There has been a dramatic reduction in the extent of summer sea ice in the Arctic since 1870, Chart 1.
Drawn by Nichole Hoskin using data from Arctic Climate Research at the University of Illinois
Australian television’s Four Corners showed a program on August 4, 2008, entitled ‘Tipping Point’ claiming that the disappearance of summer sea ice in the Arctic could have drastic consequence for polar bears.
Interestingly there is no summer sea ice in western Hudson Bay in the Canadian Arctic and there are polar bears.
According to polar bear experts, Douglas Clark and Ian Stirling (1998), “The polar bear population that inhabits western Hudson Bay spends the period from late July through early November on shore because the annual ice melts completely.”
Scientists previously thought that these polar bears sustained themselves on stored fat during this ice-free period, however, Derocher et al (1993), found that juvenile males and female polar bears would eat vegetation, such as alpine blueberries, crowberries, grasses and sedge, when marine mammals were unavailable because of the absence of summer sea-ice. This conclusion was based on examination of droppings and observations of signs of feeding on berries, such as berry stained teeth and fur, on polar bears captured in inland areas of western Hudson Bay between 1986 and 1992.
While there is evidence that females and offspring eat berries during the ice-free period, it is unclear whether eating berries significantly contributes to the total energy budget of polar bears. However, Derocher et al argue that eating vegetation “could significantly influence the condition of bears and in turn influence survival, particularly of cubs” and that “the patterns found in western Hudson Bay illustrate the physiological and behavioural plasticity of polar bears.”
—————-
Douglas C. Clark and Ian Stirling, ‘Habitat Preferences of Polar Bears in the Hudson Bay Lowlands during Late Summer and Fall’, (1998) Ursus 10, pp 243-250 at 243 and 248.
Andrew E. Derocher, Dennis Andriashek and Ian Stirling, ‘Terrestrial Foraging by Polar Bears during the Ice-Free Period in Western Hudson Bay’, Arctic (1993) 46(3), pp 251-254 at 251 and 253.
ABC 4 Corner’s ‘The Tipping Point, broadcast August 4, 2008. Reporter: Marian Wilkinson
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2008/s2323805.htm
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I have a silly comment to add: a description of a great comic from Gary Larson, “The Far Side”. In it, two bears are consulting behind a big tree; beyond them is a wimpy-looking human sitting on a picnic blanket. One bear is holding up his paw and saying to the other: “C’mon, look at these teeth. Look at these claws. You think we’re supposed to eat nuts and berries?”
This is one of the issues I have with this blog – one day the sea ice is not disappearing at all, and the next it is, but not to worry, the polar bears don’t mind.
I know you are generally just pointing to research of interest to your position on the science, but you do understand I hope that the overall picture this gives of the blog is one of grasping at whatever straws support that position – even if they are inconsistent. Would not a better approach be to take a position then argue that position supported by evidence?
I saw a doco recently that showed brown bears eating berries and it said a bear would eat up to 200,000 per day after coming out of hibernation, if they could find them. Polar bears are closely related so it’s no surprise they could be capable of the same thing.
Agreed Grendel, it’s hard to keep up with what position is being pushed here.
From:
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003271.html#comments
“-Polar bear are large animals and they got that was by eating seals, not berries. Their survival in anything like the numbers present today is dependent on large and accessible seal populations and vast areas of ice from which to hunt.”
There is a more information here, as well as in the current literature.
What is your definition of ‘survival’ Nicole? What do the bears do for the rest of the year? What is the recruitment rate of these bears?
What say they live off their fat stores AND supplement their diet with vegatation?
What is the point of posting this, which says very, very little but scrabbles around trying to make a big point about PB survival? OMG…they don’t need ICE!!!
What IS happening with that Arctic sea ice I wonder? No straight answers from is blog that’s for sure. Pfftt!
You should have known better than to mention Stirling and Derocher. They are chalatans who were involved in a dreadful photo scam that somehow discredited any work they previously did or have done since on PBs! LOL!!
Can’t wait for PB experts (and experts on everything) Mott and Schiller to enlighten us with their well-read, factual accounts of PB diet and survival. They are no doubt taking off their gortex jackets as I write, and getting ready to update us on their latest field studies.
I don’t believe that polar bears can make it indefinitely without sea ice. But 4 or 5 month seems very doable. And they are able to supplement themselves during the iceless periods. There is a blogger in Churchill that tracks the Hudson Bay bears. Early last November, before the ice kicked in, and while waiting for the ice to arrive, he said that the local bears killed 11 seals. Seals and walrus will haul out on dry land when there is no ice, and apparently the bears are sometimes able to take advantage of that.
It would take some extreme warming before the northern Ellesmere bears had iceless periods of greater than 4 months.
Some info from the Norwegian Polar Institute :
” In Svalbard, some bears have small home ranges of a few hundred square kilometres where they hunt on the sea ice in the spring; during summer these bears wait on land for the sea ice to freeze again. Other bears follow the retreat of the sea ice and move north-east or east in the summer, hunting at the ice edge or in Franz Josef Land in Russia”
“Polar bears are powerful swimmers. Their most important prey by far is ice-living seals, so they spend a lot of their time on the sea ice. Adult bears can spend days at a time in the water and travel very long distances at sea. In Svalbard, their main prey species are ringed seals, bearded seals and harp seals. However, polar bears are opportunistic feeders and eat almost everything edible that they encounter, including carrion. Some bears take a lot of bird eggs in the summer. Polar bears also hunt sea birds even in steep cliff areas. Predation on reindeer has been recorded occasionally. Stranded corpses of dead whales can attract large numbers of scavenging bears”
http://npweb.npolar.no/english/arter/isbjorn
Travis:
“You should have known better than to mention Stirling and Derocher. They are chalatans (SIC) who were involved in a dreadful photo scam that somehow discredited any work they previously did or have done since on PBs!”
In a strange way I agree with this.
Mind you, in the very same way I would also like to see the names of those two Aussie Greenpeace scum who first cut down, and then tore out the stump, of that lovely (and very famous) tree down on the shore in the Maldives which put the lie to rising sea levels being equally publicized.
