The word comes from the Obama Administration, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, no less, and some enironmentalists heads are exploding right about now. This pretty well slams the door on the polar bears threatened by global warming meme. Now we know why there was a flurry of questionable press releases this past week like these:
Polar bears no longer on ‘thin ice’: researchers say polar bears could face brighter future: “a combination of greenhouse gas mitigation and control of adverse human activities in the Arctic can lead to a more promising future for polar bear populations and their sea ice habitat“
Polar bears: On thin ice? Extinction can be averted, scientists say
Cutting greenhouse gases now is the key
Polar bears still on thin ice, but cutting greenhouse gases now can avert extinction
From Politico: The Obama administration is sticking with a George W. Bush-era decision to deny polar bears endangered species status.
In a court filing Wednesday, the Fish and Wildlife Service defended the previous administration’s decision to give the polar bear the less-protective “threatened” species designation, a move that will frustrate environmentalists who hoped for stronger protections under the Endangered Species Act.
FWS Director Rowan Gould said the 2008 “threatened” listing was made “following careful analysis of the best scientific information, as required by the ESA.”
At the time, the service determined the bears weren’t danger of extinction, so did not warrant the “endangered” status. The bears were listed as “threatened” because they face serious threats from projected decline in its sea ice habitat due to global warming would result in them likely being in danger of extinction in the foreseeable future.
FWS is “confident it was and is the appropriate status,” Gould said.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46733.html#ixzz18v3D5N4y
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Whenever Warmists tell you that polar bears are endangered then please point them to the following and ask them how they survived this:
Ice free Arctic ocean during the Holocene (past ~11,000 years)
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
Former forest is now just a thing of the past – tundra
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0033-5894(71)90069-X
Going back further they survived an even warmer period.
DNA from a 110,000–130,000-year-old polar-bear fossil has been successfully sequenced.
Polar Bear Swims 200 Miles!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jun/05/animalwelfare.animalbehaviour
This is why I don’t buy the threatened or endangered angle. What threatens / endangers them is called a rifle and pollution.
Here’s the link
“DNA from a 110,000–130,000-year-old polar-bear fossil has been successfully sequenced.”
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100301/full/news.2010.99.html
Hunting of polar bears is still allowed. Their population has been stable for as long as there have been somewhat accurate records. As far as anyone has been able to 20,000-25,000. All of the reasonable estimates have had that same value.
Polar bears will survive the future just fine. I have less hope for humanity despite the current higher population.
Polar bears eat seals.
Seals are mammals and give live birth.
No ice, seals will give birth on land.Bears will feast.
In the 1970’s with thick ice , Seal populations declinded,as ice was too thick for seals to maintain breathing holes.As a result Polar bear population , naturaly followed the seals , the over hunting line was a WWF type statement. With a warm arctic Seal and Polar bear populations have risen.
How does a person post a jpeg , image?
I have a couple all will enjoy.
In essence, this post, as well as the articles which are linked to it, say the following: If we take action now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, enough sea ice will remain to preserve the habitat which polar bears need to survive. I can’t relate this conclusion either to the gloating tone of this post or the content of the comments which follow. Care to explain?
It’s a form of the reverse Arrhenius effect! Cut your GH emissions in half…. and double the number of polar bears.
This did not stop the Obama administration from declaring 180,000 + square miles of Alaska to be a Federal polar bear reserve and hence not available for mining or petroleum exploration.
Glad to see a decision based on facts and not emotion. I must say, that is surprising…
I saw the WWF advert on Sky News this afternoon. I started shouting at the tv again (and again and again)
When I read this post I decided to contact the UK Advertising Standards Association and file a complaint.
I have done so and if anyone else would care to do the same, here’s the link
http://www.asa.org.uk/Complaints/How-to-complain/Online-Form.aspx
Tarpon
Glad to see someone else has picked up on the brown/polar bear development. Since you have knowledge of places North – is it true that brown/polar bear crossbreeds are coloured like pintos?
World population of polar bears?
Nobody really seem to know. They know they know only something about, they believe, only 50%. And of course they, apparently, have only counted a fraction of those supposedly 50%.
It makes about as much sense as the arbitrary static number of 25 000 polar bears.
Polar bears are classified as threatened because they are threatened by global warming. They aren’t classified as endangered because they don’t face extinction in the short term. How on Earth do you conclude from this that “This pretty well slams the door on the polar bears threatened by global warming meme.”?
Tarpon- I my Cousin’s husband was a DEW line radar tech in the late 1950’s
think he actually closed down a couple of sites. When they did away with DEW
line ops.. When ever the Weather observer would go out (this being the Alaska
Coastline) one of his duties was to take an M-14 with them. He said:” I was much
happier with the M-14 in hand- so was the Observer.” “I was real glad we weren’t
around for the Early M-16’s as I think ,it it fired at all, it would simply made the bear mad..”
M-14’s shot 30-06 rounds….
Polar Bear Grizzly Hybrid .
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=grizzly+polar+bear+hybrid&FORM=IGRE1#focal=45003a2a6692a735ada3e42e8af2d1f7&furl=http%3a%2f%2fblog.kingsoutdoorworld.com%2fwp-content%2f_polar-griz-hybrid.jpg
“a combination of greenhouse gas mitigation and control of adverse human activities in the Arctic can lead to a more promising future for polar bear populations”.
