Polar Bear Population “May now be near historic highs”

[ScienceRocks]

Polar Bear Population “May now be near historic highs” 30 Sep 11 -
“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that the polar bear population is currently at 20,000 to 25,000 bears, up from as low as 5,000-10,000 bears in the 1950s and 1960s,” says this article by Amrutha Gayathri.
http://iceagenow.info/2011/09/polar-bear-population-may-historic-highs/

 

[waltky]

possum thinks polar bears got a hard life...

Alaskan Polar Bears Threatened…By Too Much Spring Ice
April 25, 2014 – Five meters of ice– about 16 feet thick - is threatening the survival of polar bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea region along Alaska’s Arctic coast, according to Dr. Susan J. Crockford, an evolutionary biologist in British Columbia who has studied polar bears for most of her 35-year career.

That’s because the thick ice ridges could prevent ringed seals, the bears’ major prey, from creating breathing holes they need to survive in the frigid waters, Crockford told CNSNews.com. “Prompted by reports of the heaviest sea ice conditions on the East Coast ‘in decades’ and news that ice on the Great Lakes is, for mid-April, the worst it’s been since records began, I took a close look at the ice thickness charts for the Arctic,” Crockford noted in her Polar Bear Science blog on April 18th. “Sea ice charts aren’t a guarantee that this heavy spring ice phenomenon is developing in the Beaufort, but they could be a warning,” she wrote, noting that they "don't bode well" for the Beaufort bears.

“What happens is that really thick ice moves in because currents and winds from Greenland and the Canadian islands push it against the shore,” Crockford told CNSNews.com. “The male seals arrive in the area in early spring to set up breeding territories. They drill a hole through the ice to maintain breathing holes close to the shore. But there’s a limit. They can drill through two meters (about seven feet) of ice. But too much beyond that and they’re in trouble.” “The reason that’s important is that seals mate right after the pups, who are born in April, are weaned. So the male seal wants to be there, but he has to have breathing holes. If the ice is too thick, he has to move off someplace else,” she explained.

Female polar bear with cubs.

But this is the same time that female polar bears are just emerging with their newborn cubs from maternity dens either on or near the shore. “When those bears come out of their dens in the spring, they need to find seals right away because they will have gone six months without eating,” Crockford said. “If there are no seals, they have to go further out, where there’s thinner ice.” “Spring and early summer are really a critical time for polar bears. That’s when they need to eat as many seals as they can because that’s when they put on fat for the rest of the year. If they have trouble doing that in the spring, they’re in big trouble.”

There were comparably high levels of spring ice in the Beaufort Sea in 2004 and 2006, when bear counts were “one of the pieces of evidence used to have the bears listed as ‘threatened’ in the U.S.,” Crockford pointed out. “Polar bear biologists were finding some bears quite thin and found a population decline,” she said, which they attributed to melting summer ice caused by global warming. “But the biologists were not there to see the thick [spring] ice. All they saw was thin bears,” she pointed out. “They blamed the poor condition of the bears on summer ice, instead of acknowledging that it was likely the condition of the ice in the spring that was the cause of the problem.” “Female [polar bears] with cubs having trouble feeding are one aspect of the repercussions of thick ice,” Crockford added. “The other repercussion is that other bears, instead of hanging around and starving, probably left the area. They could have gone to the Chukchi Sea, which is located between the U.S. and Russia near the Bering Strait.”

MORE

 

[skookerasbil]

According to the AGW k00ks, in 2014, they are an endangered species. Sill see that shit all the time on here from these meatheads.


Every single one of them is stuck in 2006.



HELLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Its 2014 assholes........and your side is getting pwned!!!

 

[editec]

That's good news, I suppose, unless you're a seal.

 

[mamooth]

The 2013 data from the experts.

Summary of polar bear population status per 2013

Out of the 19 defined distinct populations, 4 are declining, 5 are stable, 1 is increasing, and 9 are data deficient.

However, since it's from people who know what they're doing, the hardcore denialists will auto-reject it.

 

[skookerasbil]

The 2013 data from the experts.

Summary of polar bear population status per 2013

Out of the 19 defined distinct populations, 4 are declining, 5 are stable, 1 is increasing, and 9 are data deficient.

However, since it's from people who know what they're doing, the hardcore denialists will auto-reject it.

LMAO....click on the link. Only this guy could find and post up a link like that!! "The Polar Bear Specialist Group". Clearly legit!!


Environmental groups always fuck with the statistics.