Reposted from Polar Bear Science
Posted on April 7, 2019 |
A recent Netflix ‘Our Planet’ program with David Attenborough delivering a disturbing message of doom about walruses falling off a cliff to their deaths because of climate change is contrived nonsense on par with the bogus National Geographic starving polar bear video of 2017. The walruses shown in this Netflix film were almost certainly driven over the cliff by polar bears during a well-publicized incident in 2017, not because they were “confused by a combination of shrinking ice cover and their own poor eyesight“.
There are no precise details about the time and place of the incident shown in the ‘Our Planet’ film (see hereor here), except that these were Pacific walrus “in the Russian Arctic” according to The Times (5 April 2019): “David Attenborough’s Our Planet: Walruses plunging to deaths become new symbol of climate change“.
However, even with only that information, a short Google search for walrus falling off cliffs in Russia reveals an incident from 19 October 2017 that was reported by the Siberian Times: “Village besieged by polar bears as hundreds of terrorised walruses fall 38 metres to their deaths“.
In 2017, a group of about 20 polar bears, waiting for ice to form so that they could leave the village of Ryrkaypiy, stalked a herd of 5,000 or so walruses (see map below). The particular conformation of the region (see photo above) at Kozhevnikova Cape shows how frightened walrus could easily move from the beach (photo bottom left) to the top of the cliff (photo top right) along a gentle slop, and then be driven over the edge by fear or misstep. The bears were then able to feed off the many carcasses after the survivors took to the water.
See my blog post from last fall about the situation in Ryrkaypiy, location marked on the map above. Ryrkaypiy has a walrus haulout location nearby and the few dozen polar bears from the Chukchi Sea subpopulation that spend the summer on shore waiting for sea ice to reform during the fall present safety problems for the villagers.
Here’s a quote from one of the stories on the 2017 incident, at Gizmodo (25 October 2017), which blamed the incident on climate change: “Polar Bears Drive Hundreds of Walruses Off Cliff in Siberian Bloodbath”
Climate change is having all sorts of bizarre and terrifying consequences in Siberia. Outbreaks of zombie anthrax, massive methane blowouts, that sort of thing. But the latest freak incident—in which hundreds of walruses hauled out on a shoreline, before tumbling off a cliff in terror at the sight of approaching polar bears—reminds us how changes can ripple across the food chain, throwing delicate ecological relationships out of whack.
The incident in question occurred near Ryrkaypiy, a tiny village located on the northern coast of Chukotka bordering the Chukchi Sea. According to a report by the Siberian Times, 5,000 walruses recently hauled out on a shoreline near the village. The walruses were followed by about 20 polar bears, no doubt drawn by the stench of thousands of blubbery, flippered meals.
The arrival of the bears caused the walruses to panic, and many attempted to flee. Per the Siberian Times, “several hundred” fell to their deaths off the cliffs of the nearby Kozhevnikova Cape. The bears, naturally, went to town on the carcasses.
“The situation is alarming,” Viktor Nikiforov, Head of Polar Bear Patrol at World Wildlife Fund Russia, told the Siberian Times in the understatement of the century. “Many [walruses] crashed, falling from a height.”
Kristin Laidre, a polar bear expert at the University of Washington, told Earther that while she has not heard about walruses falling off cliffs very often, “certainly polar bears will be attracted to any prey on shore during the ice-free season, even if it’s close to a village with people.”
Mikhail Stishov, Arctic Biodiversity officer for World Wildlife Fund Russia, told Earther that in the last few years “it’s been a pretty typical situation with huge haul outs on the shore line (due to ice cover reducing). Ryrkaypiy is one of the regular haul out sites.”
A handful of other sites along the Russian and Alaskan Chukchi coast have also started playing host to massive groups of walruses, as the nearshore sea ice they use to access shallow water food sources disappears. For the Inupiat village of Point Lay on Alaska’s North Slope, hundreds to thousands of walruses have become a regular late summer spectacle.
As the above shows, WWF was there to witness the event and provide opinion. A Mikhail Stishov, Arctic Biodiversity officer for World Wildlife Fund Russia and Head of WWF project Polar Bear Patrol, Viktor Nikiforov were there. And who does Attenborough direct distraught viewers to at the end of this particularly disturbing ‘Our Planet’ episode? Why, WWF, who would be only too happy to accept your cash donatations.
According to The Times story on the ‘Our Planet episode:
“The series has a strong conservation message and the plight of the walruses is regarded by the producers as the most powerful story they found during the four years of filming.”
Bottom line: This “powerful story” is fiction and emotional manipulation at its worst. Even if the footage shown by Attenborough was not the 2017 incident in Ryrkaypiy (or a similar one from another year or similar location), we know that walruses reach the top of cliffs in some locations and might fall if startled by polar bears, people or aircraft overhead, not because they are confused by shrinking sea ice cover. Walrus will not replace polar bears as an icon for global warming because neither is being harmed by reduced summer sea ice.
