Bad News (Polar) Bears?

Polar Bear Decoy Bait
(American measurements)
1 can (15 oz) Evaporated Milk (whole)
1/2 can water
1 stick (1/4 cup, 8 Tablespoons) butter
Heat in saucepan until slightly boiling with butter melted, stirring occasionally
Add in
1 bag (12 oz) semi-sweet chocolate chips [may use 3/4 pound semi-sweet chocolate bar(s), broken into pieces]
Stir continuously until chocolate melts, scraping clumps off of sides and bottom, yielding smooth sauce
Pour into:
1 cup sugar (white granulated)
2 c white wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 t salt (NaCl)
Stir together, does not have to be completely smooth
Pour into greased and floured 9×12″ (inch) cake pan
Place into preheated 350°F (Fahrenheit) oven
Bake for 35 minutes.
Note: I used unbleached flour. Whole wheat might also work.
Result is a brownie/cake hybrid, less dense than a brownie with a brownie-like thin crust, can pass as cake. Good chocolate taste, more than Devil’s Food but without the full… whatever-it-is… of a normal chocolate bar or chocolate cake frosting. Tasty. But with hardly any indication of the incredible richness within (figure out the calorie and fat content of one piece, either 8 or 9 pieces per batch).
Feed regularly to intended decoy. Resultant increase in mass with corresponding reduction in speed will enhance the effectiveness of the decoy. Decoy may or may not realize the effectiveness of the bait as the trap they entered is sprung and their status changes from intended to actual.
(Disclaimer: Intended final result of using this bait is to get that charging polar bear to stop for a moment so you can get off a well-aimed shot and save your decoy buddy. You wouldn’t really run to safety by yourself without them, right?)
And that was my Wednesday night scientific research, recipe whipped up on the fly from ingredients on hand based on rudimentary knowledge of them and their usage. Further research is indicated. What’d you do?
Bonus questions: Who else recalls how, from the ancient age of the dinosaurs, such instructions would normally say “Sift together dry ingredients”? Why’d we stop sifting? Do today’s young people even know what a sifter is and what one does?
😉

DesertYote says:
October 20, 2010 at 8:11 pm
The Center for Biological Diversity is a very dangerous Marxist organization that is in the business of using environmental law to destroy the US economy.
Quite right. It was founded by Karl Marx and has had such notables as Mao Tse Tung and Stalin as administrators. However over the years there has been much discussion as to whether it is really an extreme right wing organisation, as supported by Hitler and the then secretary Mussolini, or whether it is not really a political organisation at all, just a muddle headed environmental group that has got it’s facts wrong. What do you think? Maybe Senator McCarthy, were he still here, could have advised us?

From the article

charles the moderator says:
“So, who are you going to believe: a professional conservationist outfit that is actually in situ observing polar bear critters all over the place, or some bureaucrat bent on controlling your tailpipe and windpipe?”

Someone else worth listening to is Dr. Mitchell Taylor has worked on polar bears for the past 30 years and has has published over 50 scientific papers. He was intereviewed in 2009 and here is a sample:

[Q] “The Inuit have objected to southern governments designating “threatened” or “endangered” status for the polar bear. Why is that?”
[A] “Because they are not in danger of extinction. According to a recent article, many Inuit feel that the current time is the “time with the most bears”. Many Inuit have also participated in scientific studies of polar bears over the years. So their experience is not consistent with the notion that polar bears are threatened or endangered or declining.”
Source: Fcpp

Who would you believe? The Inuit who know more about snow and polar bears than anyone else? Dr. Mitchell Taylor has worked on polar bears for the past 30? Or some bureaucrat? The choice is yours.

So there is a large increase in Polar Bear population numbers, and since there are a lot of females with triplets being observed, one can conclude that there must have been sufficient food resources around to support such a population.
What usually happens then is that the population numbers crash due to depletion of food.
So we can look forward to more wailings from the leftie ecofascists, because, see – the polar bears are dying!
Two questions:
*) If these bears did so well at a time of CO2 increase and small temperature rise, shouldn’t they do even better if it gets a bit warmer? After all, there would be more fish in slightly warmer Arctic seas, and thus more seals, no?
*) But here’s the problem: if temperatures decrease – which is, after all, a possibility – and the polar bears die, should we do all we can to help temperatures go up a bit, to save the bears?
I think we can be most certain of one thing, though: no matter what, the ecofascists will blame us all for daring to share the planet with those bears …

Gareth Phillips
October 21, 2010 at 3:29 am
Your are what Marxists call an useful idiot. Why don’t you do a little research before you mock. The CBD is absolutely Marxist. Their activities over the past decades have clearly demonstrated their desire to eliminate all property rights and to end all development, driving mankind back to the stone age. This group has been involved with, and usually the driving force behind with every single campaign in the SW US, to use environmental law to help bring about the destruction of western civilization.

