From the Daily Globe and Mail in Canada:
Healthy polar bear count confounds doomsayers
The debate about climate change and its impact on polar bears has intensified with the release of a survey that shows the bear population in a key part of northern Canada is far larger than many scientists thought, and might be growing.
The number of bears along the western shore of Hudson Bay, believed to be among the most threatened bear subpopulations, stands at 1,013 and could be even higher, according to the results of an aerial survey released Wednesday by the Government of Nunavut. That’s 66 per cent higher than estimates by other researchers who forecasted the numbers would fall to as low as 610 because of warming temperatures that melt ice faster and ruin bears’ ability to hunt. The Hudson Bay region, which straddles Nunavut and Manitoba, is critical because it’s considered a bellwether for how polar bears are doing elsewhere in the Arctic.
…
I located the survey done by the Government of Nunavut, here:
http://env.gov.nu.ca/sites/default/files/foxe_basin_polar_bears_2012.pdf
It seems sound in methodology. Some excerpts from it are posted below.
Summary
Polar bear population assessment in North America has historically relied on physical mark-recapture. These studies are logistically and financially intensive, and while widely accepted in the scientific community, local Inuit have voiced opposition to wildlife handling. To better reflect Inuit values and provide a rapid tool for monitoring polar bear population size, we developed and implemented an aerial survey in the Foxe Basin subpopulation (FB) during late summer, 2009 and 2010. FB, a seasonally ice-free subpopulation, spans some 1.1 million km2 in Nunavut. Polar bears concentrate along the coast during late summer, so we delineated survey zones based on proximity to the coastline.
We used coastal contour transects, inland transects oriented perpendicular to the coast, and total counts on a sample of small islands and ice floes. We focused effort in the high-density coastal region and designed protocols to enable simultaneous collection of double-observer and distance sampling data from a helicopter. We flew >300 hours and 40,000 km during each year’s survey and observed 816 and 1,003 individuals in 2009 and 2010, respectively. In both years, we observed high numbers of bears on islands in northern Foxe Basin and on Southampton Island, neighboring islands and near Lyon Inlet.
Encounter rates were highest near the coast, although bears were observed >40 km inland. The shape of the detection function differed substantially between years, likely attributable to observer experience and variable sighting conditions. However, our abundance estimates were highly consistent between years and survey methods, (~2,580 bears (95% CI: about 2,100 – 3,200), and were comparable to an estimate from the early 1990s. Our results suggest that Nunavut’s management regime has enabled polar bear abundance in FB to remain relatively stable.
Whereas mark−recapture data provide direct estimates of population growth, aerial survey data yield information population on trend only via a time series of population estimates; accordingly, reliance on such data may require more conservative harvest management. The FB aerial surveys provide a framework for future studies during the ice-free season. Ongoing analysis will evaluate the distribution of bears in Foxe Basin and assess alternatives for long-term monitoring.
Figure 2. Transects flown during the Foxe Basin polar bear subpopulation aerial survey, August to October, 2010.
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Results
We completed the FB aerial surveys during August – September, 2009 and August – October, 2010. We successfully sampled nearly all planned transects in both years (Figure 2), despite particularly challenging weather conditions in 2010. We observed 816 and 1,003 polar bears, including 616 and 790 independent bears, in 2009 and 2010, respectively. Observed litter sizes were similar between years: in 2009, cub of the year (coy) and yearling / 2-year-old litter sizes averaged 1.57 (SD: 0.55, n = 75) and 1.55 (SD: 0.54, n = 53); mean litter sizes were 1.53 (SD: 0.57, n = 80) and 1.40 (SD: 0.50, n=65) for coy and yearlings / 2-year-olds, respectively, in 2010.
The distribution of polar bears was generally consistent between years (Figure 3). High concentrations of bears were observed in central Foxe Basin near Lyon Inlet and on Southampton Island and neighboring Coats, Vansittart, and White Islands and in northern Foxe Basin on Rowley, Koch, Prince Charles, and the Spicer Islands. Relatively few bears were spotted along Hudson Strait and in the Bowman Bay region of western Baffin Island, and sightings were rare near communities. Bears were most frequently observed along coastal contour transects, in the nearshore inland stratum and on large and small islands, but sightings were documented across all strata (Figure 3).
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Total Abundance
Despite different analytical techniques and detection functions, the four preliminary abundance estimates were remarkably consistent (Table 2). Model averaging yielded a preliminary overall abundance estimate of about 2,580 bears in the Foxe Basin subpopulation, with a 95% lognormal confidence interval of 2,093 to 3,180 (CV: 10.7%).
