Another one for the Climate FAIL file…
USA Today/Associated Press, in 2009:
“They believe the insidious impact of climate change, its tipping of natural balances and disruption of feeding habits, is decimating a species that has long numbered in the millions and supported human life in Earth’s most inhuman climate.”
But, darn those Caribou, they just aren’t acting the way they are supposed to….
A vast herd of northern caribou that scientists feared had vanished from the face of the Earth has been found, safe and sound — pretty much where aboriginal elders said it would be all along.
“The Beverly herd has not disappeared,” said John Nagy, lead author of a recently published study that has biologists across the North relieved.
Those scientists were shaken by a 2009 survey on the traditional calving grounds of the Beverly herd, which ranges over a huge swath of tundra from northern Saskatchewan to the Arctic coast. A herd that once numbered 276,000 animals seemed to have completely disappeared, the most dramatic and chilling example of a general decline in barren-ground caribou.
[…]
“Many of the community people reported that elders think this is nothing new. Caribou move.”
Caribou move? Who knew? Can’t they model that?
h/t to Kate at SDA
The caribou strike again! Back in the 1970’s, when the Alaskan Pipeline was proposed and built, the environmental folks sued, saying the pipeline would block the caribou from their traditional calving grounds, causing a massive decline in populations. The pipeline was built, and the caribou simply calved on the other side of the pipeline. One environmental lawyer involved with the lawsuits told me that he felt betrayed by the caribou, as he had been certain his group could have stopped the pipeline from being completed. Way to go, caribou!
The caribou were merely hiding out on the back of the Canadian quarter. I know, because I saw them there. Poor polar bears have only white coke cans to hide on. I hope nobody is buying those white coke cans as it may be their last refuge. GK
The sad thing is the Alarmist Screaming always hits the front page in large caps while the reasoned retractions (not attention grabbers) are on pg 32 below the fold in tiny type.
I was kind of wondering if the caribou had moved to the north or to the south. Then I got a grip on myself and remembered, what does it really matter. Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Wet/Dry Hot/Cold.
That junk conclusion about the vanished caribou is a product of my favorite topic, the junk science called ‘Conservation Biology.’ The same ‘science’ that can conclude that sees the highest polar bear population in recorded history, and probably recent prehistory, is disappearing. As I have noted here many times, this model-based post-normal “mission oriented” [read “missionary”] so called science is WORSE than global climastrology. And, yes, I know that that is hard to believe!
Watch also for the BS campaign about the woodland caribou. Like the whole recent ‘concern’ for the boreal forest and boreal forest species, the real target of that is the cash cow of the boreal called the Alberta oil sands. They are doing all they can to extort money out of that.
One of the big spins of these caribou stories are Big Lies about wolves, their populations, and their impact on caribou. So whenever you see the name [Dr.] Paul Paquet, your BS detectors need to be on full alert.
Strangely, any “lost” caribou can probably be found in Yamal, cozying up to the very epicenter of Warming, YAD06. As I recall, the people there subsist partially by tending a total of about 500,000 free range caribou.
I think the Caribou were off hiding Trenberth’s missing heat.
dave ward says:
November 25, 2011 at 4:04 am
A tiny story in a UK daily paper today:
“ESKIMO KNELL”
No references, unfortunately, and I haven’t been able to find a likely source.
They need a source? Since when?
I did read something similar (I think it was in the Nat. Geog. Mag.) about a year ago. Researchers went with locals using dog sleds to cover distances that included crossing ice-covered bays or estuaries. The surfaces were said to be softer and the ice thinner or unstable. Sorry that I didn’t pay enough attention to this to file it somewhere. It seemed to me at the time (and still does) that it was just another “natural variability” story and about as important as Caribou moving about. I don’t recall a date for the end-of-life estimate or even if there was one.
You could call or write the Paper for a source.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide has had no significant effect on average global temperature as demonstrated in detail in the pdf made public 11/24/11 at http://climaterealists.com/index.php?tid=145&linkbox=true
To paraphrase one of my favorite Generals, Russel Honoré – “Boy, you’re stuck on stupid!”
“Gail Combs says:
November 25, 2011 at 8:53 am
The sad thing is the Alarmist Screaming always hits the front page in large caps while the reasoned retractions (not attention grabbers) are on pg 32 below the fold in tiny type.”
Am I the only person on the planet that reads newspapers and magazines in reverse? It’s the ‘skeptical way’.
