Polar bear population – no change

From CNS News:

From that article:

“The PBSG confirmed its earlier conclusion that unabated global warming will ultimately threaten polar bears everywhere,” it said.

At the same time, the report cited an American scientist who told the group that a research team had used a collar to track a polar bear that swam for more than 650 kilometers across the sea. “He described the extensive spatial data recovered from one particular collar that showed the bear swimming more than 650 km in the Beaufort Sea,” said the report.

Despite its concern that climate change could threaten the polar bear, the group also said it supported the right of human beings to “harvest” the bears.

Full story here

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JinOH
May 20, 2011 10:49 am

Where’s the one that’s holding a bottle of Coke?

R. Shearer
May 20, 2011 10:51 am

“Despite its concern that climate change could threaten the polar bear, the group also said it supported the right of human beings to “harvest” the bears.”
I support the right to arm bears.

Rhoda Ramirez
May 20, 2011 10:57 am

Give it time and the story will change to: The lack of polar bear population recovery is a rock-solid proof of the negative impact of AGW.

Latitude
May 20, 2011 10:59 am

It used to be all about the seals………..

Doug
May 20, 2011 11:01 am

The bears survived the MWP and many other periods where there was very little ice. Polar bears didn’t just evolve in the last 1000 years. They survived before, and they will survive in the future.

roger
May 20, 2011 11:18 am

I support the right of the Innuit people to bare arms when global warming becomes unbearable.

May 20, 2011 11:33 am

Welll – after Coke and Algore made them cute and cuddley, that caused a huge influx of enviro people which greatly increased their available food supply! So of course they are doing fine with the new source of food (since global warming killed all the seals). 😉

Frank K.
May 20, 2011 11:34 am

“Despite its concern that climate change could threaten the polar bear, the group also said it supported the right of human beings to harvest the bears.”
It works the other way too. I have a friend who used to work in Alaska (driving trucks I believe in the oil field regions). He described how a polar bear hid itself above the doorway to their cabin, and then proceeded to take a man’s head off as he exited the cabin…
Unfortunately, people still think of them as cute and fluffy stuffed animals…

Bruce Cobb
May 20, 2011 11:38 am

“…the report cited an American scientist who told the group that a research team had used a collar to track a polar bear that swam for more than 650 kilometers across the sea.”
Undoubtedly this was the same bear later spotted trekking accross hill and dale, and along highways to hug a Nissan Leaf owner.

Jimbo
May 20, 2011 11:51 am

Anybody who thinks polar bears will go extinct with an ice-free Arctic summer must be off their medication.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2010.08.016
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AGUFMPP11A0203F
http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/21/3/227
The swim story was earlier covered by the BBC. Drowning polar bears my foot.

“A polar bear swam continuously for over nine days, covering 687km (426 miles), a new study has revealed.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9369000/9369317.stm

Jack Savage
May 20, 2011 11:51 am

So are 25,000 polar bears too many, ,just enough or too few?
Ask your local Greenpeace/WWF representative. Expect a blank stare. Do not blame them. I do not know. Do you?
Seriously folks…if they stabilise at this figure or more particularly if they start to increase……you have to ask, how many do we want? How will we know when the population is “optimal”? Or even what optimal means? Still shooting them while we decide does not seem to make a lot of sense, either.
Won’t someone think of the seals!

May 20, 2011 11:52 am

Polar bears defecate on the ice.
Pope is a Catholic.

May 20, 2011 11:54 am

Doug says:
May 20, 2011 at 11:01 am
The bears survived the MWP and many other periods where there was very little ice. Polar bears didn’t just evolve in the last 1000 years. They survived before, and they will survive in the future

As long as we don’t shoot them. We can, and have, done what is necessary to assure the survival of polar bears. We’ve stopped killing them off in job lots with rifles.

bubbagyro
May 20, 2011 12:03 pm

Seals are aplenty.
But, since the people counting polar bears are the same ones who exaggerate everything in their purview, I suggest that the real number is at least double, or 50,000. This time they de-exaggerate, or count with one eye tied behind their backs.