Survey done by the Government of Nunavut, here:
http://env.gov.nu.ca/sites/default/files/foxe_basin_polar_bears_2012.pdf
It seems like a superior methodology to say, seeing three drowned polar bears at sea after a storm and then extrapolating that to the entire population like one now discredited and disgraced researcher did. Of course, honest science like what was done in this survey doesn’t make headlines or wailing and gnashing of teeth by NGO’s and Al Gore, and even Science magazine who much prefer to stick to the view of a declining Ursus Bogus population:
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Back to the Globe and Mail article:
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The study shows that “the bear population is not in crisis as people believed,” said Drikus Gissing, Nunavut’s director of wildlife management. “There is no doom and gloom.”
Mr. Gissing added that the government isn’t dismissing concerns about climate change, but he said Nunavut wants to base bear-management practices on current information “and not predictions about what might happen.”
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The debate over the polar-bear population has been raging for years, frequently pitting scientists against Inuit. In 2004, Environment Canada researchers concluded that the numbers in the region had dropped by 22 per cent since 1984, to 935. They also estimated that by 2011, the population would decrease to about 610. That sparked worldwide concern about the future of the bears and prompted the Canadian and American governments to introduce legislation to protect them.
But many Inuit communities said the researchers were wrong. They said the bear population was increasing and they cited reports from hunters who kept seeing more bears. Mr. Gissing said that encouraged the government to conduct the recent study, which involved 8,000 kilometres of aerial surveying last August along the coast and offshore islands.
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What I found most interesting is the clear message that polar bears are thriving in an environment where sea ice (NSIDC includes Hudson Bay as sea ice) seasonally disappears entirely.
Note in the Cryosphere Today comparison image above, Hudson Bay is completely ice free around the time of Arctic maximum melt ~ Sept 30.
It seems the Polar bears can adapt to non-existent sea ice and do just fine.
Of course this isn’t news, as I’ve previously reported: Polar Bears Survived the Ice Free Arctic
So when you see claims like this one from the National Resources Defense Council…
Scientists predict that Arctic summers could be ice-free by the middle of this century-without sea ice, polar bears cannot survive.
Or this one from Polar Bears International
Asked by CNSNews.com about the IUCN body’s findings regarding populations remaining stable, Buchanan pointed out the group’s acknowledgment of insufficient data in some of the 19 sub-populations. He concluded that “without ice polar bears can’t survive.”
…we can pull out Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.’s handy button that he provided for the IPCC SREx report and apply it to polar bears and sea ice, citing the survey done by the Government of Nunavut.
In the 20th / 21st Centuries, Polar bear population has generally been a reliable proxy for CAGW, right up to the point where it stopped responding correctly to the dangerous increase in global temperature anomaly.
This is well acknowledged in the literature and, while we await further funds for investigation, we strip the known incorrect values from the proxy data. It’s just a neat trick.
too hot…..too cold…..just right
Stupid bears wouldn’t even be here if it didn’t do that………
What is most remarkable is that this was published in the Globe and Mail.
What? The vast majority of the sightings of the bears were on land or on the shoreline?? WUWT?!? I thought they all lived on ice…. /sarc
No sighting of polar bears on the ice. So we can conclude that there is no ice. They were right.
/sarc
The comments section for that article are hilarious.
Must really, really hurt the G&M to have to print that. They have been major AGW Fear Monger spreaders since they figured out it helped sell advertising space & jumped their revenues.
Dr. Suzuki gets a particularly appropriate reaming in the comments.
As someone who lived there for a couple of years I will always take the word of an Inuk hunter over some trumped up PhD “ishiamahongitook” type who thinks he is cool because he drives a Prius.
How long will it be before you read:
‘Polar Bears saved from extinction by Carbon Trading laws! We must redouble our efforts, says Greenpeace – this shows that funding Greenpeace can really pay off…’…
@ur momisugly Bill Thomson, but Andrew Desrocher is featured prominently too in order to undermine the study…
Bill Thomson says:
April 5, 2012 at 9:18 am
What is most remarkable is that this was published in the Globe and Mail.
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And with the pithy title to boot.
Maybe global warming doesn’t kill polar bears after all, but just makes them bipolar?
Hide the incline !
“without ice polar bears can’t survive.”
So, do they hibernate in the summer? No Alice. P. bears live on the land (except for the dead of winter) but hunt from the shore, or ice flows, or the edge of the ice as it expands and contracts. Why? Because that is where their food hangs-out. See, with non-humans Alice, you follow the food of our prey, as any good human hunter will tell you. You could say the same of our ancestors, but of course with modern humans you follow-the-money…. especially if they are Climate Scientists.