Journalist should have asked where and when this footage was shot, but they did not. The media are therefore complicit in perpetuating myths about walrus, sea ice, and polar bears in order to advance an agenda while providing free advertising for Netflix.
Note, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has determined that the Pacific walrus is not being harmed by climate change and are not likely to be harmed within the foreseeable future. The IUCN Red List (2015) said the Pacific walrus was ‘data deficient‘. Here’s my post announcing the 2014 summary paper about the walrus haulout phenomenon (pdf here). My GWPF video is below and a list of previous walrus posts is here.
HT/Cam_S who’s news tip I forwarded to Dr. Crockford and sparked her post.
I believe this may equate to “Jumping the Shark” for the Alarmists. Has anyone considered theWalrus jumped off the cliff due to his depression over the pending effects of Global Warming?
Depressed Walrus: The new SJW concern.
And Gizmodo’s fascination with “methane blowouts” – or as non-stupid people know them, pingos.
I’ve emailed them info about pinos on more than one occasion but their hysteriaists prefer to consult novice geologists who breathlessly proclaim they’ve never seen anything like it before.
The Walruses dies because global warming didn’t kill enough bears.
Don’t screw up a good fundraising story with facts.
Exactly, the “science” behind this series is provided by WWF, it is a major marketing event for them.
On the other side of the coin, (literally), they are making money from Polar Bear Tours:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2018/12/31/wwfs-polar-bear-tours/
Start from just under $7000 dollars…
More of a ploy
This is little different to the garbage Attenborough was pushing about acid oceans eating the Great Barrier Reef (using some clown form JCU to drop a dead coral into a tank of sulfuric acid and watch it fizz) … this is the level of what Attenborough does, he’s been pulling these fake doom-stunts for years. The ocean is of course not acidic at all but he had no problem pretending and spreading a lie that it is.
I used to love Attenborough’s programs. I still watch, but now with gritted teeth.
Contrast this old fanatic with Dr. David Bellamy, an early contemporary of Attenborough.
Informed of the BBC plan to join the warmist alarmist campaign, blaming Carbon Dioxide for global warming, he replied with the scientific one word answer: “Poppycock”.
He never worked for the Marxist BBC again.
Growing up with Attenborough on TV, I looked up to man. Now I feel sick. The bloke is becoming a laughing stock and that is rather sad given his advanced years. Not good to be remembered by peddling bullshit!
But the truth is important and he should be TAKEN DOWN!
He has overwhelming guilt for killing more animals than AGW (in Madagascar alone) and he is trying to atone for that. When the BBC used to go “photograph nature”, they brought guns and nets and traps and shot nearly everything that moved.
Really? You must have compelling evidence for a strong accusation like that?
UNGN maybe overstating things a tad, but its a now established fact that back in the 50’s and 60’s, ever popular wildlife docu’s did resort to what would now be considered ‘Unethical’ practices in order the get the proverbial money shot.
Jacques Cousteau and his happy band from the Calypso were probably the first to be outed for said practices, many years ago.
It’s the same with all the others we USED to look up to before they got on Green Blob’s gravy train, such as Brian Cox, Degrasse-Tyson, Michio Kaku etc. Not sure if we should include Suzuki in that list of previously admired – maybe just “mired”.
Hear that fakers? Especially you Attenborough, I’m done. You no longer hold any value to me or my children (and theirs). Even your past documentaries are now tarnished by your fraud. May your tombstone be engraved with the truth for all to see until the Sun goes ballistic and vaporises what’s left of your fraudulent self-serving bones. If you and your ilk were threatened or paid off by the BBC et al, remember that Nuremberg is an easy carbon-spewing jet-set away which you all do every year and never complain.
Would you not be tempted to jump off a cliff if you saw that senile old clown approaching?
I stopped watching anything with Brian Cox when he got the richter scale wrong on live TV after Fukushima and never realised how ech step increased in intensity. The BBC likes him because he toes the corporate line and is eye candy for the ladies apparently.
” eye candy for the ladies apparently.”
A mystery for the ages…..
And it’s not just him … I enjoy watching Aerial America on the Smithsonian channel. And for the love of God the show cannot fly over a single G*ddamn*d State without the obligatory comment about the crops, or the hills, or the rivers being decimated by Global Warming. It’s like their propaganda is completely naked. They are all such “true believers” that they see EVERYTHING as RUINED by Global Warming. Don’t they even hear themselves speak anymore? Can’t they hear how hollow their words ring? The more EXTREME and DIRE their message … the more they mock themselves and their “message”.
The belief in global warming is like that in witchcraft. Once you believe in it you see it everywhere.
“The belief in global warming is like that in witchcraft. Once you believe in it you see it everywhere”
Great analogy!!! I can use that, thanks.
How many people are going to PAY (Netflix) to see depressing and suspect propaganda? Not many, I suspect, when they could be watching the usual medieval fantasies and pole-dancing bimbos.
I cannot make up my mind whether his transition from respected naturist to silly old fart is the result of senility or his desire to jump on the climate change gray train.