Tilo: “Seals and walrus will haul out on dry land when there is no ice, and apparently the bears are sometimes able to take advantage of that.”
That’s really amazing since seals and walrus must have such an enormous mobility advantage on land.
Just get a load of Grendel, Libby and whats his face. They are so used to reading just one official party line on their various greenpimp, WWF and climate-bimbo web sites that they simply cannot comprehend the fact that this blog might simply post articles of interest that might even represent different perspectives.
You guys just don’t get it do you? This is the way a forum is supposed to work, ideas are put forward, people discuss them, some learn something new, some confirm what they already knew, while others (whats his face) learn nothing.
And really Grendel, do you think it might be possible that the reason the ice sheets might be getting smaller at one time and larger at another might have something to do with the seasons? You know, like summer and winter?
Meanwhile, back at the thread. Do you guys have any evidence that the white coated Brown/Polar Bears of Western Hudson Bay are dependent on sea ice?
Do you have any evidence that PBs are incapable of adjusting to less sea ice?
“That’s really amazing since seals and walrus must have such an enormous mobility advantage on land.”
I’m not sure what your point is? Are you saying that they don’t haul out on land?
Try the second half of this film.
or this one:
“Do you have any evidence that PBs are incapable of adjusting to less sea ice?”
There is one study that says the Hudson Bay bears have gotten lighter in weight. I’m sure that they are able to adjust to less sea ice. But I think there is a breaking point. I could imagine the Hudson population suffering a significant decline if their ice season got much shorter. But I cannot imagine far northern populations ever becoming exctinct due to climate change.
Looks like those Svalbard bears are having an extended ice season this year.
Do polar bears also eat berries, crabs, plants, small rodents, seaweed, starfish, sea cucumbers, etc in summer?
Do polar bears shit on the tundra?
Is the Pope a Catholic?
Ian, I don’t think I put a particular view in my comment – it was in fact more of an observation about the way this blog operates and the appearence (if not the reality) of inconsistancy in the posts.
But since you raise it: “And really Grendel, do you think it might be possible that the reason the ice sheets might be getting smaller at one time and larger at another might have something to do with the seasons? You know, like summer and winter?”
The graph shows a trend over time of diminishing sea ice and takes into account seasonal variation. How you missed it I can’t say, but to make such an appallingly thought-out argument in refutation of a point I didn’t actually make merely highlights the point I was making – the posts (and comments) on this blog can’t seem to settle on a position and defend that position.
Hardly a scientific approach to debate.
Steve Short: “Mind you, in the very same way I would also like to see the names of those two Aussie Greenpeace scum who first cut down, and then tore out the stump, of that lovely (and very famous) tree down on the shore in the Maldives which put the lie to rising sea levels being equally publicized.”
Steve, I had never heard this story before (and it sounded outlandish), so I went in search of details. I cannot find any statement by Mörner to the effect that members of Greenpeace were responsible (let alone exactly two of them), nor can I find any evidence that the tree was “very famous”.
This comment is the most informative thing I found:
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=118#comment-14686
Jen, that sea ice plot is scary. Surely that’s worth a blog – rather than the item at http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003332.html .
BTW, how’s the list of peer reviewed climate science papers coming along?
Every home should have one of these http://www.likecool.com/Global_Warming_Rug–Design–Home.html
Although these may not stop polar bears from being shot – at least we will have memories!
Seriously, there should be more control and higher penalties on the hunting and shooting of PBs. I understand there is far more risk of PB’s being shot by the lucrative hunting industry or by over protective guards as per the recent cases a couple of poor PBs who strayed into Iceland recently!
Does anyone have stats on the number of PB’s killed by hunting?
Mitchell Porter
“Steve, I had never heard this story before (and it sounded outlandish), so I went in search of details. I cannot find any statement by Mörner to the effect that members of Greenpeace were responsible (let alone exactly two of them), nor can I find any evidence that the tree was “very famous”.
Mitchell, this has very little to do with Mörner – his has become an apocryphal tale. The tree was indeed famous because thousands of tourists taken on boat tours to the prison island invariably had the tree pointed out to them (both coming and going). I first heard about this because I know people who went there as tourists on scuba diving holidays, honeymoons etc. It is a frequent flight from Perth. Some who have been there subsequently were actually told by the locals that the Australian uni group which was there at the time the tree was removed included several students, two of whom were seen to be at least damaging the tree, prior to its complete removal, parts of which were later found floating near by. I (and other persons known to me) can actually name at least one Australian university which contributed members of that group and several persons in that group. I won’t do this because of Australian libel laws and the lack of photographic evidence (of their actions). FYI, the actual persons responsible and their campus affiliation is not a tightly-kept secret. It may have been an immature act (the self-serving view of the academics who should have taken responsibility), but it was a scandalous (and un-Australian) act nonetheless.
I quote from an article here:
http://www.libertyunbound.com/archive/2008_09/contoski-warming.html
Six thousand years ago the earth’s climate was much warmer than now, and the polar bears survived. Ten thousand years ago the earth’s climate was a whopping six degrees C (11 degrees F) warmer than now, and the bears survived. Polar bears have been a distinct species for 125,000 years (they descended from grizzly bears) and they’ve survived far warmer climates than anything they face today or in the foreseeable future. A Canadian polar bear expert, Mitch Taylor, says, “They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected.”
I don’t know, Steve, the whole story sounds bizarre. It’s not as if the case for rising sea levels could be falsified by one tree in the Indian Ocean.
“Meanwhile, back at the thread. Do you guys have any evidence that the white coated Brown/Polar Bears of Western Hudson Bay are dependent on sea ice?”
If you had bothered to read the link I provided, you may not have felt it necessary to ask the question. In fact the quote I provided previously regarding berries comes from Stirling and Derocher!
“Do polar bears also eat berries, crabs, plants, small rodents, seaweed, starfish, sea cucumbers, etc in summer?”
The key word here is “also”.
Polar bears are the same as brown bears from the ABC islands off Alaska give or take one ice age or so, i.e perhaps 100,000+ years.
They can breed with these brown bears so the white coats etc are a very recent adaptation.
BTW they still have the brown skin colour under the white fur.
The numbers 35 years ago were put at 5,000 but today most credible counts are 20,000 to 25,000, not bad an increase of at least 400+%.