pwl
May 20, 2011 12:05 pm

Canadian Land Sharks, oh pardon me, Polar Bears have adapted well to changing weather environments over multiple Ice Ages and the Interglacial periods in between. Heck, they even survived the up to ~2.5c warmer 8,100 years out of the last 10,500 years quite nicely.
“One small fossil, one giant step for polar bear evolution
April 2010
As the fuzzy and ferocious poster child for climate change issues, polar bears get plenty of press, whether it’s coverage of something as simple as the birth of a cub at a zoo or as political as a rejected ban on trading polar bear parts. Last month, however, saw a polar bear story of a different ilk — a story about the bears’ evolutionary past that has implications for their evolutionary future. Polar bears, it turns out, may have evolved surprisingly quickly in response to past climactic changes. Here, we’ll examine the different lines of evidence that led scientists to this conclusion.
Where’s the evolution?
In 2004, researchers discovered a polar bear fossil preserved in Norwegian coastal cliffs. It was the lower left portion of the jaw, still containing a tooth. And though this might not sound like much information to go on, the single fossil would turn out to have a lot to say about polar bear evolution.
The polar bear jawbone fossil that revealed so much about the history of polar bears.
The polar bear jawbone fossil that revealed so much about the history of polar bears.
Based on the jawbone’s shape, scientists were confident that it belonged to an adult male polar bear. The rock layers in which it was embedded, along with other dating techniques, suggest that it is 110,000 to 130,000 years old — older than any other known polar bear fossils. This date alone is interesting because previous estimates for the origin of polar bears have ranged from 70,000 to more than a million years ago. But, based on the new fossil’s age, we can infer that the polar bear lineage must be more than 110,000 years old.”
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/news/100401_polarbears
Never forget that bears are land sharks and you need to be very wary and careful of them when encountering them in the wild (or even at the zoo http://pathstoknowledge.net/2009/07/05/the-only-way-to-save-the-polar-bears-is-to-send-us-money-wwf-tv-advertisement/).

Bob Diaz
May 20, 2011 12:06 pm

The bottom line is the polar bears are NOT in decline. However, this won’t stop the news media and alarmists from repeating the same lie over and over.

DJ
May 20, 2011 12:11 pm

426 miles in 9 days? That’s swimming almost 2mph 24/7. That’s cookin’!!!
When looking at the numbers of bears killed, and the estimated number of bears poached or killed illegally, it appears to me that climate change is the least of their worries. The other thing that’s problematic is the regions where populations are unknown, and based on estimates.
Meanwhile, WWF is airing commercials to basically adopt a polar bear…with the tear jerker ad aimed at people with the emotional maturity of a 9yr old girl. Not far off of a “donate or we’ll shoot the puppy” approach.
National Geographic is also guilty of continuing to present videos stating that the bears are in peril. If they say it enough we’ll believe it??

May 20, 2011 12:25 pm

pwl says:
May 20, 2011 at 12:05 pm
Canadian Land Sharks

LOL – Best SNL skit ever!

Tilo Reber
May 20, 2011 12:28 pm

Looks like they are able to swim about six times as far as previously thought.

Kev-in-Uk
May 20, 2011 12:28 pm

Philip Foster says:
May 20, 2011 at 11:52 am
Oh sh*t! So it’s polar bear crap that’s causing a change in ice albedo and this aids melting! Whats that old saying? – something like – ‘Don’t sh*t on your own doorstep’?

DesertYote
May 20, 2011 12:37 pm

For those who are unfamiliar with the PBSG, they are one of the most moonbat of the IUCN SGs. They were formed because the Bear SG was not lefty enough. So reading this report was a bit of a surprise for me.

Jason
May 20, 2011 12:41 pm

bubbagyro says:
May 20, 2011 at 12:03 pm
Seals are aplenty.
But, since the people counting polar bears are the same ones who exaggerate everything in their purview, I suggest that the real number is at least double, or 50,000. This time they de-exaggerate, or count with one eye tied behind their backs.

Nah, they just ran out of fingers and toes to count on. Probably lost them to frostbite after they figured they didn’t need gloves or boots anymore.

May 20, 2011 12:45 pm

Note that the white bears are well armed with teeth and claws.
Fun little game the greens and feds are playing here: plus up the worldwide numbers of polar bears. Then watch them decimate the seal population until they are also endangered and list both species as endangered, locking up the Arctic from oil and natural gas exploration for as long as they can get away with it. Cheers –

Carter
May 20, 2011 1:14 pm

650 km swim across the sea? That’s not a surprise. Polar bears are the corks of the animal kingdom. I wonder how many hours the bear slept during the trek? That one fact alone puts to rest the entire fiction about polar bears drowning in open water. Put one into the middle of a humongoid arctic storm – sure they could drown! I’ve watched “Deadliest Catch.” Those waters can be just a tad unsettled during a major storm. Otherwise, forget it. Polar bears actually have to work to stay submerged. Gore should take his animators out for dinner and drinks for the convincing con job they came up with in his fairy tale.

