No Decline in Polar Bear Population
The Polar Bear Specialist Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the organization of scientists that has attempted to monitor the global polar bear population since the 1960s, has issued a report indicating that there was no change in the overall global polar bear population in the most recent four-year period studied.
“The total number of polar bears is still thought to be between 20,000 and 25,000,” the group said in a press release published together with a report on the proceedings of its 15th meeting
20,000 to 25,000 polar bears worldwide is exactly the same population estimate the group made following its 14th international meeting.
“The total number of polar bears worldwide is estimated to be 20,000–25,000,” the scientists said in the report they issued after that previous meeting.
The 15th meeting of the IUCN’s Polar Bear Specialist Group took place from June 29-July 3, 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark—four years after the 14th meeting, which took place in Seattle, Wash., June 20-24, 2005. But the report on the 15th meeting and its conclusions about the polar bear population—including subsequent information that was developed through March 2010—was not published until this year (on Feb. 25, 2011).
The February report concedes that scientists still have limited scientific data about the polar bear population in many parts of the Arctic—lacking sufficient information to even determine whether the population is increasing or decreasing in 7 of 19 subpopulations.
“Reviewing the latest information available, the PBSG concluded that one of 19 subpopulations is currently increasing, three are stable, and eight are declining,” said the group’s press release on the report.
“For the remaining seven subpopulations available data were insufficient to provide an assessment of current trend. The total number of polar bears is still thought to be between 20,000 and 25,000,” it said.
The group said it viewed anticipated changes in the Arctic environment caused by “climate change” to be the greatest threat to the future of the polar bear.
“The PBSG renewed the conclusion from previous meetings that the greatest challenge to conservation of polar bears is ecological change in the Arctic resulting from climatic warming,” the group said. “Declines in the extent of the sea ice have accelerated since the last meeting of the group in 2005, with unprecedented sea ice retreats in 2007 and 2008.”
“The PBSG confirmed its earlier conclusion that unabated global warming will ultimately threaten polar bears everywhere,” it said.
At the same time, the report cited an American scientist who told the group that a research team had used a collar to track a polar bear that swam for more than 650 kilometers across the sea. “He described the extensive spatial data recovered from one particular collar that showed the bear swimming more than 650 km in the Beaufort Sea,” said the report.
Despite its concern that climate change could threaten the polar bear, the group also said it supported the right of human beings to “harvest” the bears.
“The PBSG recognizes that where habitats are stable, polar bears are a renewable resource, and reaffirmed its support of the right of aboriginal groups to harvest polar bears within sustainable limits,” said the group’s release.
In 2008, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared the polar bear a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The declaration was not based on an actual decline in the polar bear population but on the government’s conclusion that future declines in Arctic sea ice will reduce the bear’s habitat and put it at risk.
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Comments
Gee.
Submitted by Newsbubba on Thu, 05/19/2011 - 7:37pm.
Who could have seen that coming?
Polar bears killed by AGW
Submitted by MaximusBraveheart on Thu, 05/19/2011 - 8:03pm.
Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) and the dying polar bears... yeah right. When will liars be held accountable for their false hysteria? I mean really. The assault on truth is never ending.
And now it is the our official USA position that Israel must go back to the 1967 borders. Really? Again, when will lying idiot, traitors be held accountable?
-- Maximusbraveheart -- Is TRUTH knowable? Moral Relativism is the abandonment of Truth. Truth is knowable. Truth conforms to Reality. Reality is observable by evidence & witness in this day & from history. Relativism is Sesame Street play land.
Here's a fun fact:
Submitted by Phryj1 on Thu, 05/19/2011 - 8:35pm.
The Earth's ice caps have completely melted before, and WILL inevitably do so again.
Bonus Fun Fact: The forces governing natural climate change completely overwhelm any influence man could even hope to have on the climate. Which means climate change policy is reckless and futile.
The polar bears are fine. The climate is fine. Time to drill for oil.
Progressives seem to be completely averse to facts and logic. Apparently, reality has a conservative bias.
Did they count Knut?
Submitted by Galvanic on Thu, 05/19/2011 - 9:22pm.
It doesn't matter what this science tells us. We must listen to what THE Science tells us.
Inupiat's, it not us...
Submitted by Dan Diego on Thu, 05/19/2011 - 9:58pm.
They only kill about 20 Polar Bears a year...
"We have enough stories about this to fill many books, of the damages done by people who come here to study things, such as the fellow with Fish and Wildlife Service who killed more polar bears figuring out how to radio-collar them than have ever been killed by all the industrial activity in the entire arctic since the beginning of time. His excuse was he had to figure out about polar bears before they were all killed by the oil industry"
Shrinking sea ice caused by carbon dioxide emissions is the culprit, not Inupiat hunters... “The Inupiat solution,” Smith writes, “was for Washington to address climate change head-on by legislating global warming preventatives, and leave the polar bears to the native peoples of the Arctic.”
These folks receive annual income from Alaska oil and are being used as the reason SHELL Oil was denied a go ahead for drilling by the FEDS.
Inupiat's, it not us...
Submitted by Dan Diego on Thu, 05/19/2011 - 9:58pm.
They only kill about 20 Polar Bears a year...
"We have enough stories about this to fill many books, of the damages done by people who come here to study things, such as the fellow with Fish and Wildlife Service who killed more polar bears figuring out how to radio-collar them than have ever been killed by all the industrial activity in the entire arctic since the beginning of time. His excuse was he had to figure out about polar bears before they were all killed by the oil industry"
Shrinking sea ice caused by carbon dioxide emissions is the culprit, not Inupiat hunters... “The Inupiat solution,” Smith writes, “was for Washington to address climate change head-on by legislating global warming preventatives, and leave the polar bears to the native peoples of the Arctic.”
These folks receive annual income from Alaska oil and are being used as the reason SHELL Oil was denied a go ahead for drilling by the FEDS. I think they also kill WHALES!!!