I would be surprised if age has not dented his critical faculties. I saw this in my own father – he was by no means senile but his good decision-making capabilities in earlier life had largely deserted him in his later 90s.
Of course Attenborough is fundamentally part of the BBC. He became a senior executive in the corporation in the 60s & 70s before returning to his naturalist role. I have no doubt he truly believes the AGW stuff, though any backsliding would compromise his position vis-a-vis the BBC and dent his now Moses-like persona.
“I cannot make up my mind whether his transition from respected naturist to silly old fart is the result of senility or his desire to jump on the climate change gray train” gravy?
When Global Warming was taking off he and respected botanist Dr David Bellamy were sceptics, both knew it was nonsense. However the BBC was fully on board and, while Bellamy stuck to the truth and was immediately dumped by the BBC, Attenborough wanted to do an extremely expensive series on the Arctic and more of his natural world series. Abruptly he became a true believer and pushed the propaganda. His Arctic series has 7 episodes the 7th being a global warming disaster rant which was not included in the other six. Funnily though this episode was not included when the series was sold around the world.
Then he appears to have joined the eugenics bandwagon starting with applauding the Chinese one-child policy that has caused such misery. He is always talking about overpopulation and methods of dealing with it. Also the public are ‘not wise’ in the Brexit vote because, of course, he is a remoaner.
It is important to remember that Attenborough is, first and foremost, a television producer. Yes he graduated, after a 2-year course, with a degree in natural (biological) sciences but his main occupation has been as a producer and later administrator.
My personal view is that he is well past his sell-by date.
In addition, I would guess that as the Producer and Presenter he largely parrots scripts written by others.
His most memorable quote as far as I can remember was, “It’s a terrible thing to appear on TV, because people think you actually know what you are talking about”.
How right you were, David, how right you were. And a pretty penny you’ve made out of their incorrect assumptions.
Here in Canada, a 2-year course would result in a diploma (not a degree).
Much as I accept the general drift of these comments (i.e. he’s hardly what you would call a scientist), the 2-year course thing isn’t fair. He did 2 years at Cambridge 1945-47 and was then called up for National Service (also 2 years). What I can’t find out is whether he returned to graduate, but he’s certainly described as having a BA (which is the degree everyone gets at Cambridge, whatever their subject).
OTOH his brother Richard was one hell of an actor, director, and film producer. Besides his better-known work, I offer one of his most obscure, Guns At Batasi, wherein he plays the quintessential British regimental sergeant-major to a tee. Also, his supporting role in The Sandpebbles starring Steve McQueen.
So Walrus MacWalrusface strikes again!
☺☺
There does not seem to be much gray here, but only black and white. The climate green weenies are insane, or evil, or both. Oh, I guess they could be just stupid, too. Or all of the above.
But truthful? Never.
What is wrong with these people?
Time after time after time, they get it wrong.
And each and every time, it’s up to someone with common sense and the ability to do a little basic research, to pop the bubble of misinformation.
In the meantime, the lie is believed by millions and spreads like wildfire, and the one who exposed the foolishness is pilloried as ‘not a climate scientist.’ Nevermind that Attenborough, with his poor record, is ‘not a climate scientist’ either.
It’s somewhat laughable … yet so damaging.
It’s damaging to scientific credibility, and the misinformation is damaging to civilized society via millions/billions of dollars wasted on this nonsense.
/End of today’s rant.
I bet a few of the bears that caused the walruses to stampede were white males wearing MAGA hats.
They do live in fly-over country.
It’s fly over, because walking is too dangerous.
And until one or more titles in the MSM call them out they are perfectly safe. If the media played an honest role there is not a single one of these alarmists and dishonest NGOs that would retain any credibility.
They must be liberal Walruses driven to their doom by AGW Hysteria.
I’m sorry, but climate change hysteria is just getting more stupid all the time.
Next they will claim the North American bat White-Nose syndrome is caused by global warming as well. (maybe they already have). Actually, it was caused by caving tourists or possibly scientists who were either from Europe or had visited caves in Europe tracking a fungus into American caves. And the great amphibian die-offs? Yup, some was tracking an Asian fungus to around to remote areas in other places (that and illegal trade in amphibians).
Nature happens. It doesn’t CARE about what we think or feel. It’s red-in-the-tooth. Soft cuddly polar bears are occasionally going to die (yeah, that was sarcasm, try hugging one sometime and watch it eat you). Walruses are going to panic and fall off cliffs. It isn’t all our fault. This is how nature works. Stop watching stupid documentaries and try camping out in a wilderness sometime – everything out there, especially the bugs, are going to be trying to eat you. The trick is to survive well enough to actually have fun.
Polar bears drove the poor walrus over cliffs so some would break bones and become easy prey for them to eat? What primitive animalistic conduct! Wait a minute, Native Americans in Montana regularly drove buffalo herds over cliffs, at sites called “buffalo jumps” and swarmed over the ones that were disabled by broken bones and (don’t read any further if you are a Vegan) cooked them and ATE them! The Native Americans gave up this practice when they gained horses (you know, by horse trading?) with the early Europeans and realized they could successfully hunt buffalo when they were hungry and didn’t have to kill so many of them at once. If Richard A is so concerned about the walrus vs polar bears maybe he should give the polar bears some horses? Film at 11:00.