Carter
May 20, 2011 1:27 pm

A couple years ago, I read somewhere that some well-meaning, but otherwise completely uninformed people had designed a life vest for the poor polar bears, to stop them from drowning, since all of their ice would soon be gone. That was one of the best LMAOROF moments I’d had in a long time. Even my 14 year old understood what a moronic idea it was. The sad part was when she shared the story with her friends, they all thought it was a great idea. And some of them didn’t want to hear the truth about the physiology of Ursus Maritimus. Personally, I was hoping to hear about the attempts of these fools to actually “dress” a 1500 pound male, and their subsequent invitation to dinner – the bears!

Jon salmi
May 20, 2011 1:36 pm

A quick internet survey shows;
14,500 Polar Bears in Canada – from Environment Canada
(1,500 in So. Beaufort Sea – Alaska population propably incl. in Canada’s count)
7,000 Polar Bears in Siberia – from WWF – panda.org
3,000 on the North Cape – from the Norwegian Polar Institute
2,000 in the Alaska Chukchi-Bearing area – US FWS
7,500 in Greenland – from foxnews article on Hunting limits
(higher than other Greenland counts I’ve seen)
This seems more like 30,000 + to me
It seems that everybody just accepts the 20-25,00 count, although endangeredpolarbear.com gives a wide range of 22 to 40 thousand polar bears
It also seems to me that if the count were much higher many more polar Bear cubs would starve, after all the Polar Bear is an alpha-predator in a barren wasteland.

Sandy Rham
May 20, 2011 1:40 pm

Do the Inuit agree with this report on numbers?

Gary Pearse
May 20, 2011 1:40 pm

689 km in 9 days. Sounds like they are used to cosiderable ice melt having occurred during their evolution. These guys are big travelers by land ice and sea. They regularly take a holiday in Newfoundland and Iceland.

Gary D.
May 20, 2011 1:51 pm

I support the right of bears to bare arms when the climate gets warm.

Jimbo
May 20, 2011 2:11 pm

Did polar bears survive previous warm periods via adaptation?

Estimating the Energetic Contribution of Polar Bear (Ursus maritimus) Summer Diets to the Total Energy Budget
The analysis indicated that it is possible for polar bears to maintain their body mass while on shore by feeding on arctic charr and seal blubber. Polar bears of body masses up to 280 kg could gain sufficient energy from blueberries to match the daily energy loss.
http://www.asmjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1644/08-MAMM-A-103R2.1

But the polar bear cubs are doomed to drowning. Ahhhhh!

We describe an observation of a polar bear cub on its mother’s back while the mother was swimming among ice floes in Svalbard, Norwegian Arctic.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/8051204vu73l320w/
Also:
http://www.beartrust.org/Polar_bear.html

kadaka (KD Knoebel)
May 20, 2011 2:27 pm

A few weeks ago they had some video making the rounds on ABC News (US), about the “endangered” polar bears. They looked at the “most studied group” of them around Hudson Bay. Surrounded by people with proudly-displayed “WWF” logos, they were looking at a bunch of females with big radio tracking collars, and cited as evidence of how threatened they were that mothers were only having one cub, where previously two and three cubs batches were common.
Then when the crew had vehicle problems and were stuck in the boonies, they sighted an un-collared female, generally left alone and apparently not “most studied,” with three cubs.
Is this like what happened with the tagged penguins? They’re only having one cub because they’re being stressed from the radio collars and being so heavily studied?
If those WWF people were regularly knocked out by “aliens,” “probed” with “samples obtained,” tracking devices placed on them, and knew they were being regularly monitored with the “aliens” able to find them anytime anywhere, would they be able to do much successful breeding on their own?
I don’t know for sure, doubt anyone else knows. Time to draw up a grant proposal! Effects of Climate Change and Monitoring Stress on Homo Sapiens Gaian. Should be worth at least a few million dollars, for the initial research.