>In a strange way I agree with this.
Sorry Steve, I was being sarcastic. Scary response though, but I guess depends on which side of the fence you sit.
Steve wrote:-
>those two Aussie Greenpeace scum
and
>can actually name at least one Australian university which contributed members of that group and several persons in that group…FYI, the actual persons responsible and their campus affiliation is not a tightly-kept secret. It may have been an immature act (the self-serving view of the academics who should have taken responsibility)
So were they university students or Greenpeace staff?
>You guys just don’t get it do you? This is the way a forum is supposed to work, ideas are put forward, people discuss them, some learn something new, some confirm what they already knew, while others (whats his face) learn nothing.
Mott, I have beem patiently waiting for you to substantiate your claim about Antarctic trophic cascades. Your childish response certainly proves that people here will learn nothing from you.
Yay, Tim Davis and Neville have gone the bear evolution line! Thank goodness we have got that out of the way. Phew!
And my understanding is that the West Hudson Bay population has demostrated a significant increase over past decades. If this is true then we must conclude that the change in diet (to date) has not been important enough to even retard a population recovery, let alone reduce that population.
Lets face it, folks, the linking of sea ice extent to PB survival always had the unmistakeable stench of green bull$hit. And now we have clear evidence that this was always the case.
Libby, the question was posed as a challenge, to get folks like yourself to actually confirm the existence of evidence that contradicts the green orthodoxy that lack of ice posed a threat. But as usual, you shimmied about the issue and avoided any confirmation of inconvenient truths.
Ian,
Your claim I “shimmied about the issue and avoided any confrmation of inconvenient truths” makes you look pretty silly. I provided a link for you. Would you like me to read it aloud for you too? The link is even to a thread on his very blog, so you don’t have to travel to scary, unfamiliar territory. Or perhaps the claim “And my understanding” is sufficient for those called Ian Mott?
“Does anyone have stats on the number of PB’s killed by hunting?”
@Dr gang green,
The quota for polar bears hunting in West Hudson Bay is around 50 per year. The people who believe in the ice-melting extinction propaganda are being conned.
I’ve posted this before;
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/special/polar_bears/
these papers basically say.
Study bears for 4 years.
Bears OK first 2 years
Bears less OK second 2 years.
Difference being less ice second 2 years.
Bears less OK generally because we shoot bears.
Computer model says no ice by 2050
Therefore no bears by 2050.
If we stopped shooting them maybe they’ll make it to 2075.
That’s called scientific research these days.
“I don’t know, Steve, the whole story sounds bizarre. It’s not as if the case for rising sea levels could be falsified by one tree in the Indian Ocean”
I agree, it is bizarre. The 3rd World tends to be like that, if you hadn’t already noticed (by actually travelling in it).
I’m not providing any opinions on the actual logic behind this act, please note very well.
The tree was uprooted but still largely intact (according to Mörner still green) when Lars Mortenson’s Danish TV crew went there in December 2003 to do part of an AGW sceptical documentary called ‘Doomsday Called Off’.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0493121/
Mörner was there at the time, in part, to show the film makers various local features (sculptures, Buddhist temples etc) built right at sea level centuries earlier.
The locals and any foreigners thereabouts knew the arrival of the Danish film crew was imminent and what they were there for. We have to remember the Maldivian nation was in major political turmoil at the time as well. Sea level issues (and the related issue of associated international disaster aid to the Maldives) were also one of the ‘political footballs’ mixed up with this.
Foreign academics and/or their grad. students present in the area between October and December might have reasonably assumed this tree (which was known to be relatively old) might have been filmed as well.
Some of the students present were actually native Maldivians studying in geoscience-related faculties at Australian universities and possibly influenced by the typical socio-political context which applies on Australian campuses and in some faculties. I have already suggested that immaturity was supposedly involved. Nuff said, I think.
So some students who might have been local, or aussies, studying at Australian universities might have known that a film crew might film a tree that might or might not be evidence for or against AGW. You know of members of the group who may or may not have been involved but you can’t say because you have no evidence that would protect you legally. . .
If I told you this tale is support of AGW you would pull it to shreds in about 3 seconds – and rightfully so as it is a very thin tale indeed.
By the way, the geosciences are hardly a hotbed of lefty ideology regardless of the socio-political profile of the campus.
Hmmmm…..Grendel has been variously described as a demonized version of the old Norse fertility god Freyr or as a troll being slightly taller and hairier than the average human or even as a child, but with a beard….
Meantime – back in the real world of the geosciences, all sorts of real, normal humans may be found.
Steve – actually it makes sense now! It’s not that the tree was *scientific* evidence that had to be destroyed, but it was going to be a symbol in a film that was both anti-scientific propaganda (I am paraphrasing a view, not stating my own) and a threat to the national livelihood, perhaps even to national survival. I’m just speculating as to motives, but if that’s how things went down, it seems a plausible story after all.
“You should have known better than to mention Stirling and Derocher. They are chalatans (SIC) who were involved in a dreadful photo scam that somehow discredited any work they previously did or have done since on PBs!”
I realise that facts are of little consequence to AGW zealots, but the issue that these two participated in the theft and misuse of intellectual property is really small beer. You would normally expect that from gubmint science boys since they have no concept of commercial propriety.
The bigger issue is that shortly after this theft, Stirling participated in a shonky study with Claire Parkinson of NASA to produce a quick hatchet-job report with the sole objective of putting polar bears on centre stage for the press conference at the end of WG1 in Paris in February last year. This in turn launched the polar bear as the AGW “icon” – and was subsequently (mis)used by Al Gore himself.
This report was shonky in that it went around the ACIA report of 2004 (and must of made them look stupid), and it was also released in September 2006 to a media blitz. Hardly the hallmarks of dedicated, professional research scientists.
This is so cool. I rarely get a chance to post here, because I never know anything you guys don’t, but today I’ve got one. I know a story about an enviro-nut who chopped down a famous tree. A guy wrote a book about it.
It concerns this 300 year old, Golden spruce tree that was a famous landmark in the Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia, Canada. Actually there’s no such thing as a golden spruce tree. At least not anymore. The Golden Spuce tree was the only one of it’s kind. The local Haida indians considered it sacred.
