Guest essay by Eric Worrall
NYT brings us this heartrending story about polar bears on the verge of extinction fooling people into thinking they are fine, by looking overweight, and scavenging Alaskan rubbish dumps.
Polar Bears’ Path to Decline Runs Through Alaskan Village
The bears that come here are climate refugees, on land because the sea ice they rely on for hunting seals is receding.
By ERICA GOODE
KAKTOVIK, Alaska — Come fall, polar bears are everywhere around this Arctic village, dozing on sand spits, roughhousing in the shallows, padding down the beach with cubs in tow and attracting hundreds of tourists who travel long distances to see them.
At night, the bears steal into town, making it dangerous to walk outside without a firearm or bear spray. They leave only reluctantly, chased off by the polar bear patrol with firecracker shells and spotlights.
On the surface, these bears might not seem like members of a species facing possible extinction.
Scientists have counted up to 80 at a time in or near Kaktovik; many look healthy and plump, especially in the early fall, when their presence overlaps with the Inupiat village’s whaling season.
But the bears that come here are climate refugees, on land because the sea ice they rely on for hunting seals is receding.
…
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/18/science/polar-bears-global-warming.html
Back in the real world, as WUWT reported in 2015 Polar Bears are doing just fine. Predictions of imminent starvation are based on models.
Regarding the large numbers of bears around Kaktovik, does anyone think it possible locals whose income depends on “hundreds of tourists” visiting to see the bears might be deliberately leaving some food out?
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Tree planting up in BC many, many moons ago. Foreman told me to come out of my tent real slow and stand up tall. Seems a brown bear was poking around not far off. Great I thought and grabbed my camera (with film, remember those?). Real wildlife to tell the (then highly unlikely) grandkids about. So I step out and stand tall but the brown bear stands taller even though every single hair on my head stood up. Primal instinct I guess. Never did get that photo but I will forever remember that bear.
Hey!
Where is Griff?
We need him to weight in with his expansive polar bear expertise.
Griff may inadvertently have fatally damaged himself with the polar bear stuff; kinda like walking into a spinning propeller. He may need to be reincarnated as a different sock-puppet (though he does have a unique style that may shine through…).
Even pet-trolls may lose viability if the number of arrows shot into them weighs more than the troll. Also make it difficult to crawl back under your rock.
Oh Lord. I grew up in Alaska. Not in polar bear country, but in Anchorage. Was it climate change that brought all the moose into town during the winter or could it possibly have been that moose were smart enough to recognize that life in town was a lot easier. They didn’t have to worry about wolves, or hunters with rifles. They didn’t have to contend with deep snow as they searched for forage. There was lots of garden leftovers and their normal fodder was in abundance in the undeveloped lots and parks. I probably saw a couple moose a week in just my neighborhood. Animals are a lot smarter than the libs who idolize them. If they have found a way to scavenge from humans, they’ll exploit it and in most cases, benefit.
Don’t ALL bears raid garbage dumps. Has this not been happening for over a century.
Of course the bears are in trouble… sea ice retreat along the Alaskan coast has been early and severe in recent years.
See also:
http://www.carbonbrief.org/polar-bears-and-climate-change-what-does-the-science-say
http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/news-room/scientists-and-explorers-blog/challenging-ice-year-svalbard
http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/news-room/scientists-and-explorers-blog/tough-times-hudson-bay-polar-bears
“This year, as I was rumbling back into Churchill from the Tundra Buggy Lodge, I reflected on the contrast with 1984: Now we see fewer cubs (and rarely triplets), few roly-poly bears, a lot of skinny bears, and far fewer bears overall. In fact, the last bear I saw was a skinny adult male burying the remains of a recently killed polar bear cub: behind him not a bit of sea ice, even though it was November.”
Griff, if your resistance to facts and critical thinking could be weaponized you would change the world’s military balance.
So, more bears (around Churchill CA Hudson Bay) today than in the past. (But the writer ommits any specific definition of the season of the year and the specific counts and weights of ANY bear involved in this “comparison” between today (2016, ??) and “1984”.)
