IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group says its global population estimate was “a qualified guess”
By Dr. Susan Crockford
Last week (May 22), I received an unsolicited email from Dr. Dag Vongraven, the current chairman of the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG).
The email from Vongraven began this way:
“Dr. Crockford
Below you’ll find a footnote that will accompany a total polar bear population size range in the circumpolar polar bear action plan that we are currently drafting together with the Parties to the 1973 Agreement. This might keep you blogging for a day or two.” [my bold]
It appears the PBSG have come to the realization that public outrage (or just confusion) is brewing over their global population estimates and some damage control is perhaps called for. Their solution — bury a statement of clarification within their next official missive (which I have commented upon here).
Instead of issuing a press release to clarify matters to the public immediately, Vongraven decided he would let me take care of informing the public that this global estimate may not be what it seems.
OK, I’ll oblige (I am traveling in Russia on business and finding it very hard to do even short posts – more on that later). The footnote Vongraven sent is below, with some comments from me. You can decide for yourself if the PBSG have been straight-forward about the nature of their global population estimates and transparent about the purpose for issuing it.
Here is the statement that the PBSG proposes to insert as a footnote in their forthcoming Circumpolar Polar Bear Action Plan draft:
“As part of past status reports, the PBSG has traditionally estimated a range for the total number of polar bears in the circumpolar Arctic. Since 2005, this range has been 20-25,000. It is important to realize that this range never has been an estimate of total abundance in a scientific sense, but simply a qualified guess given to satisfy public demand. It is also important to note that even though we have scientifically valid estimates for a majority of the subpopulations, some are dated. Furthermore, there are no abundance estimates for the Arctic Basin, East Greenland, and the Russian subpopulations. Consequently, there is either no, or only rudimentary, knowledge to support guesses about the possible abundance of polar bears in approximately half the areas they occupy. Thus, the range given for total global population should be viewed with great caution as it cannot be used to assess population trend over the long term.” [my bold]
So, the global estimates were “…simply a qualified guess given to satisfy public demand” and according to this statement, were never meant to be considered scientific estimates, despite what they were called, the scientific group that issued them, and how they were used (see footnote below).
All this glosses over what I think is a critical point: none of these ‘global population estimates’ (from 2001 onward) came anywhere close to being estimates of the actual world population size of polar bears (regardless of how scientifically inaccurate they might have been) — rather, they were estimates of only the subpopulations that Arctic biologists have tried to count.
For example, the PBSG’s most recent global estimate (range 13,071-24,238) ignores five very large subpopulation regions which between them potentially contain 1/3 as many additional bears as the official estimate includes (see map below). The PBSG effectively gives them each an estimate of zero.
Based on previous PBSG estimates and other research reports, it appears there are probably at least another 6,000 or so bears living in these regions and perhaps as many as 9,000 (or more) that are not included in any PBSG “global population estimate”: Chukchi Sea ~2,000-3,000; East Greenland, ~ 2,000-3,000; the two Russian regions together (Laptev Sea and Kara Sea), another ~2,000-3,000 or so, plus 200 or so in the central Arctic Basin. These are guesses, to be sure, but they at least give a potential size
In other words, rather than assigning a “simple, qualified guess” for these subpopulations that have not been formally counted as well as those that have been counted (generating a total figure that is indeed a “global population estimate,” however inaccurate), the PBSG have been passing off their estimate of counted populations as a true global population estimate, with caveats seldom included.
more here: IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group says its global population estimate was “a qualified guess”
Dan says:
> June 2, 2014 at 8:39 pm
>
> Coca-cola anyone?
Or, to quote one of their old slogans… “The paws that refreshes”. (Sorry about that)
If it were something other than a qualified guess, then it wouldn’t be an estimate.
“””””…..faboutlaws says:
June 2, 2014 at 8:01 pm
What’s the big deal about polar bears? If hungry enough they will track down and kill people. I don’t want to be on anything’s diet……”””””
I grew up in a place like you want.
I can tell you, that you would have vermin running all over the place; and mostly the kinds you wouldn’t eat.
But where I live now, is slowly becoming like that. And my friends and neighbors wanted it that way, because they voted for the people that voted for it.
