From the apparently out of touch with reality University of Alberta , comes this poorly timed headline that made me laugh out loud when I read it, because of this other polar bear story today in which it demonstrates polar bear numbers on the rise:
NPR finally gets it – does this signal an end to the polar bear as poster bear for global warming?
Polar bear researchers urge governments to act now and save the species
(Edmonton) A University of Alberta polar bear researcher along with eleven international co-authors are urging governments to start planning for rapid Arctic ecosystem change to deal with a climate change catastrophe for the animals.
U of A professor Andrew Derocher co-authored a policy perspective in the journal Conservation Letters urging governments with polar bear populations to accept that just one unexpected jump in Arctic warming trends could send some polar bear populations into a precipitous decline.
“It’s a fact that early sea ice break-up and late ice freeze-up and the overall reduction in ice pack are taking their toll,” said Derocher. “We want governments to be ready with conservation and management plans for polar bears when a worst case climate change scenario happens.”
The effects of climate change on polar bears are clear from both observational and modeling studies in many parts of the distribution. Earlier studies by Derocher and his colleagues show that one very bad ice year could leave hundreds of Hudson Bay polar bears stranded on land for an extended period. Derocher noted “Such an event could erase half of a population in a single year”.
“The management options for northern communities like Churchill would range from doing nothing, to feeding the bears, moving them somewhere else or euthanizing them,” said Derocher.
The concerned researchers say they’re not telling governments what to do. The authors, however, want policy makers and wildlife managers to start planning polar bear for both the predicted escalation of Arctic warming and for an off the charts worst case scenario.
“You’re going to make better decisions if you have time to think about it in advance: it’s a no brainer,” said Derocher. Further, “consultation with northern residents takes time and the worst time to ask for input is during a crisis”.
The researchers say the options for polar bear management include feeding and releasing the bears when freeze ups allow the animals to get to their hunting grounds. Derocher calls this a wild bear park model, but the paper reports the cost could run into the millions and could have ramifications for the long term behaviour of the animals.
The authors of the paper say government should be aware of the fall-out from climate change and human safety in the north is going to be an increasing challenge..
“Around the world polar bears are an iconic symbol so any tragedy would produce massive attention,” said Derocher. “If the warming trend around Hudson’s Bay took an upward spike, the population of 900 to 1000 bears in western Hudson Bay would be on the line, so there has to be a plan.”
The paper is titled; Rapid ecosystem change and polar bear conservation. It was published online as an accepted article January 25, 2013 in Conservation Letters.
Link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12009/abstract
================================================================
Models don’t cut it, data does.
Some numbers via Andrew Bolt:
Polar bear numbers as estimated in 2009 by the Polar Bear Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission: 20,000 – 25,000.
Polar bear numbers as estimated in 2012 by the Polar Bear Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission: 22,600 – 32,100.
From: http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/about-polar-bears/what-scientists-say/are-polar-bear-populations-booming
Ask the Experts: Are Polar Bear Populations Increasing?
Answered by Dr. Andrew Derocher
Some recent media reports have cited inaccurate data concerning polar bears. For clarification on polar bear numbers, we turned to Dr. Andrew Derocher, Chair of the IUCN/SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group.
Dr. Derocher is a polar bear scientist with the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. He also serves on PBI’s Scientific Advisory Council.
Question: The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has proposed that the polar bear be listed as a threatened species. Yet some news reports state that polar bear numbers are actually increasing. For example, the following paragraph appeared on the Fox News Web site:
“In the 1950s the polar bear population up north was estimated at 5,000. Today it’s 20- to 25,000, a number that has either held steady over the last 20 years or has risen slightly. In Canada, the manager of wildlife resources for the Nunavut territory of Canada has found that the population there has increased by 25 percent.”
If this is true, then why are scientists worried about population declines?
Answer from Dr. Derocher: The various presentations of biased reporting ignore, or are ignorant of, the different reasons for changes in populations. If I thought that there were more bears now than 50 years ago and a reasonable basis to assume this would not change, then no worries. This is not the case.
The bottom line here is that it is an apples and oranges issue. The early estimates of polar bear abundance are a guess. There is no data at all for the 1950-60s. Nothing but guesses. We are sure the populations were being negatively affected by excess harvest (e.g., aircraft hunting, ship hunting,self-killing guns, traps, and no harvest limits). The harvest levels were huge and growing. The resulting low numbers of bears were due only to excess harvest but, again, it was simply a guess as to the number of bears.
============================================================
I can’t say this answer by Dr. Derocher inspires any confidence in his ability to give a straight answer. If it were guessing, show how that you determined it was “guessing”.
Maybe it is because nobody really has a handle on the numbers, from an article in the Society of Environmental Journalists:
These and other scientists agree that polar bear populations have, in all likelihood, increased in the past several decades, but not five-fold, and for reasons that have nothing to do with global warming. The Soviets, despite their horrendous environmental legacy on many issues, banned most polar bear hunting in 1956. Canada and the U.S. followed suit in the early 1970s — with limited exceptions for some native hunting, and permitted, highpriced trophy hunts. And a curtailment of some commercial seal hunting has sparked a seal population explosion – angering fishermen, but providing populations in eastern Canada and Greenland with plenty of polar bear chow, leading in turn to localized polar bear population growth in spite of the ice decline.
