by Polar Bear Science, March 12, 2018
Polar bear specialists Andrew Derocher and Steven Amstrup recently spent inordinate energy trying to refute the opinion piece I’d written for the Financial Post in celebration of International Polar Bear Day last month, ignoring my fully referenced State of the Polar Bear Report for 2017 that was released the same day (Crockford 2018) and the scientific manuscript I’d posted last year at PeerJ Preprints (Crockford 2017). (…)
by K. Richard, March 12, 2018 in NoTricksZone
(…) “A recent aerial survey of the Southern Hudson Bay subpopulation concluded that the abundance of polar bears has remained steady since 1986 (943 bears; SE: 174) (Obbard et al., 2015). The survey included the entire coastal range and offshore island habitat of the Southern Hudson Bay subpopulation, except for the eastern James Bay coast. Taken together, the results of the aerial survey and the participant responses from Wemindji and Chisasibi indicate that the local population has remained stable. However, the unanimous responses from participants in Whapmagoostui/Kuujjuarapik suggest that there has been a localized increase in the number of bears near Whapmagoostui/Kuujjuarapik.”
by P. Homewood, March 1, 2018 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat
One powerful polar bear fact is slowly rising above the message of looming catastrophe repeated endlessly by the media: More than 15,000 polar bears have not disappeared since 2005. Although the extent of the summer sea ice after 2006 dropped abruptly to levels not expected until 2050, the predicted 67-per-cent decline in polar bear numbers simply didn’t happen. Rather, global polar bear numbers have been stable or slightly improved. The polar bear’s resilience should have meant the end of its use as a cherished icon of global warming doom, but it didn’t. The alarmism is not going away without a struggle (…)
by Susan Crockford, February 26, 2018 in GWPF
GWPF Report 29
Some recent studies show declines in average weights of polar bears compared to the 1980s, but none recorded an increase in the number of individuals starving to death or too thin to reproduce.14 Although some photos of starving bears have garnered media attention, most bears have been found to be in good-to-excellent condition. In fact, photos of fat bears seem to outnumber those of thin bears in recent years.
(…)
by Dr S. Crockford, February 12, 2018 in ClimateChangeDispatch
It acknowledges that polar bear numbers have not declined in recent years even though summer sea ice dropped dramatically but goes on to perpetuate a number of myths that might not have happened if the author had done his homework or quizzed his other experts as thoroughly as he did me.
by Polar Bear Science, December 29, 2017
Tales of doom and gloom about polar bears reflect what some people think might happen in the future, not what is happening right now. Currently, polar bears are doing just fine despite the low summer sea ice coverage they’ve experienced since 2007 (Crockford 2017a; York et al. 2016). In other words, there has been no global population decline as predicted: officially, the numbers were 22,000-31,000 (or 26,500 average) in 2015 (Wiig et al. 2015) but about 28,500 when estimates published since then are included (Aars et al. 2017; Dyck et al. 2017; Matishov et al. 2014; SWG 2016), up from about 22,500 in 2005).
by RomanM, December 28, 2017 in McIntyre ClimAudit
The “lipstick” on the paper’s Figure 2 is perhaps one of the best examples of creating a misleading aura of “real science” that I have encountered in some time (…)
by Susan Crockford, Polar Bear Science, 23 August 2017
What is causing the death of the polar bear as a climate change icon? Fat bears are part of it, but mostly it’s the fact that polar bear numbers haven’t declined as predicted.