by John Goetz
OK, I know the catchy headline and picture of Hannibal Lecter got you worrying a little about that neighbor of yours who is stocking up on fava beans and chianti. But the headline is misleading, as is this one posted yesterday (September 23) at cnn.com:
Polar bears resort to cannibalism as Arctic ice shrinks
By Marsha Walton, CNN
I was looking for a good, sensational read. I really thought the article would be about the many ways in which global warming was causing cannibalism amongst polar bears in the arctic. I searched for the heart-wrenching stories about how increasing temperatures forced mom to bop pops on the head when he was not looking and toss daddy-kibble to the kids to keep them from starving to death. Instead, the story began as follows:
Summer is over in the northern hemisphere, but it’s been another chilling season for researchers who study Arctic sea ice.
“It’s definitely a bad report. We did pick up little bit from last year, but this is over 30 percent below what used to be normal,” said Walt Meier, a research scientist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.
This past summer, the Arctic sea ice dwindled to its second lowest level. Arctic sea ice is usually 1 to 3 meters, or as much as 9 feet thick. It grows during autumn and winter and shrinks in the spring and summer.
Scientists have monitored sea ice conditions for about 50 years with the help of satellites. Changes in the past decade have been alarming to climate researchers and oceanographers.
“It is the second lowest on record. … If anything, it is reinforcing the long-term trend. We are still losing the ice cover at a rate of 10 percent per decade now, and that is quite an increase from five years ago,” Meier said. “We are still heading toward an ice cover that is going to melt completely in the summertime in the Arctic.”
Huh? This was not at all what I expected. Where was the blood and gore?
Then I noticed something in the upper left part of the page. Those rascals at CNN got me again!
It was a CNN Planet in Peril story! Sensationalist journalism at its best, but without all the fact-checking of the National Enquirer.
So did the story ever mention polar bear cannibalism? You betcha, right near the end:
“The Arctic sea ice melt is a disaster for the polar bears,” according to Kassie Siegel, staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. “They are dependent on the Arctic sea ice for all of their essential behaviors, and as the ice melts and global warming transforms the Arctic, polar bears are starving, drowning, even resorting to cannibalism because they don’t have access to their usual food sources.”
Scientists have noticed increasing reports of starving Arctic polar bears attacking and feeding on one another in recent years. In one documented 2004 incident in northern Alaska, a male bear broke into a female’s den and killed her.
Hey, what was news in 2004 is still headline-worthy today, right?
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Caty (06:56:37) :
Drudge finally has the NASA conference up:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080924193222.3r9aw25a&show_article=1
“The weakened solar activity can be beneficial because it slows satellites around the Earth, allowing them to remain in orbit longer. ”
Huh? I think they have has got it wrong here. I guess increased solar activity causes the atmosphere to expand, slowing down satellites through atmospheric drag.
Polar Bear cannibalism is nothing new. While in Churchill Manitoba (Polar Bear capital)years ago, I observed a male feeding on a cub. The females with cubs are very protective and will avoid males because a male will attack and eat a cub if given the opportunity. This behavior is not a “feeding” issue, rather it is a reproductive issue. If the female is nursing a cub likely fathered by another male, the female will not come into estrus and be available for breeding. It has absolutely nothing to do with climate change.
It’s something omnivores do.
Another possible reason for “increasing reports”: more polar bears. Thus more are visible, they encounter each other more often, if there actually is environmental stress it is increased, they can more easily teach their children to hunt other bears, and it’s easier for tourists with cameras to find one to follow.
Apparently the author of the article, Marsha Walton, has taken the same oath as politicians:
I swear to tell the truth, but only part of the truth and will not tell that part of the truth that will lead others away from the position I am promoting with my part of the truth.
“Interestingly it would appear both the development of modern H. sapiens and U. maritimus were driven by the need to adapt to glaciation.”
Seems we have enough rampant speculations to deal with in AGW, without introducing a bunch more . . .
It’s too bad that H. Sapiens has been almost completely replaced by H. EnvironMENTALens…
OT – but an illustration of what does and what does not get picked up by the media:
Native Americans in Minnesota have cancelled harvest plans for wild rice. Because of cold weather in 2008, the rice crop is so poor that the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa has decided that it is not worth sending people out to harvest rice on Nett Lake in northeastern MN.
Another example of negative impacts of a cold climate.
All of the animal-saving do-gooders are in denial about the real cause of animal population declines. These events are evidence of the axiom, “Extinction is evolution in action.” They should stop interfering with natural processes. The Endangered Species Act is yet another example of man attempting to play God and screwing up. Polar bears have demonstrated 100,000 years of adaptation to climate change and extreme weather events. It is time for us to carefully observe and record nature changing courses and the outcomes therefrom.
Reply – It maybe closer to 250,000 years of adaptation which would make this their second interglacial. – Dee Norris
Well it is well known that lions kill their opposition and their cubs; don’t necessarily eat them; but they would if other foods ran out.
With polar bears it is either seals or small whales or other bears competing for them; so surviving probably means being willing to kill another bear to protect your hunting grounds.
