This interesting article shows the information and perception gap between scientists that do helicopter surveys of polar bears and the native people who co-exist in their presence.
Excerpts:
In a news release issued after its conference last July, the PBSG concluded that only one of 19 total polar bear subpopulations is currently increasing, three are stable and eight are declining. Data was insufficient to determine numbers for the remaining seven subpopulations. The group estimated that the total number of polar bears is somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000. (Estimates of the population during the 1950s and 1960s, before harvest quotas were enacted, range from 5,000 to 10,000.)
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Not so fast. According to a U.S. Senate and Public Works Committee report, the “alarm about the future of polar bear decline is based on speculative computer model predictions many decades in the future. Those predictions are being “challenged by scientists and forecasting experts,” said the report.
Those challenges, supported by facts on the ground, including observations from Inuit hunters in the region, haven’t stopped climate fear-mongers at the U.S. Geological Survey from proclaiming that future sea ice conditions “will result in the loss of approximately two-thirds of the world’s current polar bear population by the mid 21st century.”
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Harry Flaherty, chair of the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board in the capital of Iqaluit, says the polar bear population in the region, along the Davis Strait, has doubled during the past 10 years. He questions the official figures, which are based to a large extent on helicopter surveys.
“Scientists do a quick study one to two weeks in a helicopter, and don’t see all the polar bears. We’re getting totally different stories [about the bear numbers] on a daily basis from hunters and harvesters on the ground,” he says.
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The growing population has become “a real problem,” especially over the last 10 years, he says. During the summer and fall, families enjoying outdoor activities must be on the look-out for bears. Many locals invite along other hunters for protection.
Last year, in Pelly Bay, all the bears that were captured were caught in town, Nirlungayuk says. “You now have polar bears coming into towns, getting into cabins, breaking property and just creating havoc for people up here,” he says.
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Flaherty and many others disagree with the official story. “We are aware there are changes in the weather, but it is not affecting the daily life of the animals,” he says. “Polar bears hunt in the floe-edge areas, on newly formed ice, and in the fiords in search of baby seals. They don’t hunt in the glaciers [areas of multi-year ice].
“We’re not seeing negative effects on the polar bear population from so-called climate change and receding ice,” he says. He is convinced that some scientists are deliberately “using the polar bear issue to scare people” about global warming, a view widely shared by many Nunavut locals.
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Read the entire article here, it is quite enlightening
From the “Proceedings of the 15th Working Meeting (2009) of the IUCN/SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group – page 102 – Table 6. From 2003 to 2008, in Canada alone, a total of 3,461 polar bears were killed by “human-caused mortalities, including subsistence kills, sport-hunt kills, problem kills, illegal kills, and bears that die while being handled during research.”
Given the total polar bear population is estimated in the 20,000 to 25,000 range, this means factors other than climate change (e.g. bears that died during research) killed between 14.5% and 17.3% of the total population.
I suggest if polar bears are in jeopardy at all, then I think it’s clear that hunting, not global warming is the primary human cause of any decline in population.
Source – http://pbsg.npolar.no/export/sites/pbsg/en/docs/Outcome_MOP2009.pdf
The polar population is actually decreasing…the polar bears have just learned to tele-connect.
Just a few points of clarification. I am an ecologists, and although I don’t work on polar bears, I recently spent time in Churchill Canada with some of the world’s leading polar bear experts including Steve Amstrup, Andrew Derocher and Greg Thiemann.
These scientists and others working on polar bears don’t track population dynamics simply by occasionally counting them from helicopters as this article suggests. Instead – like all population biologists – a number of “vital rates” of bear populations are estimated and used to develop a demographic model. Such rates include age and sex specific mortality, other measures of fitness like growth, reproductive success, movement patterns and other aspects of habitat usage, etc. This involves intensive year around monitoring of individual bears, eg via satellite tags, den surveys that determine how many cubs are born each year, and a large number of bear captures to tag bears and collect a huge amount of physical data from them. All of this data and the model it is fed into is used to estimate the population growth rate; is the populations growing, stable or shrinking, and at what rate? And beyond that, just like human demographers, wildlife biologists can use data like this to build a population age structure, sex ratios, etc that can tell us a lot about the future prospects of the population.
