U.S. Senate Report Debunks Polar Bear Extinction Fears
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is considering listing the polar bear a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. This report details the scientists debunking polar bear endangerment fears and features a sampling of the latest peer-reviewed science detailing the natural causes of recent Arctic ice changes.
The U.S. Fish & 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. A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations “may now be near historic highs.” The alarm about the future of polar bear decline is based on speculative computer model predictions many decades in the future. And the methodology of these computer models is being challenged by many scientists and forecasting experts.
Canadian biologist Dr. Mitchell Taylor, the director of wildlife research with the Arctic government of Nunavut: “Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present,” Taylor said. “It is just silly to predict the demise of polar bears in 25 years based on media-assisted hysteria.”
Evolutionary Biologist and Paleozoologist Dr. Susan Crockford of University of Victoria in Canada has published a number of papers in peer-reviewed academic journals. “Polar bears, for example, survived several episodes of much warmer climate over the last 10,000 years than exists today,” Crockford wrote. “There is no evidence to suggest that the polar bear or its food supply is in danger of disappearing entirely with increased Arctic warming, regardless of the dire fairy-tale scenarios predicted by computer models.”
Award-winning quaternary geologist Dr. Olafur Ingolfsson, a professor from the University of Iceland, has conducted extensive expeditions and field research in both the Arctic and Antarctic. “We have this specimen that confirms the polar bear was a morphologically distinct species at least 100,000 years ago, and this basically means that the polar bear has already survived one interglacial period,” Ingolfsson said. “This is telling us that despite the on-going warming in the Arctic today, maybe we don’t have to be quite so worried about the polar bear.”
Internationally known forecasting pioneer Dr. Scott Armstrong of the Wharton School at the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania and his colleague, forecasting expert Dr. Kesten Green of Monash University in Australia, co-authored a January 27, 2008 paper with Harvard astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon which found that polar bear extinction predictions violate “scientific forecasting procedures.” Excerpt: The study analyzed the methodology behind key polar bear population prediction and found that one of the two key reports in support of listing the bears had “extrapolated nearly 100 years into the future on the basis of only five years data - and data for these years were of doubtful validity.”
Biologist Dr. Matthew Cronin, a research professor at the School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks: “We don’t know what the future ice conditions will be, as there is apparently considerable uncertainty in the sea ice models regarding the timing and extent of sea ice loss. Also, polar bear populations are generally healthy and have increased worldwide over the last few decades,” Cronin said… [more]
by cas
No, cas, you are mistaken. The speaker is a non-expert from BiRD (the Biological Resource Division, USGS). BiRD is a completely politicized outfit, with the worst wildlife biologists on the planet. The speaker freely admits to being a non-expert. He’s not kidding.
Look at the names in the post above. Those are the real thing, real polar and boreal wildlife ecologists, not low-level politicos from the BiRD at the San Diego Zoo.
Your golly gosh logic is seriously flawed. A dimwit makes an inexpert comment, and you go with that and discount the real experts. Not smart. Just the opposite.
by Gregory S.
I don’t get all the people trying to put an Endangered Species Act designation on anything that is not in danger of extinction.
The spotted owl here in the Southwest was in no way endangered. They stopped logging and the logging was something that helped the spotted owl. Owls would eat the mice and chipmunks etc. that would nest in the slash piles that would take a few years to burn. The turkeys could nest in them as well. The people that are messing with nature don’t seem to do the right amount of background study before listing an animal as endangered.
I feel these groups need to really think and do their homework before declaring an endangered species when it really isn’t endangered. All these people that are playing with nature to save a frog, or minnow, or a spotted owl, or the sage grouse that shut down oil drilling, have put thousands of people out of work. These people counted on work to feed their families and now they can’t because of some little creature that some group declared endangered. This is wrong no matter how you look at it. Animals become extinct for a reason, and these groups cannot save the world or what is in it. How long will it take before no one will be able to work because of some endangered creature that might not even be endangered.
America will pay a very big price for all this wrong doing. People for the most part will all be on welfare and government assistance. This country cannot and will not continue in this manner. People all need to be a asset to their job and country, not a liability.
But from the sounds of it, the government just might want it that way. What will it take to change it, a revolution? People dying seems to change things, but when it gets to that point it might be too late.
That is bull. The polar bears are for sure going to become extinct in a short mader of time. You just watch. They will be gone before you know it.
And yet, they are still here! And the p. bear populations are growing. After being hunted by ruthless and clever humans for 15,000+ years!
Maybe they’re tougher than you think.
by Val
Casie,
Facts equal truth. It is alright to love animals (I do) and question the global warming theory. If you take the time to research the data, especially about the sun’s activity (or lack of) you may find yourself better informed.
How can the World Wildlife Federation get away with showing the commercial with the polar bear clinging to a shrinking slab of ice with its young and then jumping hopelessly into the water? The commentary that goes with the video states that the polar bear is in trouble and facing extinction and includes a plea for help to remedy the situation. Do these people not read the research? By that I mean both sides of the issue as educated people are supposed to do?
by MissPolitico
Global warming, climate change, whatever the stooges want to call it next will always be one big myth and one big lie. The whole premise was founded and is fueled by regressives who hate capitalism and progress.
by James
Every real expert on the subject of Polar Bear populations says the same thing. They are NOT endangered and are in fact growing in numbers. Man-made Global Warming is a crock, period. The eruption of Mt. Saint Helens in the 1980’s put more C02 in to the atmosphere in one day than man put into it in a 180 year period.
by paul
I don’t think we are being honest with ourselves, about the motives behind these anti-logical moves by ‘environmentalist and animal groups’. If these people hate capitalism so much, than why has Al Gore supposedly made over 300 million dollars since he left office, on this enviro-wacko drivel?
With so much science unveiled that disputes the enviro-wacko cause, wouldn’t you think people like Cassie would get it? Of course not, they have a predisposed agenda and the facts mean “zero” because it does not coincide with their “scheme”. This is about a “Power Grab” and a “Transfer of Wealth” all across this planet and it’s the same people at the very top who are conducting this orchestra. If you really want to find out about why and what and how and who, start by researching “The Nature Conservancy” and its billions of dollars of ‘land grabs’ all across the world. “Ignorance is bliss” does not apply to these people; they know the facts but have a specific agenda and do everything they can to promote and achieve it. They use the media to perpetrate this agenda and “we” (the people that are not them) buy into it, because it’s on TV or in a newspaper, so it must be true.
by jbinsb
Polar ice is melting, polar bears survive by hunting seals from ice flows, and therefore the bears are in trouble. You need to check your population numbers. Satellite images show that the extent of Arctic summer sea ice has decreased by roughly 30 percent since 1979, reaching a historic low two years ago. Thicker, multi-year sea ice also is disappearing. There are 19 Arctic bear populations. Three are stable; one is thought to be increasing, the rest are decreasing.
No, jbinsn, you are wrong. Arctic ice is increasing. I suggest you view the timelapse video of Arctic ice changes 1978-2009 at Jeff Id’s Air Vent blog [here].
That content is factual, not conjecture. And I might add that during that same period polar bear populations have risen 300 to 400 percent, as noted by the wildlife biologists in the article above.
If you have some valid reason to question the facts, please document it, rather than shooting off politically-biased conjectures without foundation.
There must be something to this global warming thing. I just saw a news piece (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSnPZhGa39s) from the San Diego Zoo and the situation with polar bears sounds bad.