Dan Pangburn says:
November 25, 2011 at 9:36 am
Atmospheric carbon dioxide has had no significant effect on average global temperature as demonstrated in detail in the pdf made public 11/24/11 at http://climaterealists.com/index.php?tid=145&linkbox=true
Thanks, I’ve read it and filed it to look at again. But if you don’t give me half of your Big Oil money, I’m gonna tell on you.
Back in the 1930s a permanent herd of buffalo was found to be well established in the Carmacks area Yukon Territory, Canada. They disappeared I believe in 1950s and spe
cialists like this post’s Cariboudioxide Biogolleyists reckoned that deeper snows in the 50s resulted in the herd perishing (they didn’t teach these guys in those days either about the expectation that their should have have been a lot of bodies, and big ones at that- Willis’s major contribution to ecologly).
In 1969 I was prospecting for a mining company in the Snag River area near the Kluane Range. A. Competitor’s helicopter dropped into our camp and an excited Dutch geologist yelled a herd of. Muskoxen were heading towards our camp. I jumped in the copter and what did I see? A “lost” herd of very healthy buffalol that had moved into the shadow zone of the Kluane where little snow fell and they could get forage all year round. I’ll bet the aboriginals knew where they had gione too.
In some ways it will be sad when the global warming muth is finally killed. I really enjoy all the jokes that bloggers bring out to burst the bubble. this thread has been particularly good.
Just a peripheral question: I vaguely remember in the 1970’s(?) when the James Bay project was finished, that vast bodies of water were created across the traditional caribou migration routes.
In the first migration after the project finished, thousands of caribou drowned while trying to swim across these new bodies of water.
What ever happened in subsequent years? Do the caribou still migrate? Do they still drown?
Does anybody know about this?
I thought their story on polar bears originated because they tranquilized a couple and the bears were too heavy to pull into their boat, so they let them drown. Then counted them as dying from climate change.
Complete arrant nonsense about caribou. Have done helicopter mustering. The pilots think they have 100% sight of the ground. They have about 80%. I tested it by standing in the shade of a tree . They did not see me. Next test standing in the shade, I waved my arms fully over my head. Again, the pilot did not see me.
In the Northern Territory, helicopters are used to muster wild cattle in Arnhem Land. I spoke to a man who lived and mustered there. He said the cattle learned to dive under the bullrushes and paragrass and lie still until the chopper had flown away. Later a documentary filmed the same thing.
Graze animals are prey and just because warmists and assorted greens heads are full of rubbish, does not change the prey animal response one iota.
Mmmmm …roast caribou …
97% of all caribou believe man-made global warming is real.
And I thought the polar bears ate the caribou. Maybe they can be trained to eat alarmists. We’ll just send them up north to do ‘research.’
samadamsvoice – there was, somewhere, a wonderful quote about the subservience of – I believe it was Molotov – to Stalin, to the effect that he’d sit trouserless on a block of ice if Stalin told him to do so.
Should some accident of history elect me President, there’d be a lot of federally-paid “climatologists” whose only route to their pensions would be through a lot of hands-on experience with north-of-the-Arctic-Circle thermometers.
Apologies for quoting Auden again but it is a perfect fit. ‘Silently and very fast.’ probably explains their difficulties.
Fall of Rome
W H Auden
The Fall of Rome (extract)
Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city.
Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast.
This report joins the Irahwadi [sp?] dolphins, Antarctic krill, gray whales, giant squid, and other cases of animals moving around or alarmists simply not looking in likely places regardless.
Leads me to wonder if the hare-lynx population roller coaster in northern Canada is just the animals moving around to find different food. (Researchers have found strong correlation of apparent population fluctuation to the Arctic Oscillation, but no causal mechanism. I’ve seen the population boom-bust phenomenon in a farming area of NE BC, but had no ability to look elsewhere. A popular theory back then was that willow trees developed resistance by becoming bitter tasting, but recent research indicates that is not a likely cause.)
(I hear similar claims about bluefin tuna and Atlantic cod, but don’t have good leads to sources.)
Same spot Suzuki’s salmon were hiding in would be my bet. 8^D
JEM says:
November 25, 2011 at 11:07 pm
Should some accident of history elect me President, there’d be a lot of federally-paid “climatologists” whose only route to their pensions would be through a lot of hands-on experience with north-of-the-Arctic-Circle thermometers.
Or more up their alley, they could set up another “doo” line.
the earth is warming,,,it’s called the end of the ice age, yes we are still in the ice age and it’s getting warmer because it is ending, the poles we be ice free again, just like through out earth’s history of normal cycles…..