Of course, more polar bears and better housekeeping (better trash disposal, less “free food”) means skinnier bears.
However, Hudson Bay has NOT gotten any larger between 1984 and 2015-2016!
The maximum AND minimum sea ice in Hudson Bay has remained IDENTICAL since the last Ice Age gouged out Hudson Bay’s near-circular features in the granite!
Maximum sea ice over Hudson Bay = 1.2 MKm^2 – same as today.
Minimum sea ice = 0.00 MKm^2 = Same as today.
Looking at the Cryosphere’s daily sea ice records for Hudson Bay show NO trend in the melt season (more than a few days) – which is not enough to NOT affect the seals and wildlife around the entire bay – compared to the wildly varying season to season changes. (If year-to-year cyclical changes from 1.2 million square kilometers to 0.0 sea ice vary by 12-14 days every year, then a 40 year change of 2-3 days in the length of that cycle means nothing. EVERY polar bear who “knew” of a 200 day-long ice season has died, and EVERY polar bear that experienced a 220 day ice season has died, and EVERY polar bear who experienced a 180 ice season has died, and every polar bear who has experienced anything between a 180-200-220 day ice season has died.
Still lying about polar bears, Grifter?
Have you apologised to Dr. Crockford yet, you obnoxious, smearing, mendacious little propagandist?
You have some damn gall showing yourself on here after the way you’ve behaved.
Polar bears survived the Eemian:
1) Svalbard? — “Over the years, Svalbard has acted almost like a refuge when it comes to polar bears and the populations have increased with numbers now thought to be reaching 3,000! This is a huge positive, not just for the bears as a species, but for specialist operators such as ourselves, as these days we are more than confident in regards to sightings.” https://www.naturalworldsafaris.com/polar-regions/svalbard/information/when-is-the-best-time-to-see-polar-bears-in-svalbard
— You should notice a huge shift from 2009 to 2014. In 2009, seven populations were listed in “decline”, in 2014, none are (although, two are listed as “likely decline”. In 2009, the Western Hudson Bay was in likely decline, now it is “likely stable”.
2) The carbon brief talks about the IUCN/PBSG estimates. That group now includes a footnotes in their reports that says these aren’t valid scientific estimates — “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.” — Dr. Dag Vongraven, chairman of the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG).
3) The Western Hudson Bay and Southern Hudson Bay polar bear population are currently listed as stable by the same group. http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/status/status-table.html
Here is the current Canadian Department of the Environment estimate on polar bear populations around the world –
Guess I should be careful what I ask for ;-}
Oh, look! The lie spewer hath arrived!
Griff
With all the alleged lack of cubs, how do you explain the population increase?
Looks to me like they’re smart polar bears. Garbage dumps are so much easier than chasing down seals. Climate has nothing to do with it.
Of course the NYT will ignore illegal dumps and out of compliance landfills when it suits them.
Has nothing to do with climate but it is a different type of tragedy. Garbage addicted bears are dead bears walking. Meanwhile, here in California, now that the “Waste Zero” meme has caught on, and led to multi bin garbage and recycling trucks with robotic arms, naturally it has also led to easy opening cans. Bears, not to mention raccoons, coyotes and mountain lions, adore them.
I have said this before. I used to hunt moose at the arctic circle in early ’90’s. I spoke with a man natural resources who said they used to drug the bears in town in northern Manitoba and haul them out of town.
By the look of the photos, the well fed Polar Bear take-away operatives are a whole lot smarter than the Climate Alarmists commenting on them. The seals are happier too.
Eric ==> The bears are there because the natives hunt whales and leave the stripped carcasses out for the bears to clean up — every year — year after year. Bears, like all other animals, have an extremely good memory for where food might be found and return to spots where they found food before, even years later.
If the bears didn’t show up, or came in skinny and malnourished, that would be a worry — hungry bears can be very very dangerous.
Hmmm….I don’t suppose to these CAGW geniuses that the concept of “the survival of the fittest” might have room for those who have have found where “the eating is the easiest”?
