Guest essay by Eric Worrall
[addition h/t to users: Cam_S, Neo, and Fraizer, who all called attention to the this story ~ctm]
h/t Howard “Cork” Hayden; Inuit communities are increasingly alarmed at surging populations of polar bears posing a risk to public safety, and have advanced plans to kill more polar bears to mitigate the risk to their people.
‘So many bears:’ Draft plan says Nunavut polar bear numbers unsafe
Bob Weber, The Canadian Press
Published Monday, November 12, 2018 4:11AM EST
Last Updated Monday, November 12, 2018 1:06PM ESTThere are too many polar bears in parts of Nunavut and climate change hasn’t yet affected any of them, says a draft management plan from the territorial government that contradicts much of conventional scientific thinking.
The proposed plan — which is to go to public hearings in Iqaluit on Tuesday — says that growing bear numbers are increasingly jeopardizing public safety and it’s time Inuit knowledge drove management policy.
“Inuit believe there are now so many bears that public safety has become a major concern,” says the document, the result of four years of study and public consultation.
“Public safety concerns, combined with the effects of polar bears on other species, suggest that in many Nunavut communities, the polar bear may have exceeded the co-existence threshold.”
…
The proposed plan downplays one of the scientific community’s main concerns.
“Although there is growing scientific evidence linking the impacts of climate change to reduced body condition of bears and projections of population declines, no declines have currently been attributed to climate change,” it says. “(Inuit knowledge) acknowledges that polar bears are exposed to the effects of climate change, but suggests that they are adaptable.”
…
Andrew Derocher, a University of Alberta polar bear expert, is blunter.
“That’s just plain wrong,” he said. “That’s been documented in many places now — not just linked to body condition but reproductive rates and survival.”
…
Pond Inlet wants to be able to kill any bear within a kilometre of the community without the animal being considered part of the town’s quota. Rankin Inlet simply wants to lower bear populations.
In its submission, the Kitikmeot Regional Wildlife Board expresses frustration with how polar bears are used as an icon in the fight against climate change.
“This is very frustrating for Inuit to watch … We do not have resources to touch bases with movie actors, singers and songwriters who often narrate and provide these messages,” it says.
“We know what we are doing and western science and modelling has become too dominant.”
…
Who do you think is more believable? Native communities at the sharp end of Polar Bear attacks, or comfortable city based climate modellers who tell us the natives are “plain wrong” about polar bear numbers surging, about polar bears overrunning their communities?
Do the Inuit recycle and practice good waste management? The picture of that dump looks like something from the 60’s here. Today, beds are lined, valuable materials removed to reduce volume, the trash is compacted and covered with soil, etc.
Have you got a D12 Bull dozer to help out with that idea ?
Frozen perma frost is rock hard.
I think I’ll go with the locals on this issue. And suggest that foreign ‘experts’ in big cities down South but out.
Have you got a D12 Bull dozer to help out with that idea ?
Looks like the Inuit might not be strangers to the D12 (and this for quite some time):
https://www.nwtarchives.ca/item_display.asp?Accession_Number=N-1979-052&Item_Number=0825
If the photograph is legitimate, I don’t see any reason not to go with R Shearer on this one, i.e, don’t be morons, start mitigating issues where you can. Especially given the bear population appears to be growing.
Just because you’re a local doesn’t mean you can’t learn something from southerners who do have a good idea.
I’ll go with Bill in this case. A bulldozer does you absolutely no good in a permafrost environment. What might work is a proper incinerator. However a waste incinerator has to be big to burn the waste effectively and cleanly. It might possiby work for Iqaluit, but nowhere else in Nunavut.
The only way to get rid of waste in the high Arctic (and Antarctic) is really to ship it back out. The Polar Bears and Foxes unfortunately can only eat a small part of it. Otherwise they would actually be an excellent recycling solution. The foxes particularly are extremely efficient scavengers.
Even if they had a D12 bulldozer with a heavy duty “ripper” tooth on it, ….. it still wouldn’t be of much use because the bulldozer’s tracks can’t get sufficient “traction” on the ice/permafrost.
I’ll go with Bill in this case. A bulldozer does you absolutely no good in a permafrost environment.
Bill called for a dozer … 🙂
“Have you got a D12 Bull dozer to help out with that idea ?”