David A.
Richard A., was his brother the actor.
Horses and firearms.
There are two buffalo jumps in Alberta (i.e. Head Smashed In & Dry Island)
That you know about, they are all over, most are unknown. One example in the White Earth River valley in North Dakota years ago(I was either a young child or not here at the time)they went to build a bridge what they found in the creek bed was thousands of buffalo skulls. If you look at the drop from the plains above to the valley floor and the steepness of the drop yes, it a perfect place for a buffalo jump, yet no one calls it one. Even the record of the skulls found are lost with the death of the local people that lived there. The person that told me about is long gone, died years ago.
Attenborough’s latest series has him stating that we only have 20 years to do something about climate change and states that warming seas and acidification are major concerns. As it will take 1000s of years for the sea to increase its temperature to the degree acidification may be a problem (Ithink in his dotage he thinks the sea will warm at the same rate as the atmosphere!!) 20 years is ridiculous. As above I used to have great respect for the man but with repeated climate disaster pieces to camera I have lost that respect altogether and his programmes are now off limits as he just makes me angry!
Would you not be tempted to jump off a cliff if you saw that senile old clown approaching?
Get with it Mark —- its 12 years not 20 please keep up!
It’s less than that now…
Anyone thinking Dr. Crockford doesn’t know what is really going on with wildlife in the arctic, hopefully will read this article and dispossess themselves of that notion. The WWF bilkers and the BBC thought a remote location offshore “somewhere” in the Russian Arctic was a place they could spin their BS safe from detection. Dr. Crockford is fortunately on the case.
Good on you Dr. Crockford. It seems that you are singlehandedly, in the world of Arctic biology, preserving reality and combatting the deep and almost complete corruption of this area of science.
The hateful attacks on you mounted by these these deceitful, selfserving connivers is proof of your effectiveness. You are a treasure for those seeking the truth in an area not easy to delve into for most. Thank you and be well.
Scientists who study polar bears in the field -which Crockford has never done – think she is wrong about polar bears. That’s not my opinion you understand, but that of her fellow scientists
I was talking to a bloke at the pub and he said you were wrong. Not my opinion mind you. Just reporting what I heard.
Visit the following link by an author who set out with a preconceived idea (that the polar bears were in danger, emaciated & hungry) only to find that the truth is a lot more complicated.
http://www.psmag.com/books-and-culture/endangered-polar-bear-global-warming-climate-change-arctic-sea-ice-50450
It starts with an alarmist article and then goes on through his exploration of the “truth” – this is a very even handed appreciation of the situation of the polar bear.
As with so much to do with AGW you can find literally thousands of papers and articles which assert that the polar bears are threatened by global warming and loss of sea ice – what you won’t find is any solid scientific proof.
The truth is a hard taskmaster.
griff
But it’s OK to produce computer generated predictions of warming without going near a weather station is it griff?
Griff, the scientist that has spent the most time in the field studying polar bears disagrees with you. Walrus have been falling off cliffs for at least 25 years https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyJrnHHVt5o
👍 👍
Good catch!
NEVER try to catch a falling Walrus !!!!
Unless she’s wearing one of these:
https://kigurumi-shop.com/walrus-kigurumi/
It’s refreshing to see the researchers examining different reasons why they see something unusual and the guy concluding that nature isn’t always easy to understand and doesn’t always leave us with warm and fuzzy feelings.
Nowadays, you would have some doom monger blaming human activity and demanding that we change our evil ways. Like Sir David AzzaBozza .
A little bit of optimistic reality to brighten up poor griff’s doom-laden existence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-nsU_DaIZE&t=316s
20 mins.
Matt Ridley on How Fossil Fuels are Greening the Planet
& Polar Bears are thriving enough to upset Matt’s holiday plans.
I commented, recommending two books.
JD.
A Polar Bear specialist who actually lives there says Susan Crockford speaks truth.
https://polarbearscience.com/2018/04/15/polar-bear-specialist-mitch-taylor-on-accountability-in-polar-bear-science/
Remember he is the one who was barred from the International Polar Bear Group because he disagreed with them,
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/polar-bear-expert-barred-from-meeting-over-climate-views-1.799662
Almost a similar situation to Coral Reef scientist Peter Ridd.
Official counts of Polar Bears has their numbers soaring.
Which offical count?
Simon
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10.
Now take your socks and shoes off.
The official official count
Every time one of griff’s memes gets shot down, he quickly invents a new one.
Name these alleged scientists griffie poo.
The poor walruses are confused because they thought polar bears should be extinct by now.
No, no. You got that wrong. Doesn’t it say they have poor eyesight? How can they have watched telly then?
Maybe watching telly gave them the poor eyesight.
Can I do it just until I need glasses?