Dave Wendt
May 20, 2011 2:29 pm

According to the story this report is based on a conference that took place in June 2009, but the report was not released until Feb of this year. Does anyone else suspect , as I do, that if they could have produced something negative to report on the PB’s status, the PR would have been burning up the wires before the staff at the conference center had finished stacking up the chairs.
Wasn’t this the same group that wouldn’t allow one of the world’s most experienced polar bear researchers to attend their conference because he didn’t support the proper agenda?

May 20, 2011 2:35 pm

Sure. The population of Polar Bears is ~25,000. At the Churchill Manitoba Landfill. I guess these scientists only looked there.

May 20, 2011 3:10 pm

Clearly it worse than we thought. Polar bear populations should be increasing! The fact that the population has not increased is cause for alarm.

May 20, 2011 3:33 pm

Clearly the record minimum of 2007 has not harmed polar bear populations, then.

Tom t
May 20, 2011 3:45 pm

Here comes the headlines :In an alarming report scientists find that polar bear population is unchanged due to climate change.

Derek
May 20, 2011 3:50 pm

Well, the Black Polar Bears went extinct. So did the Brown ones, and it was AGW that killed them!

icecover
May 20, 2011 4:02 pm

Ot but all channels at AMSU satellite data are up and working

icecover
May 20, 2011 4:07 pm

BTW what the heck is happening to the
http://www.berkeleyearth.org/findings
We were told April, now its May. My guess is the new data is most likely showing non AGW trends and they don’t know if they should release it or not?

golf charley
May 20, 2011 4:13 pm

This is scary story indeed.
All we now know is how far a polar bear has swum.
We do not know how far a polar bear could swim
CAGW is all about scare stories about what COULD happen
Therefore it is possible to predict that polar bears could swim to northern europe, and even Hawaii and cause havoc to the coastal populations, especially in the UK where we are not allowed to arm ourselves, to defend against polar bear attack

KLA
May 20, 2011 4:48 pm

…..If those WWF people were regularly knocked out by “aliens,” “probed” with “samples obtained,” tracking devices placed on them, and knew they were being regularly monitored with the “aliens” able to find them anytime anywhere, would they be able to do much successful breeding on their own?

They breed???
It’s worse than I thought!!!
I still think that if some of these people end up as lunch snack for a polar bear, the bear acts as “chlorine for the human gene-pool”.

Myrrh
May 20, 2011 4:49 pm

Ancient Polar Bear bones: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7132220.stm
Svalbard archipelago Arctic – 110-130,000 years old, survived through last interglacial, the Eeemian, which was warmer than ours now.
Good grief! I’ve been browsing through pages on ice age changes in Britain and Europe and came across this one on the LIA which has an astonishing disclaimer at the beginning – http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/lia/little_ice_age.html
“In no way can my summary of the research regarding the impact of regional climate change on the Viking civilization and Europe during the Little Ice Age be used to “prove” the current global warming is due to a natural cycle.”
Point taken. I hope our recent warmcold events aren’t an indication of a repeat.

May 20, 2011 5:06 pm

I’m sure the WWF are happier than hell to have the locals plugging their quota every year. A growing polar bear population would be quite the inconvenient truth wouldn’t it ??
Having said that though, Putin has placed a moratorium on their being hunted on the Russian side. Good for him, and I’m not going to question his motives.
http://www.celsias.com/article/polarbear-hunting-quota-wont-be-hunted-year-russia/
(Note, I provide this link for attribution purposes only. Some paragraphs may require having a barf bag handy)

May 20, 2011 5:10 pm

JinOH says:
May 20, 2011 at 10:49 am
Where’s the one that’s holding a bottle of Coke?

That was an Antarctic Polar Bear. Remember, he was gooning with a penguin.

Dave
May 20, 2011 5:16 pm

Just the bear facts!
Polar bears do not hibernate over winter in dens like brown and black bears. over winter in dens like brown and black bears.
Only pregnant females enter dens to give birth where they stay until the cubs are big enough to trek.
Most polar bears remain active throughout the year. They have the ability to reduce their metabolic rate when food is scarce and adjust it again when food is abundant.
Denning.
Pregnant polar bears den in the fall after feeding heavily in August and September. They choose den sites in snowdrifts along mountain slopes or hills near sea ice or in banks of snow on the frozen sea. Along Western Hudson Bay mother bears begin by denning in earthen dens along riverbanks and later move to snow dens.
See the Polar bear blogs (http://www.polarbearalley.com/ ) to find Polar bears throughout the summer and fall catching sleeping seals (yum yum) on tidal/mud flats when the tide goes out.
They are food opportunist and their food consists of seals coming up for air through holes in the ice or sun bathing and snoozing on ice or land. They also eat sea birds, lonely mosques bison going walkabout, stranded whales and in the summer time berries and plants. They regularly swim 40+ miles without effort at a cruise speed of 5 knots. Their only enemy are researchers and arrogant human beings with guns.