Regarding the point that “alarm about the future of polar bear decline is based on speculative computer model predictions many decades in the future. Those predictions are being “challenged by scientists and forecasting experts,” said the report.” Go take a look at ice trend data, eg on Hudson Bay (https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/): those “speculative” models are looking pretty prescient. The environmental changes all the local people I spoke with around Churchill are striking; red foxes moving northward and displacing the arctic fox, much warmer temps and later sea freeze up, etc.
And what about those “facts on the ground, including observations from Inuit hunters in the region”. Two things. One, hunters obviously don’t want more hunting restrictions placed on them, so it isn’t surprising they are making this argument. Two; their observations are concordant with what polar bear scientists are documenting in many coastal communities such as in Churchill – but the thing is, this seems to be due to a loss of habitat rather than an increase in bear populations. The winter freeze up on Hudson Bay is getting later. This year it didn’t happen until mid-December. As a result, the bears congregate along the shore (where the towns and people are) each fall for a longer period waiting for the thaw. I witnessed this phenomena in November. Additionally, the reduced hunting period (bears need solid sea ice to hunt their seal prey) make the bears desperate for food, and some come into towns looking for anything to break the fast that began last June. Bear feeding for tourism may also be contributing to the problem.
I just wanted to end by saying that I know there are a lot of smart people that read this website. I have met Anthony and I know he is a sharp cookie too. But I know the polar bear scientist doing this work and they are really smart as well. They actually know what they are doing and many have been working on these populations for decades. They are hunters, empiricists, and bad ass outdoorsmen – certainly not the crazed and dopey “alarmists” skeptics like to portray them as. There is a lot we don’t know about polar bears and how climate change is affecting them, but the available science as well as observations by local people all agree that global warming is taking a toll and at least the more southern populations are indeed very threatened.
Images of the Arctic ice shelf cracking up are an icon of the damage wrought by global warming.
But a team of researchers from the Universite Laval in Canada have found evidence that one ice shelf might have broken up before, 1,400 years ago – long before industrialisation had any impact on the planet.
Researchers used carbon dating and other techniques to examine the sediment and were able to create a timeline of events.
They found the ice shelf appeared 4,000 years ago staying whole for several thousand years before fracturing 1,400 years ago. They said it didn’t fully re-freeze until 800 years ago.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2053423/The-Arctic-ice-shelf-broke-froze-new-research-suggests.html
Urbanites can be easily fooled because they think the city is so big and don’t understand scale. Any one who has flown over northern Canada in a small plane knows otherwise…hour after hour between strips, low altitude, it grinds on. I remember how the the animals would scatter far in advance of our Lycoming powered Cessna. As to the helicopter story, I also remember how the bears would simply disappear from the verges of a strip at the approach of a helicopter, much quicker than when a plane approached…I think because it was the favoured mode of the hunters. And bears can hide in plain sight; that is how an engineer I knew was taken down by a polar bear between the barracks and mess hall at an oil camp 30 years ago in the McKenzie delta…no one saw the bear; it just came out of nowhere from behind some equipment. They figured it was scouting the mess hall for scraps
Everyone I know from the north sees more bears then ever, especially the bush pilots
How is it that just about everyone EXCEPT climate scientists knows that temperatures 8000-4000 years ago during the Holocene Optimum were warmer than average? How did the polar bear survive?
What caused temperatures to rise 8000 years ago? Was it the caveman driving around in SUV’s. What caused temperatures to decline 4000 years leading to the creation of the Arctic ice sheets? Were there no polar bears before them? Have polar bears only existed for 4000 years?
Having spent some time flying around the Arctic in helicopters, I find the idea of counting polar bears from them to be totally ludicrous. Talk about looking for a needle in a haystack – the lands of the northern Arctic are many millions of square miles in size.