From the files of VERY bad ideas….
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101018/ap_on_re_us/us_valley_forge_deer_hunt
“Friends of Animals” propose thinning Valley Forge (in the middle of Greater Philadelphia) deer population with Coyotes. Yes, importing coyotes into one of the largest metro areas, not to mention a public park, to thin deer. You would think sharpshooters would be a far more humane way to thin the herd than being ripped to pieces by coyotes. Maybe the should just import grizzly bears or maybe lions, they’d be much more efficient.

dwright says:
October 20, 2010 at 7:56 pm
aren’t most polar bears Canadian?

Welll yessss — but many have applied for green cards so they can prey on innocents in the more populous regions of the USA. However, due to many unfortunate innocents where they ripped apart and ate the Citizenship examiners in their subsequent attempts to become full and productive citizens they are now on terrorist watch lists at the now heavily fortified Canadian-USA Border. (When the examiner raised his hand for the citizenship oath how were they to know that the Polar bear interpreted this as sign of surrender and that it meant “eat me” in Poley Bear sign language — which once again proves that communication is everything..) This has limited the issuance of green cards and citizenship papers. So, sadly most still hang out at the Garbage Dump in Churchill Manitoba. So while it is deploarble that Polar Bears are now reduced to being “garbage Pickers” and hence very low on the social totem pole, it has done wonders for tourism in Manitoba…
http://www.polarbearalley.com/
If you are a really irritating tourist they will let you “pet” the bears…

I am glad I am useful to someone! I’m not sure any Marxist theory I have studied fits with these guys.Nor totalitarian. I don’t think they are running detentions camps in Alaska or Siberia, and they are not shooting dissenters. Interestingly Marxists on the whole are just about as an un-environmental bunch as you will find. The Aral sea disaster is a good example of Marxist philosophy in sacrificing the environment to the pursuit of Marxist glory. What you are saying could apply equally to any totalitarian state, fascist regimes would be just as likely to enforce property grabs and tell you what to think. We in Europe are pretty convinced the Sarah Palin is barking mad, and the tea party movement has some worrying totalitarian tendencies. But that does not make them fascists, or Marxists, just right wing. And because they are right wing, it does not make them any more environmental than Christian Democrats, or Labour, or the Tories.
Best not to use political theory to explain why you disagree with an environmental group, don’t confuse the two, it’s a complex subject and to use such comparisons just breeds disregard for this excellent site, which I wish more real politicians would read.