One night this enviro-nut named Grant Hadwin, swam across a river naked with a chain saw strapped to his back, and cut down the sacred tree. Apparently he thought he was protesting bad logging practices in the area.
So in answer to the guy who was asking why environmentalists would cut down a famous tree, I don’t know, but it has happened in the past.
Oh, and I’ve got another one. I’ve got twosies. In the polar bear rescue sanctuary at Cochrane, Ontario they feed their Polar bears water melons, fish and carrots. Other stuff too I imagine, but that’s what visitors get to watch them eat.
“because I never know anything”
Welcome aboard, Mikey – and don’t be fooled.
Most of the AGW ‘scientists’ on this blog are in exactly the same boat. You will do fine.
Tilo: “I’m not sure what your point is? Are you saying that they don’t haul out on land?”
Sorry it was sarcasm directed at those who say polar bears can only hunt seal on ice.
Thanks Ivan. Since you offered, I’ve got a question.
You know in that graph above, and the accompanying link to data on past ice extents. How do they know what the arctic sea ice extent was in say 1870? I’m pretty sure it wasn’t on the satellite record, and there was only a little over 100 complete passages of the Northwest Passage up until 2007. Most of them were recent – like from 1980 on. So how do they get records of those old sea ice extents?
“So how do they get records of those old sea ice extents?”
I’ll share a little secret with you. The AGW ‘scientists’ don’t know – haven’t got the faintest clue. What they do is model everything on a computer, and use that model to calculate what the temperatures should have been, what the sea ice should have been and so on. There’s a man in New York called James Hansen who spends all day and all night doing this sort of thing. Doesn’t have any other sort of life.
Once his model has calculated what the data should look like, then thousands of gubmint science boys are sent out on a great big scavenger hunt to find things that help to ‘prove’ that these data points actually existed – things like pine cones and so on. It’s not really important if they don’t find everything they need, since what they don’t have they will make up and bury in the rest of junk they have collected.
Then it’s like a high school science project. They all get together and compare all their scavenger hunt items and decide which ones will actually stand up to scrutiny, how much made-up data they can use, what they can steal off projects from previous years and so on. Since the teachers are friends of theirs, it doesn’t really matter anyway, as they are not going to be marked very stringently. And then every few years, they write a few words around their science projects, draw a few colourful graphs and assemble it into what’s called an “Assessment Report”.
That’s pretty much a “Reader’s Digest” version, but I think I’ve covered off most of the significant points.
Steve your first comment attributed the tree vandalism to Greenpeace. Now it appears they were university students – maybe even local ones. Which is true? Any of it? Just trying to get the story straight, since you raised it here for all to read for some reason. BTW, you’d be better attacking what the person wrote rather than the person, even if it is a female and you seemingly can’t help yourself.
Of course if you are Ivan then best to attack the scientist, regardless of their scientific work, when they don’t fit with your world view. Makes you appear so much more knowledgeable. Tsk.
>Sorry it was sarcasm directed at those who say polar bears can only hunt seal on ice.
Obviously Jan you have a good idea of (a) what has been said previously, and (b) Arctic seal and PB biology and behaviour. Of course you do. Stunning!
From the New Scientist:
” Climate myths: Polar bear numbers are increasing
17:00 16 May 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Phil McKenna
PrintSendFeedsAdvertisement
See all climate myths in our special feature.
Polar bears have become the poster children of global warming. The bears spend most or all of the year living and hunting on sea ice, and the accelerating shrinking of this ice appears to pose a serious threat. The issue has even become politically sensitive.
Yet recently there have been claims that polar bear populations are increasing. So what’s going on? There are thought to be between 20,000 and 25,000 polar bears in 19 population groups around the Arctic. While polar bear numbers are increasing in two of these populations, two others are definitely in decline. We don’t really know how the rest of the populations are faring, so the truth is that no one can say for sure how overall numbers are changing.
The two populations that are increasing, both in north-eastern Canada, were severely reduced by hunting in the past and are recovering thanks to the protection they and their prey now enjoy.
The best-studied population, in Canada’s western Hudson Bay, fell by 22% from 1194 animals in 1987 to 935 in 2004, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service. A second group in the Beaufort Sea, off Alaska’s north coast, is now experiencing the same pattern of reduced adult weights and cub survival as the Hudson Bay group.
A comprehensive review (pdf) by the US Fish and Wildlife Service concluded that shrinking sea ice is the primary cause for the decline seen in these populations, and it recently proposed listing polar bears as threatened (pdf) under the Endangered Species Act. The World Conservation Union projects the bears’ numbers will drop by 30% by 2050 (pdf) due to continued loss of Arctic sea ice.
If you would like to comment on this article, visit our blog.
” The Norwegian Polar Institute will collect fat and blood samples from polar bears in 2007 and 2008 for analyses. Demographic parameters for the bears will be incorporated into subsequent statistical analyses, and the movement and behaviour data from some females with satellite tags will make it possible to relate health status to sea ice availability and other environmental conditions to which the individual animals are exposed during the study period”
So then we will have a ” correct” answer to the question how PBs respond physically to the sea ice availability.
http://npweb.npolar.no/english/projects_and_programs/bearhealth
janama,
Its interesting that you refer to the USGS reports on Polar Bear population status in the US and Canada. If you read the report ‘Polar Bear Population Status in Southern Hudson Bay, Canada’ page 6, then you would have come across the reference to scientific evidence that polar bears will eat various things such as vegetation and other animals etc when there is no sea ice in Hudson Bay in the summer. see: http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/wiki/U.S._Geological_Survey_Reports_on_Polar_Bear_Population_Status_in_the_U.S._and_Canada
It is also interesting that the Western Hudson Bay population is believed to be declining while the Southern Hudson Bay population (SHB) is stable. The SHB population also experiences months of an absence of sea ice in summer.
” The Norwegian Polar Institute led a polar bear field expedition in April 2008. In total 121 polar bears were handled, and a variety of samples and data were collected.
Polar bear monitored from a helicopter, Hornsund. Photo: J. Aars/NPI
The high number of animals captured was due to cold and good weather, allowing helicopter flying most of the survey days. The temperature was between -15 and -29 degrees C most of the period.