There are increasing signs of an inflection point in AGW from fanatic sky-is-falling pandemonium to massive back-paddling and this is just one such example.
The next step will be “the control of adverse human activities – specifically hunting – in the Arctic has lead to a more promising future for polar bear populations”.
And the world will be on-track once more. Merry Christmas. I have to turn my computer off for two days 🙁
Anthony, you have created an enormously entertaining and enlightening web-site.
Arthur W. Schaefer
December 23, 2010 at 6:05 am
This has nothing to do with GW, but is an ongoing effort of the Center for Biological Diversity (http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/about/story/index.html) to use a critter that the general public thinks cute to shut down petroleum development on the arctic’s North Slope. They were a major driver in the recent designation there for 187,000 square miles of “critical habitat” in Arctic sea ice and coastal areas. They live through a blanket of law suits and are the plaintiff on many of the lawsuits that deal with all types of critters.
###
I’m glad someone else who posts here is aware of this very dangerous organization with their extreme Marxist agenda. Their activities have been a leading cause of the degradation of the economy in the SW US, and a hindrance to actual wildlife recovery.
Mike says:
December 23, 2010 at 9:43 am
Polar bears are classified as threatened because they are threatened by global warming. They aren’t classified as endangered because they don’t face extinction in the short term. How on Earth do you conclude from this that “This pretty well slams the door on the polar bears threatened by global warming meme.”?
========
“Polar bears are classified as threatened because they are threatened by global warming.”
LOL Mike, Polar Bears hunt on land as well, frequently swim long distances, hunt for seals and Walrus pups in shoreline surf, and will attack just about anything that moves. They’re threatened by PCBs, hunters, and looney scientists firing darts at them from helicopters and placing collars on cubs.
The only endangered species these days are the AGW pushers.
In the late 60’s & early 70’s, with the polar bear population around 5000, the governments curtailed hunting. Now we are at 25,000 bears despite “unprecedented warming”. Me thinks hunting did much more damage than weather.
To reiterate a comment on another recent WUWT thread:
If food is lacking, female bears will not carry pregnancy to term.
The presence of bear cubs, indicates a sufficient food supply.
Northbound
Thank you for the photo – how disappointing – it wasn’t brown and white splotches!
Sport Hunting bans have not helped polar bear numbers. Ultimately, these bans will hurt the numbers by lowering the value of the species to the natives. The large amounts of money the sportsmen were injecting into the native communities is gone. The natives simply poach them or kill them as nuisance animals.
Since big game hunting was outlawed in Kenya in the 70’s, numbers outside the national parks have declined by 80%.
This is good news. Up in Canada, where I’m from, the Canadian government has been hesitant to list polars as endangered too. Not only are there numbers steadily increasing, ( as anyone living in Northern Manitoba or Ontario can tell you, based on the amount of bears they see walking by by their kitchen windows each day) but polars are now beginning to breed with grizzly bears, creating an entire new species. ( Grolars.)
All this hippy-talk about polars becoming extinct and so on reminds me of a qoute from the movie ” Jurassic Park” ( one of my favorites, BTW) that was uttered by the mathematician, one of the only sensible characters in the film.
” Life finds a way.”
Careful now. The news item referenced a filing in an ongoing court case. It represents one set opinions from USFWS and is probably incompetent in many respects, including legalistically. It may mean nothing to the judge, or he might interpret it exactly opposite of its putative (MSM agit-prop) meaning.
Note that the judge has wallowed in this minutia previously. From the article:
U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan sent the controversial listing decision back to the Obama Administration in October, asking officials to clarify the language the agency used when it determined that polar bears aren’t “endangered” under federal law.
No one knows how he will rule, or more importantly how he will word his decision. Apparently the judge is now arbitrating the “science”, but in the end he will base his ruling on arcane features of ESA law as codified by prior court precedents. And his decision will be appealed on that basis. In truth, the “science” doesn’t matter. The “science” part is all for public show.
The article does not mention that the suit was brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Greenpeace USA. Those groups are amply rewarded for suing the Federal Government, with all their legal fees funded by taxpayers under the Equal Access to Justice Act. Under the auspices of the EAJA, ~$4.5 billon have been given to enviro groups to file suits against USFWS, USFS, BLM, and other Fed agencies.
Because the money is so significant, enviro groups file thousands of suits every year. They would be foolish not to. The EAJA has become their bread and butter. Hence and therefore, no matter how the judge rules, the lawsuits and appeals will not stop.
The Obama Admin has no intention of altering the EAJA (or the ESA for that matter). It is a misreading of the Obama Admin policies to conclude that they want the polar bear’s ESA status to remain “threatened”. The Obama Admin and its root political base thrive on conflict. Make no mistake about that.
It’s evident that the ‘viroz want to stop climate and evolution in their tracks, ’cause the ideal final state of both has been achieved. After all, it produced them, didn’t it? They just want a few tweaks to get rid of profit-makers and Republicans, then everything will be Golden!