Charles the moderator:
Why did you not include the following paragraph from the same piece explaining why the observations noted above were happening?
“These oddities in polar bear behavior may be warnings of trends in global warming. Perhaps early ice melt in the bay are driving bears on land earlier in the spring up north so that more arrive in Churchill in early summer. As for the mothers with more cubs, increased snowfall may allow for longer and better denning conditions. At first thought, increased snowfall would seem to signal colder conditions but it actually could oppose such a theory. More moisture in the air stemming from open water on the Hudson Bay and warmer, moist air coming to the region translates to more snow. This is great for denning though the new arrivals will need long-lasting solid ice later on to fill their seal quota. Only time will tell.”
The small number of bears and anecdotal information in this piece do not constitute a scientific study of the polar bear status. The piece you quoted from appears to be an infomercial put out by a group that makes money from polar bear tours rather than a conservationist research piece on polar bear status. http://www.nathab.com/polar-bear-tours
Retired Engineer:
Why are you advocating a return to the bad old days of unrestricted hunting that nearly wiped out the bears? How do you think their numbers got down to 8,000 and why has it taken this long for their numbers to get back up to 20,000 to 25,000? Even Russia put in hunting restrictions in 1956. Norway passed a series of increasingly strict regulations from 1965 to 1973, and has completely banned hunting since then. The Soviet Union banned all hunting in 1956, but has allowed some limited exceptions. Canada began imposing hunting quotas in 1968. The U.S. began regulating in 1971 and adopted the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972 (that would be the Nixon administration).
Jimbo:
Perhaps we should trust what the scientist says rather than just looking at what he says the Inuit say. The Inuit he is describing may be more concerned about the immediacy of a quick buck (or loon) and economics of harvesting and trophy hunting than they are about long-term preservation of bear populations. Maybe the Inuit hunters need protection from the melting ice, too. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/03/last-of-the-arctic-hunters Dr. Mitchell Taylor’s opinion of the impact of arctic warming on the bears is not necessarily the same as the Inuit or as simplistic as the quotes you have cited.
Dr. Mitchell Taylor (who is acknowledge to be an expert on the bears even by those who disagree with his position on the causes of climate change in the Arctic) has noted that climate change exists and is impacting some of the bear populations:
“Polar bears, as a species, do not appear to be threatened or in decline based on the data that I’ve seen at the present time, although some populations do seem to be experiencing deleterious effects from climate change.” http://www.fcpp.org/publication.php/2571
Per Dr. Mitchell Taylor:
“The harvest rates are usually intended to keep the population at current levels so even a sustainable harvest would have a stabilizing effect on a population. If you are asking if I think that some populations are declining because of over harvest, I think that probably Kane Basin numbers are stable even though it is over-hunted. Kane Basin seems to be a sink for polar bears right now. The harvest in western Hudson Bay has recently been reduced and the population is thought to be stable or increasing slowly. I’m not exactly sure what’s happening with harvests in the Southern Beaufort Sea, but this population appears to have been badly stressed by the recent arctic warming. The most recent data for the other populations indicates they are sustaining current harvest levels except for Baffin Bay. In Baffin Bay the research data suggests a significant decline in population numbers, but local hunters report that numbers are stable or even increased.”
There are at least 19 distinct populations of polar bears. Dr. Mitchell Taylor has indicated that four of the groups are being adversely impacted by warming:
“The arctic climate has warmed for the last ten years and that has caused a reduction in sea ice. In fact, the two are related. The reduction in sea ice has actually caused the arctic to warm. That has caused difficulties for at least two populations, and we know of nutritional effects in two others. Other populations don’t appear to be affected or at least are not as affected. They are still abundant and productive. So the effect has been different among the world’s 19 populations.”
http://www.fcpp.org/publication.php/2571
As for the status of the 19 populations as of March 2010, the chart in this link indicates that 6 populations of polar bears have a very high possibility of decline (note- this is not an extinction prediction) See chart at: http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/status/status-table.html#bottom
For a science study of the bears in the Churchill area:
Predicting survival, reproduction and abundance of polar bears under climate change by Péter K. Molnára, Andrew E. Derocherb (a former student of Mitchell Taylor), Gregory W. Thiemannc, and Mark A. Lewisa
which is discussed in this article (note: this article should not be cited as proof that all polar bears are in decline, only the bears in western Hudson Bay).
http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2293
“The basic facts are as follows: The region’s [western Hudson Bay] polar bears have been forced to spend an extra week per decade onshore; the bears have been losing, on average, more than 20 pounds per decade; the body mass of the bears has been steadily declining; females have lost 10 percent of their body length; and the population has dropped from 1,200 to 900 in three decades, with much of the decline coming in the last 10 years.
Looking at projected sea ice declines, Derocher and his colleagues estimated in a recent paper in Biological Conservation that western Hudson Bay’s polar bear population could well die out in 25 to 30 years. Indeed, in an interview with Yale Environment 360 senior editor Fen Montaigne, Derocher said that the population — one of 19 in the Arctic — could be gone within a decade. All it would take is several straight years of low sea ice conditions — such as the current year — which could force the bears onshore for more than five months a year, leading to a sharp decline in the bears’ physical condition and the inability of females to gestate cubs. “One of the things we found was that the changes in this population could happen very dramatically,” says Derocher. “And a lot of the change could come within a single year if you just ended up with an earlier melt of sea ice.”