Dave Fair
Define “it” please. But not too graphically thanks. 🙂
All of these animals survived the previous interglacial period, the Eemian, which was significantly warmer than the current interglacial period with more ice cap melting and higher sea levels. This event has nothing to do with climate change. The climate change that we are experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. Mother Nature will have her way.
I wrote this in 2012 in my book. I mentioned the diving walruses that had been famous since at least 2006 as reported in the Anchorage news
http://www.sitnews.us/0606news/062706/062706_shns_walruses.html.
I made a short comment for this to the DailyMAil pushing walrus nonsense but they deleted my comment. Clearly this paper want to push fake climate catastrophes.
I published in my book
”
The notion that walruses only haul-out on land when deprived of ice is a story that would have been laughed at just 30 years ago. Previously it was thought that ice denied walruses access to their hunting grounds. Walrus require shallow seas where they suction the seafloor for shellfish. As late as 1982 scientists stated, “the maximum absence of ice in the Chukchi Sea beneficially influences the population of the Pacific walrus permitting the animals to use vast feeding grounds in the summer and autumn seasons .” Walruses do not require sea ice to hunt. Like Gray whales, they are associated with Arctic sea ice because it covers their food supply, and the current patterns of walrus migration support that view.
..all the evidence argues that as walrus populations increase, so does the use of land haul-outs. It is a sign of the walrus’ successful recovery. When the Pacific walrus was teetering on the edge of extinction, “no walruses were observed along the Alaska Peninsula”, and only about a thousand animals were recorded at Walrus Island in Bristol Bay Alaska. By 1960 both Russia and Alaska had instituted protective measures and within 20 years, walrus populations rebounded to pre-exploitation levels. As the numbers grew, they began to reoccupy traditional land haul-outs. By 1980, the numbers of walrus hauling out on Walrus Island in the Pribilofs had grown from 3,000 to 12,000.
Unlike most females, thousands of male walruses never follow the receding ice pack but instead migrate southward to ice-free waters of the southern Bering Sea. Around Bristol Bay, Alaska, walruses readily forage up to 130 kilometers from their nearest haul-out site. The walrus’ main constraint is the water’s depth; they avoid regions where depths exceed 60 meters. Throughout the summer, adult males rest at their land haul-out sites for several days at a time between their offshore foraging trips which last four to ten days.”
The use of land haul-outs still varies annually and (although poorly studied) is likely due to fluctuations in food supply. Massive herds suctioning the sea floor will eventually deplete a local food supply. Furthermore, regime shifts such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation alter the winds and currents that deliver nutrients. Most likely the productivity of ocean floors also oscillate in approximate 20 year cycles. For example, at Cape Pierce in southern Bristol Bay, more than 12,000 walruses were hauling out on the beaches each summer in the 1980s. Then suddenly most walruses disappeared for over two decades. Recently they have been returning to Cape Pierce and as of 2008, their numbers increased to over 5000.
More curious is the fact that these walruses are not content to just clamber out onto the nearest vacant piece of solid real estate and hunker down in an exhausted heap. The walruses of Cape Pierce appear to enjoy jaunty bouts of adventurous hiking. They also developed a fondness for climbing to the top of grassy plateaus. Unfortunately when they decide to reenter the water and feed, they sometimes charge off on an ill-advised shortcut. Some biologists have suggested that because they are limited by poor eyesight, they are just following their sense of smell and a direct line back to the ocean. Others suggest they are easily spooked by human disturbance or aircraft and stampede in a blind panic. Whatever the reason, between 1994 and 1996 over 150 bulls launched themselves into an undulating swan-dive. Lacking Greg Louganis’ grace, they plunged from the cliffs to their deaths 150 feet below. Only a few lucky ones were cushioned by their late brethren’s blubber, got a favorable bounce, and continued to the sea. Biologists have now erected a fence, hoping to deter other neer-do-well thrill seekers from taking the same fateful path to the top of the plateau. “
Jim Steele
Thank you for your very interesting post.
Thanks for the pertinent information, Jim. Very helpful in understanding the situation.
Thanks for that Jim.
Note that I’ve added video taken at Cape Pierce, Alaska in 1994, with commentary from US Fish & Wildlife walrus experts, to my original blog post. Cape Pierce is in the southern Bering Sea and is a haulout used by adult males during the ice-free season (which means lack of ice is never an issue).
Great video proof Susan. I am so sad to see how Attenborough misuses his nature photography to create bogus narratives and climate alarm.
He did something similar suggesting polar bears only attack walruses now due to climate change, yet old BBC video and earlier science publications shows its been ongoing and same as it ever was. I documented Attenborough’s distortions at
http://landscapesandcycles.net/attenborough-s-polar-bears–believe-only-half-.html
really good no nonsense post. very interesting
Thanks to ctm and to Susan C.
My exposure to this mess began in 2008 when I read Steve McIntyre’s “Ohio State paper” and several others pointing out the problems with CAGW.
The plunge into anti-science cultism appears to be getting steeper.
Didn’t global warming cause lemmings to jump off cliffs, also?
No, that was global cooling.