So there is probably around one polar bear every 200-300 square miles – and you think you can accurately count them from a helicopter. Only a ‘climate scientist’ could subscribe to such stupidity.
Same old story – ‘climate scientist’ needs to keep his job. Real facts and data provide inconvenient results threatening job security – so facts and data are manipulated/tortured to provide ‘climate scientist’ with job security.
John F Bruno,
After your explanation of how careful polar bear counters are, you say, “The environmental changes all the local people I spoke with around Churchill are striking; red foxes moving northward and displacing the arctic fox, much warmer temps and later sea freeze up, etc.” That’s pretty unscientific, no?
If I may bring you back to earth for a minute, I would like to point out that we are talking about “global warming” of a fraction of a degree over a century and a half. A global rise of 0.7°C cannot cause what you describe. What you are describing is regional climate change. A region’s climate naturally changes, constantly, and more so as you travel to the higher latitudes. What you describe has nothing to do with ‘global warming’. The Antarctic is currently cooling; That has nothing to do with global cooling. It’s simply regional climate variability.
The problem with climate alarmists is that they will point to any change, and claim that it supports their belief system. That’s not science, that is religion.
Polar bears are actually just a SUBSPECIES of Brown Bears or Griz. They freely interbreed in the wild and produce fertile offspring and this has been confirmed and reported many times, in fact. You can find numerous recent examples, for example http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2978186 and it only takes one exception to make the rule in biology.
So you MUST include the world-wide population of griz and brown bears in the total population and recognize that the entire boreal distributed population of Ursus arctos and subspecies which at its height ranged southwards into Mexico, Italy, the Middle East, Southern China, etc and so has no problem with higher temperatures.
Nuff said.
Jeez, I can remember when the USGS used to perform ground truth to test models. I guess they have perfected their modeling capabilities (just like NASA) so much that this is no longer necessary
The Expulsive says:
December 17, 2011 at 9:54 am
And bears can hide in plain sight; that is how an engineer I knew was taken down by a polar bear between the barracks and mess hall at an oil camp 30 years ago in the McKenzie delta…no one saw the bear; it just came out of nowhere from behind some equipment.
A scientist with an untrained eye flying in a helicopter is not going to see a bear hiding itself on the ice. Bears that do not learn to hide themselves die from starvation or predation.
Every hunter knows that the eye learns from experience. An experienced hunter will spot game the novice will overlook. Play “where is waldo” with your kids.
ThePowerofX says:
December 17, 2011 at 9:24 am
“You now have polar bears coming into towns, getting into cabins”
And then…
“We are aware there are changes in the weather, but it is not affecting the daily life of the animals”
Perhaps the bears wish to go shopping, or something.
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If they knew how much stuff costs up there they would stick to the seals. So they’re probably shop lifting polar bears.
But why not hire the local Inuit to count the polar bears and leave the CO2 producing helicopters on the ground?
David Marshall says:
December 17, 2011 at 9:34 am
“Not an impressive rebuttal. “But the bears are getting into our garbage cans!” is on the same level as, “But it snowed really hard last winter!” Too impressionistic to take seriously. ”
As for the “snowed really hard last winter”; this argument was serious enough for the IPCC “scientists” to come up with studies that showed more snow being the logical consequence of AGW; through a new phenomenon they invented, the “turbocharged weather pattern”.
ferd berple says:
“How is it that just about everyone EXCEPT climate scientists knows that temperatures 8000-4000 years ago during the Holocene Optimum were warmer than average?”
They know it Fred, they just choose to ignore this inconvenient truth it might get in the way of their message and distract attention from “The Cause”. Just like they never really discuss continetal glaciations ending ~12000 years ago with concommitant 400 foot sea-level rise.
Glaciers that covered all of Canada along with Chicago and New York just retreating and melting away…now that’s global warming and climate change.
Peter Miller says:
December 17, 2011 at 10:02 am
“…totally ludicrous…needle in a haystack – the lands of the northern Arctic are many millions of square miles in size.