Or, maybe, this is yet another case where anything Man does is unnatural, in this case a garbage dump, because …. what? …. Man is not “natural”? Man is not a part of Ma’ Gaia’s plan?
Just what is the axiom of their logic?
It’s amazing they don’t know that polar bears would eat anything. Seal pups are only on the menu because there is nothing else available out there. Less ice actually increases their food supply! It would just be dumb to wait hours by an ice-hole when human garbage is so handy. These eco-loons seem to get degrees without actually reading books. And why does nobody weep for the poor seal pups? Are they only cute when humans kill them?
Somehow the eggheads of society have determined that mankind is separate from nature and everything we do upsets its ‘balance’.
If we desire to bolster the Polar bear population, the dumps as feeding stations are a symbiosis, at least from an intrinsic perspective. All that is needed is proper administrating and locating of the feeding sites. Surely those who fear extinction of this lovable predator beast could fund that effort, aay?
This is just like the crop circles in Britain years ago. They would regularly occur on a Thursday night and get reported on the Friday news. Tourists would go out over the weekend to see them. The farmers would just have! to charge the tourists for walking all over their crop. The tourists would just have! to go and see each set of circles to carefully compare measurements down to the centimeter.
This is a beautiful study in economics. A market will always appear no matter how strange the environment. I’m still stumped to see who is taking advantage of whom; the bears?, the Alaskans?, the environmentalists? I do however think the NYT reader is last one standing when the music stops.
Utter bovine excrement. Desperation bordering on the comical.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/dec/20/churchill-canada-hudson-bay-no-snow-sea-ice-polar-bear
(Hudson Bay bears)
“The ice is getting thinner; it’s melting earlier and it’s coming later. New studies suggest that polar bears can only survive for about 180 days on shore.
York was clear: “If sea ice loss continues at the same pace or faster than we have seen here over the last 30 years, this is definitely not sustainable and researchers predict polar bears could become regionally extinct by mid- to end of this century.”
The polar bear is an icon of climate change. What is happening near Churchill is a clear sign that change is taking place now. When I returned to Europe, the frost finally came. It should have been one month earlier.”
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!! You need to take that comedy routine on the circuit, griffie, you are just too funny.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/ru/node/890
“Polar bears in the beleaguered southern Beaufort Sea population are now three times as likely to come ashore in summer and fall as they were in the mid-1980s, according to the study, by scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and two universities. The bears that come ashore are also staying there much longer than bears did in the past, according to the study.
The big changes, the study found, have happened over the past decade and a half — corresponding to big reductions in summer and fall sea ice.”
“Since the late 1990s, the open-water season in the southern Beaufort Sea has expanded by 36 days on average, and polar bears have responded in kind, said the study, published online in the journal PLOS ONE. Since that time, the study said, the polar bears that swim to shore are spending 31 more days a year there.”
“The bears that come ashore …. seem to be making a beeline for piles of meat- and blubber-laden bones left after local Inupiat hunters butcher bowhead whales on the beaches, according to scientists’ data”
Stop, stop, stop! I can’t catch my breath. Oh ho, so funny, bears can’t survive where they have ready access to food and shelter for their cubs! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Griff
Yes, but is PLOS ONE qualified to publish that article?
How do we know this isn’t just one of your troll comic books?
That picture
tells
there’s a lot of polar bears happy lucky feeding on people’s behalf.
Thanks!
Polar bears are very protective of their food sources, seems these three or four are having a great time.
Occam’s Razor – animals are not stupid, they will get food the quickest and easiest way they can.
Why hunt for food when there is a pile of it just waiting to be scarfed down?
That’s WHY foxes go into bins and seagulls pinch your chips… it’s easier than dive bombing fish or chasing forest meeces – same thing here with the PBs.
I do wish these religious believers would stop trying to piggy back everything to their fantasy!
I have never seen a fox dump on my shoulder, but I get your point.
https://www.google.at/search?q=fox+stealing+shoes&oq=fox+stealing+shoes&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l2.22951j0j4&client=ms-android-samsung&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
Cheers
WOW! Griff is still on the bile trail. How about making a donation in the other thread?