Samples from the survey will be used for aging of bears and studies on genetics, diseases and toxicology. Data will be used in survival analyses. Twenty adult female bears got satellite telemetry tags that will allow analyses on movements and swimming behaviour.
In addition to the capture of polar bears, main denning areas were mapped. This is the initiation of a study to analyse how local sea ice conditions influence the distribution of maternity dens in Svalbard.”
http://npweb.npolar.no/english/articles/1212671696.32
” The Norwegian Polar Institute will collect fat and blood samples from polar bears in 2007 and 2008 for analyses. Demographic parameters for the bears will be incorporated into subsequent statistical analyses, and the movement and behaviour data from some females with satellite tags will make it possible to relate health status to sea ice availability and other environmental conditions to which the individual animals are exposed during the study period”
Excellent. Yet another taxpayer-funded scavenger hunt.
“In total 121 polar bears were handled, and a variety of samples and data were collected.”
Ann,
Any chance that the Norwegian Polar Institute will mount a study to round up 100 or so gubmint ‘climate scientists’, fire a hypodermic dart into each of them, extract blood and fat samples, and staple a satellite tracking tag to their foreheads?
If money is the problem, I’d contribute to the funding. 🙂
Nicole,
You are being disingenuous about the summer diet of the bears. Although they may have a sporadic terrestrial diet during these months, they are also living off fat reserves. You are conveniently cherry-picking information, including ignoring recent comments by two of the three PB researchers whose 1993 paper you are riding on.
This was posted previously, supplied from Janama’s link:-
‘Changes in individual stature and body mass
can affect reproduction and survival and have
been shown to be early indicators of changes in
status and trends of polar bear populations. We
recorded body length, skull size, and mass of
polar bears (Ursus maritimus) during
capture/recapture studies conducted in the
southern Beaufort Sea of Alaska (SB) between
1982 and 2006. We calculated a body condition
index (BCI) which reflects trends in mass
relative to length. We also recorded the number
of dependent young accompanying females in the
spring and fall as an indicator of cub recruitment.
Previous work suggested stature of some sex and
age classes of bears in the SB had changed
between early and latter portions of this study but did not investigate trends in or causes of those changes. Here, we investigate whether these measurements changed over time or in relation to sea ice extent. Because our study required bears to be repeatedly immobilized and captured, we tested whether frequency of capture could have affected these measurements. Mass, length, skull size, and BCI of growing males (aged 3-10), mass and skull size of cubs-of-the year, and the number of yearlings per female in the spring and fall were all positively related to the percent of days in which sea ice covered the continental shelf. Skull sizes and/or lengths of adult and subadult males and females decreased over time during the study. Adult body mass was not related to sea ice cover and did not show a trend with time. BCI of adult females exhibited a positive trend over time reflecting a decline in length without a parallel trend in mass. Though cub production increased over time, the number of cubs-of-the-year (COYs) per female in the fall and yearlings per female in the spring declined suggesting reduced cub survival. Bears with prior capture history were either larger or similar in stature and mass to bears captured for the first time, indicating that research activities did not influence trends in the data. Declines in mass and BCI of subadult males, declines in growth of males and females, and declines in cub recruitment suggest that polar bears of the Southern Beaufort Sea have experienced a declining trend in nutritional status. The significant relationship between several of these measurements and sea ice cover over the continental shelf suggests that nutritional limitations may be associated with changing sea-ice conditions.’
Ivan what is the problem with learning more about PBs? Obviously we don’t now enough about the animals and their place in the present Arctic ecosystem. Perhaps a ‘scandal’ over a photograph is all you need to know?
Travis,
“Ivan what is the problem with learning more about PBs?”
There is nothing wrong with learning more about PBs – so long as that is the objective.
My issues are motive and method.
Motive has to do with “why now?”, “why all of a sudden?”, and “why the indecent haste?”. We’re to believe that the world woke up one morning and just decided that PBs were becoming scarce? Coincidentally just in time for the WG1 press release? Hmmm.
It also has to do with “what is the objective?”. Is all this current frenzy of PB research really to do with determining the population and condition of the PBs, or is to do with trying to fossick out yet another obscure piece of data that can be interpreted to prove some point or other?
Method has to do with how the research is conducted, and how previous research is taken into consideration. If I understand Ann’s post correctly, they are using helicopters to herd PBs into capture areas for data collection and tagging. Somehow I can’t see David Attenborough doing something like this. Equally, I can’t see it being allowed for serious study of any other species on earth.
Futher, without reading the study brief, it all sounds like a bit of a frolic. Given that they acknowledge that they have no clue as to the base data (“There are thought to be between 20,000 and 25,000 polar bears in 19 population groups around the Arctic.”), what is the value of monitoring a small sample and then trying to extrapolate that to the entire population (“then we will have a “correct” answer to the question how PBs respond physically to the sea ice availability”). The reality is they will likely have nothing of the sort. To me this just seems symptomatic of the way in which AGW leads to a complete debasement of scientific process: the unseemly haste with which a small sample of data is gathered and then “modelled” into the definitive “proof” to meet reporting deadlines.
For many years, I used to have a poster above my desk which showed a manager sitting behind a desk handing a piece of paper to a subordinate, with a caption that read: “Here is the gist of what I want to say, now find me the data to prove it.” Every time I read one of these PB reports, this poster flashes into my mind.
“Perhaps a ‘scandal’ over a photograph is all you need to know?”
Far from it. As I’ve pointed out at least twice already, the photo is less of an issue than the motive and the methodology behind subsequent ‘research’ that devolved from the photo. Maybe some people are slow learners – but if you want me to go over it a third time, I am happy to do so. Just don’t want to bore everyone else to death in the process.
Besides – my old man always used to say “once a crook, always a crook.” The defence of yourself and others seems to be: “well, maybe a little bit crooked when it comes to stealing intellectual property, but scrupulously honest when it comes to their own research”. Hmmm. I wonder.
This was early on from Steve Short:
“You guys just don’t get it do you? This is the way a forum is supposed to work, ideas are put forward, people discuss them, some learn something new, some confirm what they already knew, while others (whats his face) learn nothing.”