“””””…..H.R. says:
June 2, 2014 at 6:20 pm
To get an accurate count I recommend that the scientists who made up the number fix the problem by putting a dot of red nail polish on the nose of each polar bear they count. Eh, you might have to go through a lot of researchers, but at least it solves the problem of double-counting……”””””
Well purple ink on the paws is the preferred modern method of marking those that are already counted.
So what has happened to cause PBSG to make this admission now, after how many years (9?) when they remained silent while popular press articles, scholarly reports, and official IPCC findings were promoting incorrect numbers?
“””””…..davideisenstadt says:
June 2, 2014 at 5:36 pm
george e. smith says:
June 2, 2014 at 5:33 pm
“20 to 25,000 is one hell of a range; over three orders of magnitude.”
I read that and I assumed the range was between 20,000 and 25,000…maybe I am incorrect……”””””
Well if you read 20,000 to 25,000, it certainly wasn’t on this blog. This is a SCIENCE blog, where numbers mean something.
Is this a response to the Botkin congressional testimony?
I know I’ve seen more than one wildlife show on the National Geographic cable channels implying that our effect on the climate is slowly killing the polar bears off. I particularly remember a long, drawn-out sequence showing the plight of a mother polar bear and her cub as they tried to survive a migration journey with reduced fat stores because their hunting habitat was supposedly ruined by global warming. Somebody please forward this memo to them and tell them to stop traumatizing viewers with images of baby polar bear corpses and sad looking polar bear mothers…..
I had a bear biologist admit this to me while I was in the arctic circle photographing them. You should have seen the looks of the faces of the Californians/Chicagoans that were with us. They couldn’t believe it!
“but Gore said…”
I disagree. I don’t think they have come clean at all. I reckon they have highly accurate estimates of bear numbers. Let’s face it there has been a massive amount of money pumped into “proving” CC. However they are now stuck with numbers that totally challenge their assumptions. So rather than come clean it is easier to swallow a lesser embarrassment by saying they were only guessing and avoid declaring the complete numbers. This leaves the impression that they still might be right. This dog don’t hunt!
I hear the first New Yorkers are upgrading from ferrets to polar bears…
If your wish could come true, then polar bears are saved!
• Each hair shaft is pigment-free and transparent with a hollow core
• Polar bears have black skin
Sources: 1 | 2 | 3
You sound like a Warmist Trojan.
I disagree with you all the way, except for the bit about polar bears not being cuddly. 😉
They didn’t guess, they were wrong on purpose.
This story deserves a ‘Gate’.
MaritimusGate
UrsusGate
MaritimusUrsusGate
A bearish House of Cards (again). We live in exposing times!
Perhaps someone could try and edit the Wikipedia entry for Polar Bears? That would be an interesting exercise!
In Canada, the people “up North” will tell you that the Polar Bear population is healthy and growing. The famous video of the poor bear all by himself on a piece of ice, balancing like he was on a surfboard, brought much Canadian laughter. They can swim, you know (bears, not the Canadians).
I’m waiting for the day that “they” decide “they” need to do a cull to protect the local population of humans, because there are too many bears. The Disinformation hurts us all, not just Man. I think Mother Nature knows more than we do.
So, how many polar bears ARE there?
I think that is what is referred to as “turning a blind eye”.
Twenty (20) to twenty five thousand (25,000)? An excellent estimate.
Make the range as wide as possible and your guess of the unknown population size will be some number within the spread of these probabilities.
george e. smith says:
June 2, 2014 at 9:36 pm
….well, my inference is certainly more reasonable than your interpretation…
not that a range of 20k to 25k is that narrow…
pissiness isnt an admirable trait, you know.
and this is a blog..typos occur…like your use of multiple close quotes…
BTW our deficit this year is between 1.5 and 2 trillion dollars…do you seriously think that means $1.50 to $2,000,000,000,000?
really?
why not just admit that you may be incorrect, it would be easier on us all.
To one degree or another, just about everybody lies these days. Trust no one.
Were these “qualified guesses” used when the polar bear was decreed
threatened? If so, maybe we can rescind it. (Not that the Iniuit cared;
they have been hunting the bears all along, ignoring threatened status.
Native peoples understand that if they don’t keep the polar bear population
down, then “nanuq” as they call the polar bear, will keep the human
population down.)
The sheer impudence of such behaviour is breathtaking.
Could it be time for the institution of the “Polar Bear Award” for scientific fraud?