If anyone with half a brain actually understood the high Arctic, and I have lived there, would have known the Polar Bears were in no danger. We’ve even been having stories of polar bears all the way from Newfoundland, all up the Labrador coast, all over the place in Nunavut and other high Arctic areas local have been seeing for 20 years. Only the AGW “professionals” who barely spend a few days in the high Arctic would claim Polar Bears were in trouble. And of course Southerners who know nothing about nothing North of their own house. It was laughable to being with – and outright lies to continue – the usual idiocy Southerners lap up directly because they WANT to believe what newspapers write and what AGW talking hears like Gore and others tell them. Even worst – none of them want to know the truth. I’ve been on this for years knowing full well what the Inuit, Newfoundlanders, and those living on the coast of Labrador have been claiming for decades. Polar bears were in good shape and their population growing. When Sarah Palin tried to correct the record she was called dumb, stupid, and an idiot. And SHE lived in Polar Bear country – while those who called her ever name under the sun never saw a polar bear in their lives. THAT is the state of society today – shameful!
“Prof. Derocher also said some details in the survey pointed to a bear population in trouble. For example, the survey identified 50 cubs, which are usually less than 10 months old, and 22 yearlings, roughly 22 months old. That’s nearly one-third the number required for a healthy population, he said. “This is a clear indication that this population is not sustaining itself in any way, shape, or form.”
This warmist, a backbencher in Alberta, is really pissed the wildlife management group not only accepted the study, but seemed elated.
“Over all, about 450 polar bears are killed annually across Nunavut.”
As Ace would say, hundreds of Polar Bears are killed each year by global warming and bullets, but mostly by bullets.
Best comment in the G&M. It appears drinking Coke is good for them.
I have probably said this before but I used to hunt moose up there for a number of years. We got checked by the province once for license and the man had just come off detail rounding up polar bears in town on the Hudson Bay. They had to routinely haul them via truck and dump them away from town. They would tranquilize them and throw them in back of a pick up. One was so large it filled the bed and legs hanging out touched the ground. They also had a family move into an abandoned house there recently. All the comforts of home.
I’m perfectly happy to believe that polar bears are at some risk, but not from climate change. Humans hunting them, humans hunting or altering the habitat of their primary prey, that sort of thing has very definitely had a significant impact on many animal populations. Polar bears are relatively dangerous animals, and as people encroach on their habitat, conflicts that the bears are going to lose in the long run are inevitable. Grizzlies suffer from the same problem — big, dangerous, ill-tempered bears that one doesn’t want to disturb in close quarters and that one is inclined to shoot if it happens anyway and you’re armed. The choice being to be torn to bits and eaten…
Otherwise, polar bears are apex predators. They eat almost anything, and nothing eats them (but maybe an Orca in open water). As long as there is food in sufficient abundance, they will be fine, and polar bears can in a pinch survive in the same places and the same ways that a grizzly can. They might overheat in a desert, but even in summertime the ocean waters of Hudson bay are going to be damn cold.
rgb
Please note that this survey of the Fox Basin polar bear population probably underestimated the actual population. Since the survey was sponsored by the Nunavut government, it only covered the coastal areas in Nunavut and did not cover the coastal areas in NW Quebec.
There is an interesting jurisdictional conflict at work here. The Nunavut government probably wants to promote tourism including hunting of polar bears. The Quebec government wants to promote the AGW scare to promote their abundance of hydroelectric resources.
I agree that the Globe and Mail probably published this story through clenched teeth.
There was another story in the National Post last week about a man waking up in the middle of the night in his home in Newfoundland (yes the island, not Labrador) to discover a Polar Bear in his kitchen. They shot it, of course.
And then there was the story from two or three years ago about the polar bear and her two cubs wandering into Whitehorse. They shot them of course.
Quickly, legislate to permit polar bear hunting again, to “correct” the figures!
Ice is not a polar bear nutrient.
I want that red button! “That was bull—-!”
Doesn’t matter.
The polar bears are protected now because they might be harmed at some future date by what may happen if the projections of some computer models are correct.
BTW, for those who don’t know, Hudson Bay is usually ice free during the summer and has been so since at least the early 17th century when Henry Hudson first started mapping it. Those polar bears clearly need better indoctrination.
“Global Warming is causing the Polar Bear population to increase to such an alarming size that the indigineous innuit people and harp seals are threatened with extinction. This is a direct result of the planets pain caused by CO2 emissions. Basking sharks never before seen in the arctic ocean are in abundant supply and are now the staple diet of the polar bear.”
Many a true word spoken in jest 😉
So who cares how many studies claim to “prove” that mankind isn’t destroying this lovely planet? It’s all big oil propaganda, anyway.
We all know we’re guilty.