Regardless, as Dr. Crockford pointed out the photograph in question is “of a Russian dump, not one in Nunavut.”
You are right, tty, the waste should be shipped out for disposal. If it is good enough for these communities to ship in stuff that they want to make their life easier, it should be a requirement for them to ship all waste materials right back out again if it cannot be disposed of it in pits. After all, native populations everywhere are the world’s best environmentalists, aren’t they?
I asked a question and didn’t claim to be an expert. It just seems that if one is concerned about bears foraging in dumps, then there is probably something that can be done about it. One should be careful how and where to throw trash.
In my locale, there was concern about bears getting into trash cans and bear “proof” cans worked to a great degree.
A perfectly reasonable question to ask/argument to make. But let’s not allow reason to get in the way of how we view the problem.
In the lower 48 there is more of a problem of racoons getting into trash cans, than bears.
But iffen you live or vacation in “bear country”, ….. your home, your cabin or your tent is just another “trash can” for a marauding bear to rip open and then rip apart.
And yet, somehow, the guys on the American tv show Gold Rush manage to rip through permafrost overburden to mine the gold rich layers below, in the Yukon.
Might want to look into just how much the guys on Gold Rush spend on fuel every day to operate that big equipment. They can only afford it due to the amount of gold they mine. With no gold in the sump I imagine a trip to the dump might cost you big bucks.
They also spend a lot of resources trying to warm up that ice so the rippers can dig in.
Bill,
How can the permafrost be rock hard when AGW has defrosted the permafrost?!!! 🙂
If I were a Polar Bear … I would prowl the indigenous people’s middens
Kenji
midge rakers. 🙂
A waste to energy incinerator will solve the problem.
That photo is of a Russian dump, not one in Nunavut
Nice, that makes a difference … many thanks!
Thank you Susan.
That explanation makes a lot of sense. Canadians in general, and I would expect that to extend to their “First Nations” population, are pretty green-minded. Russians, not so much.
Although contrary to the common Hollywood and media portrayals, Native Americans pre-European contact were not really the big greenies or super conservators that are usually portrayed.
The Great Plains tribes and other migratory bands would set up camp in a given area, such as a meadow, and then toss all their crap in pile (like gut piles, and poo piles), and their horses (once they had them) would typically, and literally, eat all the grass and then crap up the place until it stunk so bad that the natives had to pull up and move over to another location, where they’d eat all the grass and crap it up all over again. High levels of lead contamination has been found in numerous prehistoric skeletal remains, including in the Americas, that resulted from metal smelting.
Most of the high ground in the Gulf Coast of Florida where I live is not natural ground but actually shell mounds – the accumulate garbage of hundreds of years of human occupation at a single place. Native Americans and other indigenous peoples of much of the world didn’t live cleanly .. they just did not have the industrial outputs that we do today because they didn’t possess the machines, or in most cases the large concentration of population in cities that we have today.
Yes, I’ve often tried to explain to people that the Great Plains tribes were nomadic because they exhausted the game in an area and crapped all over everything. Most people have bought into the eco-saint, gaia worshipping meme that is currently being pushed.
R Shearer November 12, 2018 at 6:06 pm
Do the Inuit recycle and practice good waste management – is ridiculous if you watch the REAL problems of indigenous peoples in polar regions:
https://www.google.at/search?q=tv+documentary+alaska+state+troopers&oq=tv+documentary+Alaska+state+&aqs=chrome.
Recycling is not simple when you live 2000 miles from the nearest recycling center and only get one bargeload in and zero out per year.
If you are lucky that is. This year many communities didn’t even get that. The ice situation was extremely difficult.
And as for covering the thrash with soil. There is at best a few inches of it. And it is permanently frozen. Have you any experience of digging in permafrost?
And in the seventies and eighties, New York City had to stop dumping their trash offshore. They had problems with the trash returning because the trash barges dumped their trash as soon as they were out of sight, not out in the deep canyons 60 miles offshore.
Now, New York City ships their trash out of state. Some of the trash gets burned, the rest gets dumped into pits located in the state they paid to dispose of NY trash.
Because you apparently live where urban/suburban trash collection and disposal is pervasive, does not prove that your local trash collection performs any of the miracles you claim.