The scientists also caution that we still don’t have a firm count on these mobile, remote, supremely camouflaged beasts. All this uncertainty over the numbers — past and present —even gave some conservative bloggers pause.
http://www.sej.org/publications/alaska-and-hawaii/magic-number-a-sketchy-fact-about-polar-bears-keeps-goingand-going-an
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Incompetent hacks like Derocher aside, the U of A is hardly ‘second rate’…(it hosts very well regarded Engineering & Medicine faculties)…name a uni in Canada that isn’t polluted by activist leeches.The province is run by an ex-UN bureaucrat disguised as a conservative, therefore, any marquee institution like the U of A will perpeputate the ‘Cause’ because it guarantees more funding and willl help appease the eco-mentalists looking in. Considering the Alberta Government under Allison Red-Fraud’s ‘leadership’ spends 2-3 billion pumping CO2 into the ground it’s not much of a stretch to assume they will lap up all the rhetoric a few noisy fools spew out of the U. How painful it must be for Derocher, the Pembina Inst & all their ilk to reconcile the fact that the U of A is what it is today because of decades of huge oil & gas revenue in Alberta.
Henry Galt says:
February 5, 2013 at 2:09 am
“Didn’t a world expert on the Sea Bear get banned . . . .?”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/27/warmists-deny-copenhagen-access-to-polar-bear-scientist/
Joe Public says:
February 5, 2013 at 3:34 am
A farmer in Iowa had a house broken into a time or two. The house was empty and on a parcel of farmland he bought. He anchored a gun inside with a rope leading to the door and the next crook that pulled the door open shot himself. Wasn’t killed however, so the “self-killing” part failed. The farmer was sued and had to pay – such setups are not legal most places. Coyotes and domestic dogs and so on have been killed in a similar manner with M-44 sodium cyanide ejectors.
You can take it from here.
OK, this is relatively OT, but John Hultquist’s reference to M44 sodium cyanide ejectors brought this story to mind, which was represented to me as historical fact.
Back in the ’70s in western Colorado the sheep ranchers were having major predator problems, primarily with coyotes. With no help forthcoming from the government, the ranchers took matters into their own hands by placing carrion-baited booby-traps with explosive cyanide ejectors, which raised a ruckus among the animal rights people, especially as coyotes weren’t the only animals attracted to the bait.
A public meeting was called where all interested parties could explain their positions and perhaps reach an agreement. Though it was not in her district, U.S. Rep. Patricia Schroeder attended the meeting and as an elected official was given time at the microphone.
“I understand why you ranchers are upset,” she began, “but you are approaching the problem the wrong way. What we need to do is to live-trap the coyotes and sterilize them and-” she paused as an old weatherbeaten rancher rose to his feet and cleared his throat.
“Ma’am,” he said, “you say you understand our problem, but I don’t think you understand it at all. Ma’am, these coyotes, they’re eatin’ our sheep!”
Joe Prins says: @ur momisugly February 4, 2013 at 10:32 pm
I wonder how Dr. Derocher knows about polar bears so much ….Perhaps the man should get away from the modeling school and check out eastern Greenland, the Barents, Kara and Laptev seas were, according to PBSG website, there are NO polar bears. I do suggest he take a guide with a gun and enough ammo.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
NAH, he should leave the gun and ammo home and just take a bunch of wide eyed, eco-nut grad students. That way he can help the seal population numbers.
As part of the imploding of the GW hoax Eskimos (Inuit, if you’re European) are dealing with the rise in polar bear numbers by adapting an adage of Joshua Slocum.
They hammer carpet tacks thru a sheet of plywood, and then nail that to some stout planks, leaving it outside their front door overnight: the bears run away, sorefooted.
Slocum, you’ll remember, when plagued by Tierra del Fuegans (Injuns, if you’re American) in the Magellan Passage, scattered carpet tacks on his deck.
He was wakened occasionally by a yell, followed by a splash.
And his famous adage? Well, you’ll have guessed,: “A tack is the best form of defence”.
John F. Hultquist says:
February 5, 2013 at 5:12 pm
Thanks John – perfect.
Grandpa Bear (where’s Washington?). says:
February 6, 2013 at 1:13 am
That’s a keeper.
Have ANY of you ever taken a class with him..? Or are you stuck in your parents basement researching polar bears online your macbook pros..? Derocher’s research is founded in sound scientific methods and his passion for the environment, the north, and polar bears is unprecedented. I am currently taking his Northern Ecology course at the U of A and I would urge you to all look closer at the situation and open your eyes. If he was after money, he could make A LOT more by saying the world is fine and climate change is no big deal. Open your eyes and don’t speak unless you actually have knowledge on the subject
Jordan, imagine you are a candidate for jury selection in a court (an instrument of skeptical inquiry) convened for the purpose of deciding this issue (polar bear population trends). During your examination as a potential juror you identify yourself as a former student of a scientist who will be called as an expert witness in the case. You express a pre-formed favorable opinion of his expertise and methodology, and admiringly confirm the ideological bias with which he approaches his research. You also characterize those who approach the scientist’s work with skepticism as childish amateurs. You have just disqualified yourself as a juror and as a favorable witness to the credibility of the expert. But you have qualified yourself as a potential “pal reviewer”. Congratulations!