.

 

If you investigate a little further, and with a bit more nuance you'll see that that is not necessarily true.

 

Another empty reply, where is the counterpoint do you have one to offer?

 

Sorry, but it's (as they say) the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Crockford's paper was a crushing embarrassment for the polar bear old boys' club, for which they have never forgiven her. Rather than engage her research, they sought to smear her personally.

 

This will start you off.


https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63603489

 

Already refuted.
No evidence for BBC claim that Churchill is simply getting too warm for polar bears
Posted on December 18, 2022 | Comments Offon No evidence for BBC claim that Churchill is simply getting too warm for polar bears
Another pronouncement from conservation activists at Polar Bears International taken without a single check of facts makes the BBC look ineffective and gullible.




The photo above of a ‘green dot’ bear was taken 10 November 2022 by a Churchill resident. Bears released from the ‘polar bear jail’ when there is enough sea ice for them to resume hunting are marked with a green dot.

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It is clear you didn't read Jacks link since this article is in his link which talked about the mistakes found in the BBC story and you didn't bother to check the temperature profile of the nearest northern city of Arviat which is north of Churchill which doesn't show any warming at all.



LINK

You are too lazy at this.

 

It is related to sea ice changes, which are projected to affect the hunting season and mating of bears. The ice forms later and breaks up earlier.

It also causes bears to come into contact with humans more, which is generally detrimental.

I'm not sure if local temperatures are related, so perhaps BBC took a little licence there.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/thecon...lain-whats-driving-the-overall-decline-166549

There are a few studies linked from here describing the relationship between polar bear welfare and sea ice - if you're interested.

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146023/polar-bears-struggle-as-sea-ice-declines

 

They don't. That's the point. The bears have thrived through eras that were completely ice free.

 

Polar bears of SE Greenland get shorefast ice necessary to hunt seals: not so unique after all
Posted on December 20, 2022 | Comments Offon Polar bears of SE Greenland get shorefast ice necessary to hunt seals: not so unique after all
The 234 or so polar bears inhabiting the SE tip of Greenland, said to be genetically and ecologically unique because they are “surviving without ice“, have been experiencing sea ice formation along the shoreline this month just like other bears across the Arctic. Recall that shorefast ice formation attracts seals in the fall, which polar bears hunt successfully, and the following spring (April/May) provide a platform for ringed seals to give birth to their pups, which polar bears eat with gay abandon.




The photo above was taken by Kristin Laidre in March 2016: a bear this fat at the end of winter (i.e. before ringed seals are born in the spring) is living in productive habitat.

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All bears?

bears now spend an additional 30 d on land (90 d in total) in the 2000s compared to the 1990s, a change closely correlated with changes in spring sea ice breakup and fall sea ice formation. Body condition declined for all sex, age, and reproductive classes and was positively correlated with sea ice availability in the current and previous year. Furthermore, cub litter size was positively correlated with maternal condition and spring breakup date (i.e., later breakup leading to larger litters), and negatively correlated with the duration of the ice-free period (i.e., longer ice-free periods leading to smaller litters)

https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eap.2071

 

Yes.
State of the Polar Bear 2021: polar bears continued to thrive
Posted on February 26, 2022 | Comments Offon 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.

 

Ok, some genetic strains

Here we part. Have a good day...

 

The data are the data.

 

He doesn't want to admit the Polar Bears are doing well over all in the arctic and that they are more resilient than admitted.

Here is a link to a bunch of published papers showing that there were several long periods of time of little to NO summer ice in the arctic:

LINK

 

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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