Modern trash collection puts the trash into large Earth cavities; where they might be lined with clay; then covers incoming trash with dirt. Often the trash dumps are ex-quarries repurposed to be trash dumps.
Communities without large ground cavities. can not convert flat land to a typical urban/suburban trash dump
We’ve already read a number of stories about America’s faux recycling, where trash from recycling is sold to China or SE Asia. The old adage, “out of sight, out of mind” causes urbanites to believe their trash undergoes modern miracles.
Nothing in that process actually removes “valuable materials”. If aluminum hunters haven’t removed the aluminum before it gets trashed, then the valuable materials are included.
Old electronics? Trashed, not recycled.
Nor is all urban/suburban trash “compacted”. Trash trucks filled with uncompacted materials regularly dump their debris into trash dumps. It’s why trash dumps frequently weigh incoming and outgoing vehicles to determine the weight of deposited trash.
That community trash pile picture, with the bears, is despised simply because it is easily visible. Any American should be able to visit their local dump where they can see the same stuff, that may or may not be covered with dirt frequently. Most dumps provide a civilian access dump, where one can see all of the similar items disposed of where the trash might be compacted to save space.
Trash trains are a regular occurrence in & out of the big cities (those trains stink). If I had a say, I’d tell the big cities to keep your frakin’ trash to yourselves, but those cities pay big bucks to the rural areas that accept it and the railroads that transport it.
The problem is population density. There are not that many people up there. The combined population of Nunavut’s five largest cities is less than twenty thousand, and the largest is just under 8,000. The tax base is just not big enough to support economies of scale. As even permafrost is rather thin on the ground in Nunavut, just covering the dump in dirt is an expensive proposition.
I’m going with the Inuit locals. Derocher (was he once in the pest control business??) et. al. , can go “stick it where the sun don’t shine”!
“stick it where the sun don’t shine”
They did, at least 6 months of the year.
Don’t the natives know that their existence is way down the priority list for the elites, environmentalist, MSM and a whole bunch of other delusional people. They are just people and there are too many people / sarc. Seems to me that some of the natives have tried to use global warming to gain something for themselves. Now it’s coming back to haunt them. I talked to a young guy a year or two ago about global warming. His biggest concern about it was the polar bears.
It isn’t just the Inuit community that is frustrated, we have said it many times, how does a bureaucratic projection based on a model that isn’t matching reality trump actual real world measurements?
Uhhh…lemmie take a guess: because bureaucrats never visit the Inuits?
BINGO!!!
Derocher is mixing up climate change and pollution. China is indeed polluting the Arctic and that will affect polar bears especially since they carry a fair amount of bodyfat. He knows nothing about climate change however and seems to want to blame every malnourished bear on that. The arctic is an unforgiving place and seals don’t offer themselves up for a polar bear meal. The bear has to spend a lot of energy getting his seal dinner. Thus the odd polar bear might look malnourished. The Inuit say that polar bears are vastly increasing in number and since polar bears actually will hunt humans for food, they are dangerous around humans. It is sad that a polar bear expert like Derocher has drank the global warming koolaid. I guess the global warming religion knows no geographical boundaries.
Save the Inuit and wear a polar bear skin jacket. You never know it might catch on with Oz crocs and sharks overrunning the joint too.
“there is growing scientific evidence linking the impacts of climate change to reduced body condition of bears and projections of population declines”
Where exactly is this so called evidence?
None of the people who actually study bears can find any. The only people who believe this nonsense are those who prefer computer models to actual data.
My take on this here: http://polarbearscience.com/2018/11/12/nunavut-government-has-a-draft-plan-to-deal-with-unsafe-numbers-of-polar-bears/
A quote from the post:
“I’ve noted previously that there were two fatal polar bear attacks in Hudson Bay this summer. Both of them happened outside local communities and both happened early during the ice-free period (when bears would have been onshore for only a few weeks).
Neither incident can be reasonably blamed on lack of sea ice, an extended ice-free period, or lack of management of problem polar bears within or near communities. The bears involved in the August attack were described as being in good condition.”
“there is growing scientific evidence linking the impacts of climate change to reduced body condition of bears and projections of population declines”
Yep, the same statement is used re global warming “growing scientific evidence” but nobody ever shows it.
Invite the city scientists to come live in a tent for a year. If you have not survived a year with the bears keep your mouth shut!