Besides there’s plenty of bears. Alaska is the only place on earth where it is illegal to hunt polar bears (so I’m told)
my friends…
I’m afraid it’s not going to stop with polar bears.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2008/04/02/turner-iraqi-insurgents-patriots-inaction-warming-cannibalism
Ted Turner has read the writing on the walls
…it’s already spread far outside the Arctic, in fact all the way to the tropics.
“…climate change is pitting people against tigers – with deadly consequences. ”
‘There are many tiger widows here’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/25/conservation.climatechange
Global Warming makes polar bears eat each other.
Global warming makes tigers eat people.
Ted Turner is right.
I’m gonna go eat somebody.
Well John X. You checked too soon. The forecasted high for each day in Enterprise is leaking like a baby’s diaper. We have one day that may reach 78. The rest are low 70’s to high 60’s. Keep checking. You may have to change that last post just like the baby’s leaky diaper. By the way, NWS ALWAYS over estimates highs and lows for Wallowa County. That is why Enterprise set up it’s own weather station outside of the official NWS because it appeared to be far more accurate in terms of current conditions.
Jeff Alberts,
I deliberately refer to enviromentalists (no “N”)
Pamela Gray:
I finally looked up Enterprise on a map. Looks like a valley filled with soil (as opposed to a canyon that is all rock). My family bicycled through a ways south of you and went through Richland and Halfway, also filled valleys. And hot (2003).
I thought they were a nice break from basalt. My daughter wasn’t completely impressed, “Well, we were planning on trying to get to the town Halfway (once again, a depressingly un-creative name. It’s called that because it is halfway down the walls of the deepest river canyon in the country) today, but we were too tired. We stopped in Richland. It was pretty hot today, so we stopped to swim twice in Powder River. We are now camped in the town park, which has soft ground, green grass, and clovers (the soft ground is especially nice because it means that I can actually get my tent stakes all the way into the ground, and I won’t have to worry that one will come out and the whole thing will collapse on me).”
My note was simply “we camp in the big town park. Pretty nice spot, actually.” http://wermenh.com/biketour/restof_or.html I called Baker City “the Somewhere in the middle of Nowhere.”
Looks like a rather challenging bike ride from Halfway to Enterprise.
Uphill both ways. The valley is actually a melt basin for several glaciers. Wallowa Lake is the result of one of them. South Fork is another. If you know what you are looking for, both have natural moraines, its just that the one around Wallowa Lake is more well known. That means that the valley is strewn with large and small rocks just below the soil surface the further you go away from the mountain range. Along the foothills they sit on top of the soil scattered like junk cars.
When I was very small, I thought we grew rocks because we picked them out of the fields every spring and fall. Also if you go out into the valley you will notice lots of rock jacks used along fence lines. In some areas, that is the only way to put up a fence because you can’t dig past the boulders hiding below the surface.
We have a bit of a mean streak in us too. When bike riders ask us if there is another way out of the valley other than going back out the Minam Grade we point them towards hwy 3 to Lewiston, Idaho, extolling the easy ride down to the river. And then there is the road to Pine Eagle. That one gets you to Baker City by going around the Wallowas on the snake river side. The vistas are a must see with both routes if you can manage to get the sweat out of your eyes. And miss the rattle snakes on the road. And not get eaten by a cougar. And now there are the moose and wolves to deal with. Do you have a horn on your bike? Sometimes you can frighten the little animals away with a honker.
So if you need any advice, I am your go to woman.
Re: The age of Polar Bears.
A Polar Bear jaw from the last (considerably warmer) interglacial was recently found in Spizbergen. So this is definitely at least the second interglaciasl for them.
tty beat me to the punch. Here is a link.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_7130000/newsid_7138300/7138312.stm
“The 23cm-long jawbone is thought to have belonged to a female bear 110,000 or even 130,000 years ago.
Scientists are excited because it was thought polar bears had been around for less than 100,000 years. ”
Therefore polar bears have been around since the last interglacial at the very least.
[…] Anthony, Imperial Meteorologist, (Whether he wants the title or not!) has a post up about some of the idiocy and sensationalism that passes as “science journalism&#… “The Arctic sea ice melt is a disaster for the polar bears,” according to Kassie Siegel, staff […]
Yet more of the types that won’t believe we aren’t causing global warming until the glaciers wipe Cleveland off the map again.
Not only cannibalism… but DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, TOO! Men are pigs, unless they’re bears.
Are you surprised. It’s a Clinton Numb Nuts report for pity’s sake. Are you expecting veracity from the Presstitute Corps (we love you long time, 2p, you like)
Actually, that is nothing new. Male Polar Bears have always dined on baby bears and defenseless females. That happens with grizzlies as well.
You’re right…. sensational journalism at its worst. Using normal biological facts to hype fear.
hahahahaa.. domestic violence.
George E. Smith (13:52:12) :
“Besides there’s plenty of bears. Alaska is the only place on earth where it is illegal to hunt polar bears (so I’m told).”
Then you are not informed about Svalbard. See no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard. Scroll down to see the funny polar bear road sign!