Mashiki
May 20, 2011 5:24 pm

Why am I not surprised? It seems like everyone but Canadians believed this crap(well that and we club baby seals on our 12th birthdays as a right of passage–though seal flipper pie is delicious). Having seen polar bears as far south as Winisk River Provincial Park(that’s a long way south from the arctic) , I could never understand the hysteria over it.
Well I have heard rumors that they’re looking to do a cull in northern ontario because the population is getting to high but who knows, maybe it’s just talk like usual.

May 20, 2011 5:50 pm

From the article:
“The group said it viewed anticipated changes in the Arctic environment caused by “climate change” to be the greatest threat to the future of the polar bear.”
What exactly does that mean? Exactly how much “climate change” does it take to threaten a Polar bear?
Also, if the Arctic environment warmed slightly, would this mean more or less available food for the Polar bears?

H.R.
May 20, 2011 6:13 pm

I would think that Polar bears would be better adapted to global warming than black or brown bears, based on their higher albedo. They’re white for cryin’ out loud!
Where’s the concern for the dark bears sweatin’ their little heinies off? Someone is not wearing their thinking cap.

James Sexton
May 20, 2011 6:32 pm

JohnWho says:
May 20, 2011 at 5:50 pm
From the article:
“The group said it viewed anticipated changes in the Arctic environment caused by “climate change” to be the greatest threat to the future of the polar bear.”
What exactly does that mean? Exactly how much “climate change” does it take to threaten a Polar bear?
===========================================
Well, apparently the first 30 years wasn’t a big deal, but maybe the next 30….boy howdy! Watch out for that!
I guess its a hobby for simpletons. Somehow, it gets lost that polar bears are essentially genetically the same as grizzlies. But some how the bears, even though they do today, wouldn’t be able to live on land. About the only thing I find alarming is the low level of collective intelligence of the IUCN. But, more and more, I’m thinking to carry the label of “scientist” its mandated that you have an IQ 10-20 lower than the mean. Educable aments.

May 20, 2011 6:34 pm

A polar bear swimming 650 kilometers? This is CLEAR proof of Global Warming. Obviously the polar bear has mutated and gain some fish-like webbings and gills, a la Kevin Costner in “Waterworld”. You bunch of evil deniers are the cause of this terrible disruption of the purity of the polar bear gene pool…
/sarc

Darren Parker
May 20, 2011 6:36 pm

Ah, but what about the endangered Grolar Bears!? 😉

John Trigge
May 20, 2011 6:46 pm

There would be a lot more polar bears if PlanetStupid had not made this ad:

Jeff Alberts
May 20, 2011 7:09 pm

There’s a global polar bear population? Who knew? I’d better keep my magnum handy.

May 20, 2011 7:20 pm

Counting Polar Bears is problematic. They range over a huge area and the counters, using aircraft, must cope with some of the worst flying conditions imaginable. The accuracy of the count has obvious problems.
A few years ago I read an article about surveys done in the Davis Strait region.
It seems that a survey done about 1986 had found 850+ bears.
Ten years later another survey found 2000+ bears.
So the Davis Strait polar bear population more then doubled in a decade, didn’t it?
Well, maybe.
It seems the first count was done in April when most of the bears were on the ice (white on white).
The second count was done later in the year when most of the bears were on the land (white on brown).

May 20, 2011 7:39 pm

Myrrh says:
May 20, 2011 at 4:49 pm
Good grief! I’ve been browsing through pages on ice age changes in Britain and Europe and came across this one on the LIA which has an astonishing disclaimer at the beginning – http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/lia/little_ice_age.html
“In no way can my summary of the research regarding the impact of regional climate change on the Viking civilization and Europe during the Little Ice Age be used to “prove” the current global warming is due to a natural cycle.”
————————————–
I think we’re at the point now where anyone with half a brain reading that is going to read it as “I’m an a$$-kissing academic toady, but my summary of the impact of regional climate change on the Viking civilization and Europe during the Little Ice Age CAN be used to “support the null hypothesis” that the current global warming is due to a natural cycle.”