Then I point out why some of his point about students chopping down a tree lacks a defined credibility.
And we get:
“Hmmmm…..Grendel has been variously described as a demonized version of the old Norse fertility god Freyr or as a troll being slightly taller and hairier than the average human or even as a child, but with a beard….
Meantime – back in the real world of the geosciences, all sorts of real, normal humans may be found.”
Yup – smooth style there, and just underscores my original point about the dangers of inconsistent arguments.
Grendel 11:52… “This is one of the issues I have with this blog – one day the sea ice is not disappearing at all, and the next it is, but not to worry, the polar bears don’t mind….”
What’s ya problem Grendel? Don’t like alarmism being pointed out, ‘eh? Makes ya mad, makes ya doubt, does it….? ; )
As we all know, Polar bears have been around for millions of years. As we all know, there have been massive changes in climate, with faster rates of warming in some instances, over that period. As we all know, Polar bears are still here.
The point that Jennifer is making seems clear enough to me Gren…. Polar bears bear change remarkably well. Seems to be the bare bones of the topic, ‘eh?
There is no inconsistency. Jennifer is talking about different populations of Polar bears in different areas… You might need to brush up th’ ol’ comprehension skills ‘eh. Bit rusty there Gren.
Now as for any Anthropogenic warming that would be detrimental to polar bears in some way. Do you have some evidence Grendel…. besides theoretical Computer models and “adjusted” empirical data sets of course.
Always amazes me that… A computer model doesn’t agree with empirical data and observation….. So they “adjust” the data… weird!
“While polar bear numbers are increasing in two of these populations, two others are definitely in decline.”
While I believe that this is true, and while I also believe that polar bears need ice – at least part of the year, things are not as simple as making a single attribution.
While I was a student working at my universities library some years back I read a doctoral dissertation on jack rabbit populations in New Mexico. It turns out that populations in the studied areas varied by a factor of 10 to 1. At times the rabbits would be decimated by disease, parasites, and predators. The population would crash badly. The thinning of the population reduced the odds of passing disease and parasites, and the predator population would fall due to the shortage of rabbits to eat. So then the population would quickly blow up to very large numbers.
The case for polar bears is somewhat different, but the point is that natural variation plays a large part in wild populations. I don’t consider a 22% variation in the Hudson Bay polar bears as being unusual. It may be related to less available ice, but it may not be.
My comments in [brackets] for clarity
[From the logbook of some touchie feelie ecotraveler on a Arctic boatride (always in the middle of summer of course) to prove your SUV is killin the polar bear.]
“August 14, 2008 (Onboard time = UTC – 4)
Larsen Sound, 70°25’N – 096°38’W
23h55 local time
We get the new ice chart at 2h30. Conditions are far better and the wind had decreased as planned. It’s time to set sail. We point our bow southward to the Franklin Strait and the Tasmania Islands. Nights are more and more dark while we’re sailing south. We have light enough to navigate but we do need the artificial one for the inside. At 7h00 we meet our first ice in stripes. Behind it’s clear. Couple of floes are drifting around but nothing to slow us down. The fog comes when we’re entering the Shortland Channel between Tasmania Islands and Boothia peninsula. It’s uncharted, the radar is on.
For a while the visibility clears up and we can see two polar bears on shore, a female and her cub. What a beautifull present. We keep going towards the channel and we see another one, and another one a while later. This place is full of polar bears. When we arrive at the south of the archipelago we saw 5 of them. What a surprise. We push further south following the Boothia peninsula. There is some big floes around but nothing bad. Next to the coast the way is clear of ice. If we have the same ice conditions as we had since Willis bay, we should reach the James Ross strait with no problem.”
http://www.69nord.com/english/expe/logbook_5.html
[There seems to be no shortage of ice or polar bears, but will stop these fellows? I don’t think so. They’re on a mission.]
“August 16, 2008 (Onboard time = UTC – 6)
Gjoa Haven, Nunavut, Canada.
23h30 local time
…Approaching the village, we see one, two, three mast ! We’re entering in the tiny bay where Roald Amundsen and his companions spent two winters before achieving the first navigation through the passage 105 years ago. We put our huge Norwegian flag up in memory of the Gjoa. Today, four yacht are at the anchor ! What a change even since 1999 where “Ocean Search” was the only boat for the season. ”
http://www.69nord.com/english/expe/logbook_5.html
[Thick as fleas, these rich do-gooders with yachts and too much time on their hands. All of them dedicated to …] “Creating an AWARENESS of the phenomenon of global warming and its impact on the polar regions and on the earth, prompting REFLECTION on the best scientific, political and individual means available to address this issue.”
[Everytime I read one of these mission statements it transports me right onto the boat. I can actually feel a wave of nausea welling up.]
They’re talking about bears being weighed in 1982 then being reweighed in 2006 – I can’t even guess but that a polar bear in his 20s would be reaching the end of life. What does that really test besides a declining appetite?
Everyone is talking about the bears response is to a lack of ice but I wonder where all the seals, Walruses, and Narwhals spend their time during these low ice periods. I recently read a article in the paper which stated that possibly 4000 Walruses were trampled to death during a stampede of a 20,000 member herd started by some Polar Bears. If these animals spend their spare time on shore during low ice periods I find it doubtful that the bears would have any problem finding food.
Polar bear hunting:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2007/09/21/bear-quota.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/the-bloody-business-of-the-trophy-hunters-401833.html
Seems like over 500 bears a year in Canada are shot legally. In Russia estimates of 200 being poached a year. Natives in Alaska take a small number, also Greenland.
About 800 bears killed a year is about 8,000 bears killed in the last 10 years!!!!!!!!! I really don’t think we have the data to blame any bear decrease on Climate with numbers like these.
Yup, you worried about the bears, you might start with stopping the sport hunting and poaching with limits on the native hunts if that doesn’t work. Of course, the natives get much needed CASH by selling their permits to the sport hunters. Don’t forget to replace that income!!
James:
“There seems to be no shortage of ice or polar bears, but will stop these fellows? I don’t think so. They’re on a mission.”