No, it was Walt Disney.
Like Scott Adams says, it’s all persuasion–all in the framing.
Speaking of persuasion, is anyone persuaded? I don’t see even the most foaming-at-the-mouth climate “celebrities” like McKibben, Gore, Mann, DiCaprio etc. ceasing air travel, swearing off cars, refusing to heat and cool their (multiple) houses or eating home-grown vegan food and weaving their own organic cotton clothes. I don’t see their swarms of mostly very affluent useful idiots doing it, either–and that includes anyone at the UN.
What is this really but a lot of meaningless noise? It’s obviously persuaded no one to give up their Western industrial lifestyle and hasn’t put a dent in the fossil fuel industry, nor the progress of the developing world. All I see honestly at this point is a small cadre of troughers to whom “woke” lip service gets paid in the media while business as usual continues apace. Time to IGNORE this crap already! Which is happening–AGW stuff gets lousy ratings.
Perhaps, next week, we will witness Attenborough tragically plunging to his death off the cliffs of Ryrkaypiy in Russia, driven to suicide by his guilt and remorse over selling out all scientific and reporting accuracy to Warmism, Netflix and National Geographic……Or not.
A repeat of Disney’s lemming fake news?
Wikpedia:
Perhaps the most influential and, for the lemmings involved, tragic presentation of the myth was the 1958 Disney film White Wilderness which won an Academy Award for Documentary Feature and in which staged footage was shown of lemmings jumping to certain death after faked scenes of mass migration. A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation documentary, Cruel Camera, found the lemmings used for White Wilderness were flown from Hudson Bay to Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where far from “casting themselves bodily out into space” (as the film’s narrator states), they were, in fact, dumped off the cliff by the camera crew from a truck. Because of the limited number of lemmings at their disposal, which in any case were the wrong sub-species, the migration scenes were simulated using tight camera angles and a large, snow-covered turntable.
There are many animals (dolphins, whales, bluefin trevally) that round up other species in order to feed (and thus, survive). As polar bears are considered to be quite intelligent, why wouldn’t they use similar tactics and force their food source to self-sacrifice?
It must beat chasing them
Dreadful comment by Attenborough.
He should know better,
Tusk,tusk.
You’re a Kiwi?
Canadian
On this series Attenborough just reads the script given to him by WWF and the producers.
Walrus depend on floating sea ice over shallower water during summer…
and that habitat is fast vanishing in the last decade… look at the pattern of ice retreat from the Alaskan coast – rapid in spring, moving into areas where walrus can’t feed.
the haul outs and stampedes have increased and it is sea ice decrease through climate change which has caused them.
BTW – arctic sea ice extent and area now at record low for the date during satellite record for last 9 days…
I heard that you don’t study walruses and so don’t have a clue what you are talking about. I heard this from a scientist that does. So, asking for a friend, have you stopped beating your wife yet?
/griff logic off
BTW Griff, this question requires a YES or NO answer
Mods are you fine with this comment?
Mods, are you fine with Simon trying to change the subject?
If they’re not, you can always run and tell your mommy.
Must be. They didn’t censor it did they ?
griff,
It is generally accepted, the difference between. “weather” and “climate” is 30 years of observation.
Now I don’t know what significance there is in a 9 day observation? Other than curiosity as to why a local set of data is trending away from the norm, most people would regard it as odd rather than trend setting.
griff
“Walrus depend on floating sea ice over shallower water during summer…”
What for, to keep cold? That’ll be why they head to the beach to breed and give birth is it? That’s why they lie about on beaches sunbathing, is it? They’re just desperate for that nice cold ice to come along for their G&T’s are they?
Griff – mass haulouts of walruses are not new, and neither are mass mortalities because of this. And this was back in the 60s to 80s, when there were no concerns about ice cover…
https://polarbearscience.com/2014/10/04/high-walrus-numbers-may-explain-why-females-and-calves-are-hauling-out-in-droves
https://polarbearscience.com/2014/10/01/mass-haulouts-of-pacific-walrus-and-stampede-deaths-are-not-new-not-due-to-low-ice-cover
It is likely that recent mass haulouts are due to the lage increase in walrus populations, not due shrinking ice.
https://polarbearscience.com/2014/10/04/high-walrus-numbers-may-explain-why-females-and-calves-are-hauling-out-in-droves
R
Griff
I suggest you rrad Jim Steele’s comment above, this one
Jim Steele April 7, 2019 at 8:31 pm
Eh, walrusses are bottom feeders, down to 50 meter depth. No ice down there at all. I heard that in the pub, apparently ice floats.
Griff
How many hauled-out walrus have you seen in summer? I’ve seen a few, maybe 5,000 or so. One was lying on sea ice, the other on beaches. And yes, there was plenty of ice around.
By the way where do you think the walrus that used to live on e. g. Sable Island or in Norway hauled out? No summer ice there. No winter ice either for that matter.
And, no, they were hunted to extinction, climate had nothing to do with it.