Al Gored
May 20, 2011 8:40 pm

James Sexton says:
May 20, 2011 at 6:32 pm
“Somehow, it gets lost that polar bears are essentially genetically the same as grizzlies.”
Not quite. They are in the same genetic Clade as the ‘Alaska brown bears’ of the ABC Islands (Admirality, Baranoff (sp?), Chiganoff (sps?) – sorry, too busy to look up the spelling) which are different than other A Brown Bears and grizzly bears.
But all Ursus arctos (like all the Eurasian brown bears too). In reality if they played by the genetic rules polar bears wouldn’t be a seperate species at all, but they don’t. And White Brown Bears is a tad confusing.
The most interesting recent discovery in the genetics of the grizzly is that the ones in the contiguous US and adjacent southern Canada are in a distinct clade and that, along with ONE rather questionable fossil, suggests that a founder population got through the ice free corridor earlier than thought.
That said, there’s been some very funny business in the DNA department of the Conservation Biology crisis industry. Some actual fraud – google ‘lynxgate.’ And there are some IMPOSSIBLE DNA identification done in that most recent grizzly work which conveniently supports some EPA lies and one whole project based on a Big Lie.
Unfortunately, not easy to double check what these DNA ‘experts’ are up to.

galileonardo
May 20, 2011 10:12 pm

This is a timely story. Wednesday night my wife, a relative fence-sitter in the AGW debate, asked me if I knew what a pizzly was. I did not so she told me about a National Geographic blurb story in the Now section of the June 2011 issue (we have both read it since we were children). She said something along the lines: “Grizzlies and polar bears have started interbreeding in the Canadian Arctic. They call them pizzlies. They think it’s due to climate change.”
I was a bit grizzled in my response, because I had known the news WUWT reports here for a long time now: “There are over 20,000 polar bears. They’re doing fine.”
Her answer: “Yeah but what about there being less sea ice.”
I had just come home from work and was a bit flippant I suppose: “You can go to Cryosphere Today and check out the ice for yourself.”
That night I read the blurb she mentioned and it didn’t sit too well, so when I got home from work Thursday I spun some yarn for her: “Hey it looks like efforts to protect the blue whale are paying off. Since we started protecting them in the 60s or 70s their numbers have increased from like 5,000 to about 25,000.”
Her: “Wow that’s great.”
Me: “I know, that’s like a 400% increase.”
Her: “Awesome.”
Me: “OK, sorry, I’m lying. That’s the story of the polar bear.”
Her: “Jerk.”
Yes, jerk, but good guy really with a caring heart for human and beast. I just like to have fun and make my points, sometimes passionately so. I did feel guilty about misleading her on blue whales and let her know that conservation has paid off for them as well. Their grand totals don’t appear to be up there just yet (still less than 1% of estimated historical population – call it 5% to account for NGO accounting), but to get to something like 10,000 from under 500 in under 40 years is good stuff. Similar deal for polar bears of course.
Here’s that NatGeo blurb by Jeremy Berlin:
“Hybrid Bears on the Move”
In the past five years two odd-looking bears, with white fur and brown patches, have been killed by hunters in the Canadian Arctic. DNA tests confirmed it: Polar and grizzly bears, after starting to diverge 200,000 years ago, are interbreeding in the wild. Climate change seems to be driving their reunion. But to what end?
Evolutionary biologist Brendan Kelly says that as natural barriers like sea ice vanish, 22 Arctic species are at risk of rapid hybridization. That could be bad news for polar bears, which rely on specialized adaptations to survive. Kelly says if “pizzlies” in the wild lack some of those vital Arctic traits—as zoo-born hybrids seem to—interbreeding could further imperil an already threatened species.”
It’s worse than we thought. More in depth story here. Heard of phocine distemper?
http://www.vancouversun.com/story_print.html?id=4765838&sponsor=
Yes, I’m cherry-picking, but this particular passage made me laugh:
“…a massive die-off somewhere is not out of the question.”
Enjoy your weekend.