This is an important point. I have a tendency to watch nature shows and I have seen many in the past few years that were set in the Arctic. Some were about PBs. Most were not. The impression that I get from these is that the PBs are thick as flies. Considering the vastness of the landscape and the frequency of encounters, I find it hard to believe that there are only 25,000 polar bears on the earth. I have to think that the numbers are much, much higher than that. Also note the second film that I linked above. One polar bear goes after a group of Walruses on the beach, and in no time a he is joined by a large number of other polar bears to help with the kills and the feast. This would seem to indicate a fairly high density of bears in many places. I saw similar large gatherings of PBs on a special about Wrangel Island.
I wonder how much “Inuit” contributed to the polar bear diet.
Seeing that bear attack a walrus colony in the video posted makes me suspect Inuit would have been a major source of protein.
Long blog and my connection wont let me read the whole thing but I’m in the arctic right now and can tell you polar bears do not need ice to survive.They wander all over the tundra where there is no ice untill sept.
In Nunavut the Canadian govt. was convinced to cut all quota’s based on reports from people who have never been here.
Now the Innuit are pissed and their form of civil disobediance over the whole matter is to kill them in self defense.You folks wont hear about this down south as your too worried about the drowning polar bears.No one cares that there has been a major fuel and food shortage up here for 3 years now,yet you take away another food source from hungry people and dont whine when the Innuit ask for a subsidy to pay for food now that their traditional way of getting food is getting stopped by bearucrats and eco freaks.
Thanks,end of rant.
Ivan write:-
>Motive has to do with “why now?” “why all of a sudden?”, and “why the indecent haste?”. We’re to believe that the world woke up one morning and just decided that PBs were becoming scarce?
and
>It also has to do with “what is the objective?”. Is all this current frenzy of PB research really to do with determining the population and condition of the PBs, or is to do with trying to fossick out yet another obscure piece of data that can be interpreted to prove some point or other?
Are you serious Ivan? Go back to the IUCN PB Specialist Group info, not to mention various other independent studies. To seriously suggest that PB research is only now taking off due to AGW is ridiculous. But keep trying. With the development of new technology such as satellite telemetry, all marine mammal studies are pushing forward. PBs have been studied for DECADES. If you had a basic concept of biological research you would understand all of this. A conspiracy theory sounds pretty good though doesn’t it?
>Somehow I can’t see David Attenborough doing something like this. Equally, I can’t see it being allowed for serious study of any other species on earth.
RAOTFL!!! Nuff said! Bloody hell….Go and educate yourself Ivan. Go and read some literature instead of watching the good Sir’s docos!! LOL!
>Futher, without reading the study brief…
See above. It seems that sprouting baseless opinions and living in an information vacuum is all part and parcel of contributing to this, one of the very best environmental blogs on the planet. LOL!
>”once a crook, always a crook.”
Yup, that about sums up it up for you Ivan. Pffttt!!
Yay, J. Hansford has gone the polar bear evolution line too. Phew.
>Now as for any Anthropogenic warming that would be detrimental to polar bears in some way. Do you have some evidence Grendel…. besides theoretical Computer models and “adjusted” empirical data sets of course.
More ignoramous blathering. You’ve got no idea J. Hansford so stop now before you look like a real moron. Go and READ. It’s even been outlined here on this world class blog, but hey, it was not by your side so must be all lies. LOL!
Matt, read the archives here on PBs. The staple food of the PBs is the key. It is not as simple as just ‘they eat seals’.
>The impression that I get from these is that the PBs are thick as flies.
LOL! Now we are getting to the real scientific debate about PBs!!! A nature show will show PBs. They are the cutsie factor. Hence you would get the ‘impression’ they are as thick as flies. But what do they do during the summer months in some areas of the distribution? Hmmm, are there some aggregations of PBs due to no ice? Surely not! Of course the PB reseachers don’t know what they are talking about and the estimated pops they come up with are pulled out of their well-funded bottoms. More conspiracy theories.
>One polar bear goes after a group of Walruses on the beach, and in no time a he is joined by a large number of other polar bears to help with the kills and the feast. This would seem to indicate a fairly high density of bears in many places. I saw similar large gatherings of PBs on a special about Wrangel Island.
Getting your ‘education’ from youtube and nature docos is guanteed to make you knowledgeable on such matter as PB populations and behaviour. LOL! As a sugggestion, perhaps read some literature on PB life history.
Yes, it’s proven, television really does make people stupider. The reluctance of many here to go and do some reading on the basics of nature in the Arctic just proves that you really don’t want to learn anything at all, you don’t want your world views challenged, and you do this blog proud. It started with Nicole’s great heading for this thread. Good show. Keep it coming.
Well most people are getting their info from the media and I can tell you that what I see here and what you see on T.V. in the south are two totally different things.
as for youtube,check out some of my video’s there from my time here in the Arctic.My username is zigmiester and one of the vids is called “Arctic adventures”.I have allmost 70 all taken from 60 miles south of the circle to points south and east of baker lake and gjoehaven. This is a land that most only see on T.V. and it’s so bloody huge and unpopulated and quite different then what most think.
Graphs and sat photo’s are fine but they havent been around long and the Innuit have so I tend to believe them over the scientists concerning bear populations or melting sea ice.It does melt right past the circle,every year starting june or july and freezes in September.The PB has mostly been studied hundreds of miles south in Churchill. It also melts every year there and the bears head up the coast in summer.
Ziggy
Help a fellow out and post some links to your Arctic video.
Oh wait.
I got it.
http://www.youtube.com/user/zigmiester
There are over 60 videos there Ziggy.
How about you pick out a “greatest hits” compilation for us?
Travis,
There…there – feel better now that you’ve gotten that little tantrum off your chest?
IUCN/PBSG – aren’t they the group that used to get together and worry about real problems (like high PCB levels) before they sold out and got onto the AGW gravy-train?
Steve Short: “I (and other persons known to me) can actually name at least one Australian university which contributed members of that group and several persons in that group. I won’t do this because of Australian libel laws and the lack of photographic evidence (of their actions). FYI, the actual persons responsible and their campus affiliation is not a tightly-kept secret. It may have been an immature act (the self-serving view of the academics who should have taken responsibility), but it was a scandalous (and un-Australian) act nonetheless.”