“BTW – arctic sea ice extent and area now at record low for the date during satellite record for last 9 days…”
BTW arctic sea-ice volume is way up:
http://www.cpom.ucl.ac.uk/csopr/seaice.html
Compare with previous years. And we haven’t reached spring maximum volume yet…
Please give some documentation to support your claim.
And for once, can the documentation be actually relevant?
After reading Jim Steele’s information filled post on the topic, Griff’s attempt feels wholly information devoid. Griff forgot the fact that there is plenty of summer ice. It isn’t until late August and September that ice is less plentiful than in the 1970s.
Griff,
I see that several times in this thread, you make a series of UNSUPPORTED assertions, that gets torn apart be others, some with links too. You have been wrong every time so far today.
When will you ever learn to do research without your petty biases getting in the way, and make COGENT arguments that makes your assertions have lasting useful value?
Notice that as usual you ignore the part about Dr. Crockford having a degree in ZOOLOGY, with over 30 years experience in the field, this clearly makes her qualified to make her presentations about Polar Bears and Walrus animals.
Oh come on now. Griff is the best trained scientist, a The Guardian trained scientist, from his armchair.
A new low even for the alarmist David Attenborough. It does demonstrate how much removed these people are removed from real science.
So the bears use the same hunting techniques that humans have used for a hundred thousand years.
Attenborough’s brain has rotted out.
Very sad, as he did much good work bringing the wonders of nature to us all.
Well folks, I think it’s the end for us AGW sceptics.
I was presented a piece of evidence on another site by a contributor, he/she insists is the defining truth of climate change.
It’s a game changer and demonstrates to us all, once and for all, that we are killing the planet.
http://tinyurl.com/y6xpog55
And yes, I am absolutely serious, this was presented to me as ‘evidence.’
I posted this review on Amazon about Attenborough’s “Planet Earth II” (14 people found it helpful, so not everybody is lost yet):
“There is some ineresting new footage in this series — and a lot of things that we have seen again and again, probably filmed with the new equipment but looking pretty much the same. Music is also an annoying, pale re-work of previous watery effects. At the end of every episode there is a bit of de rigueur environmentalist propaganda. But this would be all right, more or less, and I would give this BBC “hit” 4 stars — if only they would not sell out to the hysterical global warmist propaganda in the whole last episode, which is really painful to watch. One feels as if forced to attend a session of brainwashing speeches in some totalitarian state. Exaggerated, self-contradictory assertions, outright lies in some cases, premature conclusions based on short-lived, unconfirmed observations, emotional rather than scientific approach, all the trademarks of the scaremongering and hype that all but crushed any reasonable attempts to approach some existing issues but succeded in creating a multi-billion-dollars, Goebbels-like, fanatical, man-hating and self-loathing industry of those who want to rob others with the governments’ help, live well, and feel good about it, too. A pity Attenborough sold out to this shameless crowd at his advanced age. I suspect they threatened him with something — ostracism in his beloved BBC, most probably — they wouldn’t rise above that. No, I am not going to pay BBC for what they did. They are far beyond being simply ignoble.”
Correction: “Blue Planet II” it was named. After this series, I stopped watching Attenborough-commented episodes.
The last decent series narrated by him was Planet Earth (first one from 2006) but even that had some BS climate crap thrown in IIRC. At least the grandeur of the planet and its animal inhabitants was the main focus. I refuse to watch any of the newer series with him. The man is off his rocker.
Sad … the 93 old man is destroying his scientific credibility
… or perhaps has being manipulated by the financial beneficiaries, who ever they may be, with the aim of cashing in while he still can see and read ‘autocue/teleprompter. ‘
But he has no scientific credibility to destroy. He is merely an old fool.
@Kone Wone – Criticising David Attenborough for what he does or doesn’t do is legitimate.
Merely slanging a man of his stature is uncalled for.
Perhaps, as surely must be the case for you to comment as you did, you have never heard of his decade long contributions to bringing the world of nature to millions of people everywhere.
Either way, whether through rudeness or ignorance, Until you attain his stature and one time credibility (however unlikely that may seem) maintaining a degree of decency is in order.
Russell
If he acts like an old fool, he’s an old fool.
His only contribution to science is having a nice sounding voice.
They need another iconic climate-endangered animal after the demise of the polar bear story. Walruses appear to fit the bill.
@Javier,
try a 16 year old autistic Swedish girl.
JD.
“Scientists who study polar bears in the field -which Crockford ”
That’s Dr. Crockford, Griff. Show a little respect.
Science says that there are no surviving polar bears, walruses were scared to death by the ghosts of polar bears who rose from eternity to warn humans of imminent climate doom.
I have cancelled my Netflix account today.
How sad that a once genuine and dedicated wildlife researcher should have developed into a silly mouthpiece for all the ridiculous statements put out by the global warming fanatics. One would excuse him if it is the result of some sort of senility, but you cannot say that about his arch supporter The Prince Charles, who seems to use every speech he makes around the world to tell us all that the end of the world is nigh, and that we must return to living like they did in the middle ages if we are to ‘save the planet’
@Kone Wone – Criticising David Attenborough for what he does or doesn’t do is legitimate.