…one polar bear every 200-300 square miles – and you think you can accurately count them from a helicopter. Only a ‘climate scientist’ could subscribe to such stupidity.
…facts and data are manipulated/tortured to provide…job security.”
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In total agreement here. Reminds me of the guy who flew 15,000 line-km a year in a plane in the Arctic counting things in the ocean and covering 0.018% of his area. Then he found a dead polar bear – it had drowned. We all know how that ended.
I can’t get my head around how much totally useless science there is being peddled today – especially in the name of the Earth’s climate. We have too many PhD’s sitting in helicopters and not enough mechanics fixing them (the helicopters – the PhD’s aren’t fixable).
Bit embarrasing for Sir David Attenborough
John F Bruno says:
December 17, 2011 at 9:46 am
Gee, Mr. Bruno, because the people you have met and describe ….. “… are hunters, empiricists, and bad ass outdoorsmen….” we must put their credibility above everyone else? Do you think these people are not influenced by the money grants they get for their research? No they are on a holy crusade – they do it for mankind! I’m calling you out for the fiction writer you are and a priest of the church of global warming.
“You now have polar bears coming into towns, getting into cabins, breaking property and just creating havoc for people up here,” he says.
Clearly, these poor bears are breaking into houses for only one reason: to get at the air conditioning. They’ll probably be kicking open fire hydrants soon.
The statement above is probably misleading.
In my early career (back in the 70s), I spent time in the Canadian arctic and had the chance to meet Ian Stirling (arguably the world’s leading polar bear expert) and his colleagues. Their involvement with the bears was up close and personal. The guy who made the statement above knows better than to describe Stirling’s work as a “quick study”.
The local population wants to hunt more polar bears. The Canadian government doesn’t want them to. You could put the difference in opinion down to that.
Listening carefully to what Stirling says, you get three things:
Polar bears are in trouble if there is no ice at the right time of year.
Southern (western Hudson’s Bay around Churchill) populations of polar bears are experiencing problems right now.
A warmer climate and thinning ice will actually help more northern polar bear populations.
Ah, yes, point three. Even if it gets warmer, the polar bears will do OK. Some populations will suffer and others will prosper. That’s according to the world’s leading polar bear expert. (The fact that he believes in AGW, well, that grieves me greatly.)
Well, you would expect the polar bear populations to recover after they were all hurled out of an airplane to make this..
@John F Bruno says: December 17, 2011 at 9:46 am
Did you ever read this?
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/taylor_polar_bears.pdf
But of course Mitchell Taylor has only been studying Polar Bears for thirty years. He’ll get the hang of “real” science soon!
You might like to check out:-
http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/10/mitchell-taylor-polar-bears-and-agw.html
as well!
Steve In S.C. says:
December 17, 2011 at 8:48 am
There is a full body mount polar bear taken at Kotzebue, AK, in 1968 on display at Cabela’s in Ft. Worth, TX. To stand within ten feet of it and imagine it being alive makes my skin crawl!
commieBob – “The local population wants to hunt more Polar Bears.The Canadian Government doesn’t want them to”, you say.
If that is so then the first to complain about the decline in numbers would be the local hunters would it not?
AnonyMoose says:
December 17, 2011 at 8:40 am
“January 8, 2010″ – I wonder how the locals are doing now.”
Those that weren’t attacked by the increasing polar bear population are probably doing rather well.
“…Last year, in Pelly Bay, all the bears that were captured were caught in town, Nirlungayuk says. “You now have polar bears coming into towns, getting into cabins, breaking property and just creating havoc for people up here,” he says…”
Either we have polar bear gangs, or a new group called “Occupy the the North Pole”, or maybe it’s just three of them telling Goldilocks “turn about is fair play”…
Graph & chart of populations….and I.Q. comparison between da bears & Al Gore
…”…Perhaps the polar bear survived the last Interglacial because it did not have computer climate models that said polar bears should not have survived!”…
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202007/GW_polarbears.pdf