Is there a law against cutting trees on the Maldives? I can see where their might be but even if there are how would this translate to a criminal act under Aus law? What I am getting at is you wouldn’t be accusing someone of breaking the law, so I don’t see the point of worrying over libel. Shaming the shameful is a value added sort of situation.
This just drives me nuts because I woould cut off my arm to be in a courtroom under such sordid charges brought by a dispicable defiler of nature.
You know Morner would take the stand in your behalf.
God Bless America, please bring that sort of charge against me so the case of the defilement of science by the minions of climate change can be given a hearing in open court.
I beg you. I praying for that everyday.
Thanks Ziggy. So we have an annual cull that is more than capable of accounting for the drop in the W Hudson Bay population and an even more southern population with less ice that has not declined at all.
There is also no way of knowing how much of the WHB population might have avoided the census by heading inland. That is, not so much a declining population but simply a more dispersed population.
And there is also the little issue of the total lack of reliability in government sponsored wildlife estimates, not just in Canada but just about everywhere. I seem to recall the Inuit being recently proven right about the Caribou population that was much much larger than the official bull$hit. And that is for a species that is not the same colour as the snow. And we are expected to accept the estimates for PBs as high integrity data?
Note, also, how the graph of ice extent does not go back to the 1860s when the UK Royal Society sailed right up through the NW passage. So the real story is one of cyclical variation, not of decline.
” More recently, scientists working in the Southern Hudson Bay have reported a major decline in the condition of polar bears. A decline in condition was the precursor to the population decline in Western Hudson Bay…..”
” at the messengers: lobby groups for big business say there is no problem. Yes, conservation groups moved the issue forward for listing under the Endangered Species Act but this was already an issue that was founded on scientific information. The IUCN/SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group was moving on a Vulnerable designation (the same as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act) before anybody heard of actions from environmental groups. Sea ice change and habitat loss is the key driving force.”
More on my blog.
“You folks wont hear about this down south as your too worried about the drowning polar bears.”
I did hear about this. There was push to have the Canadian government cut the quotas, but the Inuit objected that the Polar Bear populations were doing just fine. Apparently the government ignored them. Now as I understand it, the Inuit were earning about 30,000 per hunt. One could claim that they were acting out of self interest, and there is probably some truth to that. But I also have to think that they are heavily invested in having the bears around for the long run and therefore that they are smart enough not to want to deplete the population if there was a real population problem.
The only problem with the self defense thing is that it’s hard to claim self defense when you are leading a non Canadian on a hunting expedition. My opinion is that the Canadian government should restore the previous quotas until they can demonstrate that there is a real problem.
“Getting your ‘education’ from youtube and nature docos is guanteed to make you knowledgeable on such matter as PB populations and behaviour. LOL!”
Yeah, I’m sure that the film I saw of bears on land killing Walruses on land was just a bunch of actors in bear suits and walrus suits – paid for by Exxon.
“the Inuit being recently proven right about the Caribou population that was much much larger than the official bull$hit.”
The gubmint science boys will find what they want to find – whatever they think they need to ‘verify’ their ‘hypothesis’.
A case in point – the dribble that Travis posted above. Check this out:
“Here, we investigate whether these measurements changed over time or in relation to sea ice extent.”
Now, how on God’s earth did they manage to make this linkage within a single sentence?
…and this:
“Mass, length, skull size, and BCI of growing males … were all positively related to the percent of days in which sea ice covered the continental shelf.”
Oh yeah? How? No evidence – just a plain statement of ‘fact’.
…and this howler:
“Adult body mass was not related to sea ice cover and did not show a trend with time.”
I think what they actually should have said was:
“Since adult body mass did not show a trend with time, we couldn’t link it to sea ice cover, and so we discarded it.”
The giveaway is the last sentence:
“The significant relationship between several of these measurements and sea ice cover over the continental shelf suggests that nutritional limitations may be associated with changing sea-ice conditions.”
Ho! Ho! Ho! The perennial favourites: “suggests” and “may”.
Does anyone think it’s even remotely possible that the ‘study’ will come up with a conclusion other than that stated in this last sentence? A perfect example of “Here is the gist of what I want to say, now find me the data to ‘prove’ it.”
And these gubmint boys wonder why everyone falls
about laughing when they say “It’s a science! With rigorous protocols – oh, and peer review.”
Mott wrote:-
>There is also no way of knowing
The way you are going, certainly not.
>Yeah, I’m sure that the film I saw of bears on land killing Walruses on land was just a bunch of actors in bear suits and walrus suits – paid for by Exxon.
Tilo, if you think watching a youtube video will teach you more than reading a few papers published by PB experts, then maybe you would be more ‘educated’ imagining they are actors in bear suits. Wildlife documentaries and youtube videos may provide some ‘insight’, but please don’t seriously suggest that they are an adequate substitute for peer-reviewed papers by experts in the field. Then again, judging by the crap posted here by some, seems I’m pleading to the deaf, dumb and blind. You seem like a smart guy Tilo, but maybe you can find out some additional (and more challenging) information from more traditional sources?
Ivan you are so incredibly imbecilic it’s sad. You have selected pieces from what I reproduced that is an abstract. The paper was one supplied by Janama’s link. You have not bothered to read the full paper. You have zilch common sense, let alone any inkling of the biological sciences. This blog deserves you.
Mott also wrote (albeit on another thread):-
>This blog has seen some particularly bog ignorant statements of pure sophistry but seeking to disprove such a fundamental ecological process by way of such an absurd simplification really takes the cake.
You people will obviously say just about anything to justify your ideological bull$hit. So enough now and be done with you, back under your rock with the slime mould.
Too bloody right! And it starts with Nicole’s dopey headline. And ‘bah’ go the sheep with the no-eyed-deers.
Polar Bears are very adaptable. Living along the shores of Western Hudson Bay, this gives me an opportunity to examine the bears on all seasons. They come in town around end of october. The bears are most probably adaptable animals in the world. They are not helpless like a little baby, but they are like preditor, a very smart one, who can adapt. They even can stalk on another Polar bear, or human or any land animal without being noticed. Very smart, tactful and ingenius are they.