Merely slanging a man of his stature is uncalled for. Perhaps, as surely must be the case for you to comment as you did, you have never heard of his decade long contributions to bringing the world of nature to millions of people everywhere.
Either way, whether through rudeness or ignorance, Until you attain his stature and one time credibility (however unlikely that may seem) maintaining a degree of decency is in order.
Russell
I guess it’s ok with you if we slang men of lesser stature.
But Attenborough is famous, so he’s off limits.
Any more butts you want to kiss while you’re at it?
He can start with mine.
Until you attain his stature and one time credibility
What “stature and one time credibility” is that? A narrator on a TV show? Just about anyone could do that (I guess voice-training would help)….
And yeah, I’ve seen the shows. Dump the obvious pandering to eco-loons, and they would be much more credible.
Attenborough followed the BBC “party line” and eventually was the head of BBC2 (Which funded his career). Bellamy didn’t and was sacked.
How’s this: Attenburough’s an elitist scumbag.
It is a great shame that old Attenborough has been co-opted into supporting the man-made global warming hoax.
As they say, there’s no fool like an old fool.
Of course it was climate, summer was turning in to fall……..Blame it on the tilt of the earth..
I knew evolution was wrong all along and now climate science proves that is 100% true. NOTHING ADAPTS ever and everything humans do destroys the planet. Thanks for proving Darwin was a quack there Attenborough. /s
Attenborough’s the one that’s been calling humanity a pestilence.
Global warming is killing all the polar bears……what’s that? Uh huh.
This just in, global warming is causing the polar bear population to grow disastrously.
I thought sea levels were rising and making cliff dives a thing of the past.
With this bizarre behaviour, walruses have be come huge lemmings.
There are other examples of big lemmings.
In the financial markets as a rising stock market peaks with great convictions, here is the typical line.
It explains a lot.
“Come on in. It feels good. All the lemmings are doing it.”
And then over the financial cliff.
Very few participants avoid going over the cliff.
Oh dear, The Sun!
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aafc1b/pdf
From 1971… How convenient from those 20 scientists…
Minor warming is good for the Arctic (Maybe we should pray for warming in the Antarctic!); belief in the accuracy of the UN IPCC climate models is bad for your brain.
When weird shit happens in the natural world…. film it and blame Climate Change
Rinse and repeat…
It doesn’t even have to be weird. For example:
I stumped my toe — climate change.
I’m hungry — climate change.
I let the dog out — climate change.
The sky is blue — climate change.
1 +1 = 2 — climate change.
This what the film-makers say……
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6900011/Netflix-Walruses-fell-deaths-chased-polar-bears-NOT-climate-change.html
Sophie Lanfear, director of the Frozen Worlds series that features the Our Planet episode, defended the footage, saying two crew members watched the animals fall and claimed they were not being chased by polar bears.”
She said: ‘We filmed Pacific walrus falling from high cliffs. They were not being driven off the cliffs by the polar bears and we know this because we had two team members watching the cliffs from afar who could see the polar bears and were in radio communications with us to warn us about any bears approaching the crew closer to the walrus and the cliffs.
‘Once the walrus had rested at the top for a few days they wanted to return to sea when all the others below started to leave.
‘We would watch them for hours teetering back and forth on the edge before finally, falling off.
‘Fundamentally, the reason walrus used this haul out location is because of a lack of sea ice in the region, meaning they are coming ashore more frequently than they did in the past.
No Sophie, fundamentally the walrus fell off the cliff due to a combination of poor eyesight and not being very smart.
Notice that she very carefully did not say exactly where or when the event they filmed took place.
She said they “could see the polar bears” – suggesting there were indeed bears there. Bears don’t necessarily have to actively chase walrus to frighten them enough to make a mis-step off a cliff.
The incident at Ryrkapiy in 2017 involved “hundreds” of falling walrus: the incident she filmed in the Russian Arctic involved “hundreds” of falling walrus. What are the odds that two separate incidents involving hundreds of walrus happened along that coast in 2017?
Where and when was the ‘Our Planet’ sequence filmed – that should settle it conclusively. But no one is saying.
Susan
In the past fewer walruses came ashore because they were hunted to near extinction. More walruses haul out on land as populations grew. Besides those walruses migrated south where sea ice has been rare during this time of year for thousands of years.
Sophie Lanfear is a fear mongering master of deceptive narratives. Disgusting!
One one hand we are told that polar bears are starving to death because of a lack of sea ice.
Now we are told that walruses are vulnerable to polar bears because of a lack of sea ice.
So which is it? Is a lack of sea ice good for polar bears, or bad for them?
Well some say it’s about climate change while some disagree so it must be about climate change-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/techandscience/why-are-walruses-walking-off-cliffs/ar-BBVK3sF
This sciency stuff is easy peasy when you put your mind to it.
Attenborough – not to put too fine a point on it – is a halfwit.
Mr Attenborough is regrettably evidence that growing wisdom does not always attend growing age.