May 20, 2011 11:21 pm

Polar bears are holding their own, not the Florida manatee. Cold deaths have gone way up.
http://www.myfwc.com/research/manatee/rescue-mortality-response/mortality-statistics/
http://www.myfwc.com/news/news-releases/2011/january/05/11_x_manateedeaths2010/
Just one of the latest articles, there have been many more since 2008 documenting the doubling from the ten year average and then doubling the last five year average in 2010. Now they’re getting kind of quieter about it. Looks to me like they could have fed a lot of polar bears with the carcasses.

Larry Fields
May 20, 2011 11:35 pm

The Polar Bear Specialists Group report may be premature. What about all of the soon-to-be raptured polar bears? Think about it. Polar bears don’t blaspheme, and don’t worship false gods. Young polar bears are always respectful of their mothers. On top of that, they don’t drink alcohol, and don’t gamble!

John Marshall
May 21, 2011 1:46 am

These reseach groups seem to forget previous warmer periods. Did the polar bear die out then? No they seem able to adapt to changing climate. Oh the wonders of nature!

DirkH
May 21, 2011 2:03 am

Scientists have found out that the polar bear population will fall off a cliff RSN; due to a tipping point. They modeled it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8700000/8700472.stm

banjo
May 21, 2011 5:21 am

Just you wait.
`Polar bears overbreeding! Global warming the culprit!`

1DandyTroll
May 21, 2011 12:37 pm

Polar bears are, essentially, the only animal population that has stayed virtually the same fixed amount of individuals for some 30 years. It’s like the testament to the crazed climate communist hippie parade and the other green looneys that was BSing from the get go for political reasons.
WWFers might be the worst kinds of cheatards when it comes to polar bears, or any other kind of furry animal. Most of the money people donate after watching a specific ad to save whom furry ever, that money go to paying the bills for the ads and the cost for running the project. If they didn’t run the ad campaign the polar bears (read owner of helicopter and pilot and big oil for fuel) would get more but WWF wouldn’t be able to employ as many “kind” people.
Polar bear count is about as accurate, and correct as my count of ants in my back yard. In 1979 I had at least 100 ants in my back yard, in 2009 there was still 100 ants in my back yard, and I’m pretty sure that when I start counting ants this year, 2011, there’ll be at least 100 ants in my back yard. Maybe I should run an ad campaign on saving the ants in my back yard for they “might” declined in the near future.

Dave Wendt
May 22, 2011 3:39 am

Meanwhile, your tax dollars at work.

SteveSadlov
May 23, 2011 2:43 pm

I’d reckon that Polar Bears may actually be increasing in population (and growing increasingly dangerous) now that they are becoming addicted to human generated refuse.
In this, they are similar to other types of bears (not to mention other large dangerous carnivorous and omnivorous game).

Rumen
May 23, 2011 4:00 pm

Here is another proof that Global Warming and observed smog on Earth is not man made. It is very scientific like the post from Anthony Watts
http://www.republicanjesus.org/2011/02/30000-anti-smog-scientists-can%E2%80%99t-be-wrong/

Polarpower303
May 24, 2011 4:29 pm

Hey Dave like you mate I totally agree that the issue around PB’s is totally misunderstood. And you’re right the only real danger PB’s face is from over-zealous researchers and men with guns. I reckon the only justification for taking the life of a PB is to protect your own life or that of another human being.
Here in New Zealand http://www.tourismnz.co.nz all 4 million of us humans are under the threat of economic extinction so I reckon I’m justified in suggesting that we start harvesting and processing PB’s for sale on the international rug market. We can get about 40K for a ten and a half footer http://www.bearskinrugs.com which is pretty good but apparently there are only 20,000 of these big beauties left in the world.
That works out at about $800 million so that’s not going to keep the country running for long. You might not know but we have some really choice national parks here http://www.newzealand.com/travel/destinations/national-parks/national-parks-home.cfm so if we fence them off and turn them into breeding grounds there’s no limit to how much we could make.
So I reckon we grab about 40% of the PB’s and start breeding them here. My mate reckons once they get to 10.5 feet long we can organize a SAPB50W (Shoot a Polar Bear for $50 Weekend). I’ve told him I’m worried about bullet wounds to the head which would make the rug worthless but he reckons we can shoot them from behind. Bullets are only about $1.00 each http://www.guns.co.nz so even if it takes 5 bullets we’re still onto a winner.
Keep up the good work against the PB haters.
Polarpower303