Just a year? I say 10 years.
From the earliest European colonization of Canada, settlers have overwhelmingly shown a striking inability to appreciate that the people who have lived there for hundreds or thousands of years, might actually know something about the land they live in (and live off). Hasn’t changed much, despite our politicians saying all the right things.
Nunavut is a self governing territory; the legislative assembly and the government are controlled by Inuit. This initiative to allow more hunting hasn’t just appeared overnight; it’s based on 4 years of study and community consultation. They can decide to pass it and there’s not a whole lot that the bureaucrats in Ottawa can do about it.
The Nunavut government is very pro-mining and this could ultimately lead to it being a self-financing territory. What a contrast with the adjacent Northwest Territories, where promising projects languish for decades trying to get community approvals for exploration or development permits. There’s a lesson to be learned there – I’m just not sure what it is.
“(Inuit knowledge) acknowledges that polar bears are exposed to the effects of climate change, but suggests that they are adaptable.” Adaptable? What heresy! The nerve of these people! To think that they understand their country!
Smart Rock: you’re right about our inability to acknowledge that native peoples might just know a thing or two about their environment. The early French Canadian settlers suffered the effects of scurvy until the local indigenous people taught them how to treat it. I’ll also go with the Inuit on the polar bear issue.
Hunting polar bears is severely constrained by the U.S. government. By banning the importation of sport hunted polar bears. The biggest market for polar bear hunts, by far, is the U.S.; the U.S. government has killed it. American colonialism. The best management tool for the Inuit has been taken away from them.
They will now just shoot them. No hunting, just killing. The bears at the dump are no different than rats.
Very, very big rats.
Though getting them into cages so that scientists can perform experiment on them might be problematic.
Let’s see now, who to believe…the Inuit who have lived there for eons, or completely discredited “climate scientists”. I’ll take door number one, and let the braying fools of climate lies sit this one out.
Should read “western climate science has become too stupid for words”.
The problem is too many amateurs involved. There needs to be a professional in charge, someone with a proper grip on the issues. Barbara Streisand, where are you?
Don’t forget, it’s Barbra (aka Babs).
I spent a summer working on a property just north of Yellowknife. This is not that far north, but it is “far” north from Vancouver, if you get what I mean.
The tent camp was built on a rocky point on a lake. And the Cook-tent backed onto the muskeg.
We peeled back the moss and put a wooden box as a food cooler–right on the ice–which was permanent, tough and hard.
It was difficult to get rid of the garbage. We wanted to because there were brown bears hanging around.
The cook had to shoot one. Where to put the carcass? Rolled into the bottom of the canoe, took it down the lake and rolled it out onto the rocks.
Otherwise a great summer.
I suggest those that want high numbers of polar bears have every one caught within 1 KM of a village delivered to their door via UPS .
Polar bears are apex predators. They are at the top of the food chain, have no natural enemies, and with their teeth and claws they can easily shred a human. Yeah, if polar bears started to range near my home, I’d want to thin out their numbers too.
Native people or animals? A liberal dilemma solved by a straddle and blaming white men for the whole mess.
plus many
Inuits are people, so naturally fall dead last when it comes to things to protect.
The people were not killed in town but in a “hunting area”.
Go to http://polarbearscience.com/ to get correct details when the Polar Bear subject comes up. Do NOT expect facts from news media.
The NWMB increased the total allowable harvest (TAH) again. The current TAH in the region is 38, which is up from 28 just a year ago.
https://nunavutnews.com/nunavut-news/letter-iqaluit-to-host-public-meeting-on-polar-co-management-draft/
That was in response to this article:
https://nunavutnews.com/nunavut-news/arviat-polar-bear-kills-spark-debate/
So… now OVERPOPULATION is the fault of climate change.
And go-figure – turns out living among polar bears isn’t that desirable.
Aren’t these bears climate refugees?
Cant we relocate them south?
No. Climate Refugees can only be relocated due to sea level rise (ice floats), extreme heat (they do not need more heat), extreme weather (it’s the arctic for crying out loud) and water scarcity (there is lots of water)…sorry.
But if your local dictator cannot provide potable water from a well, approved!
Hmmmm, who to trust? The locals who live there or the people who count bears from a helicopter at 1500 ft?
Hard choice.