Later in this article:
“So the real rub here is that there’s not much in the way of terrestrial resources for these bears to pull on during the ice-free period — there’s a few berries and a bit of grass, but that’s certainly not enough to sustain a polar bear population. So the challenge is, you push them, there’s nothing on shore, they run out of energy, and then the real catastrophe is that you’ll also see things we’re beginning to see on land like increased cases of infanticide and cannibalism. The number of observed cannibalism events in the last couple of years in this population has just been skyrocketing. That’s what happens when you get desperate animals trying to survive — anything becomes a viable option and cannibalism is one that we’ve seen increasing dramatically.”
While the article is presenting a worst case scenario, it is not presenting a scenario that has no chance of happening. Hopefully the above article will prove to be overly pessimistic, and the sea ice in the Hudson Bay will recover, but the rapid melt of the bay in 2010 does not provide any indication that Hudson Bay ice conditions have improved.
There is also as earlier study of the Hudson Bay bears provided the following:
“Some of the most pronounced responses to climatic warming are expected to occur in polar marine regions, where temperature increases have been the greatest, and sea ice provides a sensitive mechanism by which climatic conditions affect ice dwelling species. Population level effects of climatic change, however, remain difficult to quantify. We analyzed data for polar bears captured from 1984–2004 along the western coast of Hudson Bay, and in the community of Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. The size of the Western Hudson Bay polar bear population declined from 1194 (95% CI = 1020, 1368) in 1987, to 935 (95% CI = 794, 1076) in 2004. Total apparent survival of prime-adult polar bears (age 5–19 yr) was stable over the course of the study for both females (0.93; 95% CI = 0.91, 0.94) and males (0.90; 95% CI = 0.88, 0.91). Survival of juvenile, sub adult, and senescent-adult polar bears was correlated with spring sea ice breakup date, which was variable among years and occurred approximately 3 weeks earlier in 2004 than at the beginning of the study in 1984. We propose that this correlation provides evidence for a causal association between earlier sea ice breakup (due to climatic warming) and decreased polar bear survival. It may also explain why Churchill, like other communities along the western coast of Hudson Bay, has experienced an increase in the number of human–polar bear interactions in recent years. Earlier sea ice breakup may have resulted in a larger number of nutritionally-stressed polar bears, which are encroaching on human habitations in search of supplemental food. Because western Hudson Bay is near the southern limit of the polar bear’s range, our findings may foreshadow how more northerly polar bear populations will respond to the continued warming that is projected for many parts of the Arctic.”
Regehr, E.V., Lunn, N.J., Amstrup, S.C., and I. Stirling. 2007. Effects of earlier sea ice breakup on survival and population size of polar bears in western Hudson Bay. Journal of Wildlife Management. 71(8):2673-2683.
Regehr, E. V., N. J. Lunn, S. C. Amstrup, and I. Stirling. 2007. Supplemental materials for the analysis of capture-recapture data for polar bears in western Hudson Bay, Canada, 1984-2004. U. S. Geological Survey Data Series 304. 13 p.
While some polar bear populations may be currently stable, the bear populations in western and southern Hudson Bay, the Kane Basin, Southern Beaufort Sea, and Baffin Bay appear to be under stress and need monitoring and protection. There appears to be a general agreement among the various governments and experts that some level of protection is needed for Polar bears. With a current population estimate of 20,000 to 25,000, it does not appear that it would take much in terms of overhunting or additional environmental stress to put the bears out of business. Waiting until the stark projections of the study below become a reality before providing additional protections from over-harvesting or economic development does not appear to be a prudent Likewise, using the plight of the bears to advance a political agenda that only incidentally provides protections to the bears should be rejected.
Amstrup, Steven C.; Marcot, Bruce G.; Douglas, David C. (2007) (PDF). Forecasting the Range-wide Status of Polar Bears at Selected Times in the 21st Century. Reston, Virginia: U.S. Geological Survey. http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/special/polar_bears/docs/USGS_PolarBear_Amstrup_Forecast_lowres.pdf.
Charles the moderator:
So who are we to believe, respected scientists with peer reviewed research or Inuit hunters with an economic agenda and some limited observations by a tour guide masquerading as a conservationist?

p.s.
We definitely should not believe anyone that is trying to advance a political agenda, be they promoting AGW or denying the possibility of AGW.

Will Crump , I have read some of the material referenced and wonder at the veracity of much of the information. I have noted that true conservationists carefully avoid any appearance of bias and would backtrack extensively if they thought their statements were in error let alone untruthfull. Be the subject endangered species, global warming, anti trapping or antihunting, those advocating for the first two and against the second two have repeatedly shown their willingness to even lie about the facts in order to promote their agenda. Based on these observations I am no longer willing to believe anything that is said by them. I dont know you or your particular stance on these issues and I would ask that you not consider this a personal attack as it is not intended as such. This is an explanation of how I have come my opinion and I seem to share this attitude with the average person.