I’ve finally had a chance to go through all of the details provided with the 2013 PBSG status table (pdf here). It’s just about all good news, once you wade through the spin. Numbers aside, out of the 13 populations for which some kind of data exist, five populations are now classified by the PBSG as ‘stable’ (two more than 2009), one is still increasing, and three have been upgraded from ‘declining’ to ‘data deficient’ (I explain below why this is a promotion).
That leaves four that are still considered ‘declining’- two of those judgments are based primarily on concerns of overhunting, and one is based on a statistically insignificant decline that may not be valid and is being re-assessed (and really should have been upgraded to ‘data deficient’). That leaves only one population – Western Hudson Bay – where PBSG biologists tenaciously blame global warming for all changes to polar bear biology, and even then, the data supporting that conclusion is still not available.
Just the most recent collaborative effort in the junk science industry to ‘blame Canada” in order to extort guilt shake downs from our mushy left.
A couple of things stand out in these ongoing condemnations of our northern resource management – first I note how the largest areas and populations “still in decline” are in Russian territory – and I never hear Russia condemned by the polar bear crusaders – why is that?
Second, I note how those responsible for these “reports” do not live in the areas they are obsessing over and have limited knowledge of the environment yet are overly assured of their conclusions – why is that?
But, but, but…….the polar bears are in TROUBLE!! There are only 2-4 times as many of them as there were 50 years ago!
As a once and former (and still, on my own terms) wildlife biologist, it pains me to no end to see the state of incompetence and junk science to which modern biology has descended. To be fair, peers of my generation are partly responsible, and most particularly their spawn, but it was once a reverent, highly disciplined collaboration of sciences. Even Ecology, as badly tainted as it became with creeping environmentalism, was an excited highly rigourous science in its day. CWS biologists were always an odd bunch, at least that was the view from my MNR perch and that of my colleagues. I knew Ontario’s top wildlife managers personally, and I’m sure most of them still alive are aghast at how their discipline has become so ignorantly politicised. The good times for science, I fear, may have long passed, and its not clear it will be back.
It must be because of Coke’s marketing ….
Hudson’s Bay – but there is no summer sea ice in Hudson’s Bay – ever. And there is a big Polar Bear population. WTF does it take to be a wildlife biologist nowadays? Little education with a deep political commitment to species victimization?
The trouble is these biologists do much of their surveying in the summer when they can’t tell the difference between grizzly/browns and polies! ;>)
http://www.youtube.com/embed/eryxAcsTcOA?rel=0
I blame the Koch brothers. They are funding a massive polar bear extermination campaign using predator drones and hellfire missiles. When the bears are gone, their erstwhile habitat will be wide open for strip mining and fracking, with pipelines everywhere. Their goal? Ownership of all Canadian resources- facilitated by the evil Harper.
Actually what I found somewhat amusing was the thought process about how the Eemian Interglacial, although 5-6 C warmer than today…..still had summer sea ice.
The proxy for that seems to be based upon the Polar Bears survival….based on the asumption that Polar Bears go extinct without summer ice.
For such thinkers, Denver or the GTA is the centre of the universe.
It is probably not applicable, but I remember an upset about moose just a couple of years back/ Seems almost 1000 had completely disappeared! Hunting? Climate? The next year, it was found another group had increased by over 1000 animals – the “lost” group had moved their migration route and merged with the much larger herd.
Polar bears have been around for about 250,000 years; longer than humans.
During that time it’s been a lot warmer and a lot colder than now. Polar Bears will do just fine; humans, probably not as well in the long run. Humans haven’t learned how to control their populations in balance with the earth’s ability to feed them. Not only that, the least productive are kept alive to breed like rodents in the world’s mega slums.
Polar bears are way smarter than humans.
That wuz caribou up Hay River way….
The “xperts” ignored the locals(Inuit) who said the cariboo had just moved north…..