Polar bears vanishing from ‘polar bear capital of the world’ in Canada

Government research shows dramatic decline in numbers in western Hudson Bay stronghold



Agence-France Presse
Sat 24 Dec 2022 23.04 AEDTLast modified on Sun 25 Dec 2022 00.45 AEDT


Polar bears are disappearing fast from the western part of Hudson Bay on the southern tip of the Canadian Arctic, according to a government survey.

The report said there had been a dramatic decline in the of number of female bears and cubs in particular.

Researchers have flown over the region, which includes the town of Churchill, a tourist destination touted as the “polar bear capital of the world”, every five years to count the number of bears and extrapolate population trends.


During the last survey in late August and early September 2021, the results of which were released earlier this month, they spotted 194 bears and, based on that count, estimated a total population of 618, down from 842 five years earlier.

Comparison with aerial survey estimates from 2011 and 2016 suggested the Western Hudson Bay population “may be decreasing in abundance”, the study said.

It also revealed “significant declines in the abundance of adult female and subadult bears between 2011 and 2021”.

“The observed declines are consistent with longstanding predictions regarding the demographic effects of climate change on polar bears,” the researchers said.

They also cited possible displacements to neighbouring regions and hunting for the population decline.

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...rom-polar-bear-capital-of-the-world-in-canada

It seems that in this region, at least, polar bear numbers are showing a trend towards a reduction in numbers. This is particularly in younger bears. Not enough are making it through to adulthood. It will be interesting to learn more and engage future studies to determine more specifically how this is happening and how that relates to reproduction rates of this vulnerable species.

 

Or maybe not:

 

There is no evidence for the OP claim.
". . . The BBC and others only get away with such blatantly false statements because polar bear specialists simply do not update their published data on Western Hudson Bay sea ice or condition of bears. Data for ice is now 7 years out of date and information on the condition of the bears is decades out of date. . . . ."
No evidence for BBC claim that Churchill is simply getting too warm for polar bears
Posted on December 18, 2022 | Comments Offon No evidence for BBC claim that Churchill is simply getting too warm for polar bears
Another pronouncement from conservation activists at Polar Bears International taken without a single check of facts makes the BBC look ineffective and gullible.




The photo above of a ‘green dot’ bear was taken 10 November 2022 by a Churchill resident. Bears released from the ‘polar bear jail’ when there is enough sea ice for them to resume hunting are marked with a green dot.

Continue reading →

 

During the last survey in late August and early September 2021, the results of which were released earlier this month, they spotted 194 bears and, based on that count, estimated a total population of 618, down from 842 five years earlier.

Comparison with aerial survey estimates from 2011 and 2016 suggested the Western Hudson Bay population “may be decreasing in abundance”, the study said.

 

During the last survey in late August and early September 2021, the results of which were released earlier this month, they spotted 194 bears and, based on that count, estimated a total population of 618, down from 842 five years earlier.

Comparison with aerial survey estimates from 2011 and 2016 suggested the Western Hudson Bay population “may be decreasing in abundance”, the study said.

 

did you follow my link?

Here's another one

 

Why do you think that there is a decline in the of number of bears in Hudson bay?

 

". . . . The simple fact is that sea ice in Western Hudson Bay, where Churchill is located, has not been declining more and more with rising CO2 emissions, according to data published by polar bear specialists (e.g. Castro de la Guardia et al. 2017).

Since 2015, there has been only one ‘late’ freeze-up year (2016)–but five very early ones–and at most one relatively early breakup year (with some bears ashore in June). This year (2022) freeze-up was about as early as it was in the 1980s, as was the case in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020, as the chart below indicates (dark blue is more ice than usual compared to 1991-2020). Breakup happened in July in 2022, so also not early.


In other words, there has been no escalation of poor Churchill-area sea ice conditions in recent years as stated by the BBC.

The BBC and others only get away with such blatantly false statements because polar bear specialists simply do not update their published data on Western Hudson Bay sea ice or condition of bears. Data for ice is now 7 years out of date and information on the condition of the bears is decades out of date.

Moreover, the models predicting the demise of polar bears by 2100 are implausible prophesies based on discredited RCP8.5 scenarios that assume an unrealistic 500% increase in coal and a 60C rise in global temperature (Hausfather and Peters 2020) and out-of-date information on WH bears (Molnar et al. 2010, 2020). . . . "

 

Polar bear triplet litter spotted near Churchill as ice starts to form along west coast of Hudson Bay
Posted on November 4, 2022 | Comments Offon Polar bear triplet litter spotted near Churchill as ice starts to form along west coast of Hudson Bay
Polar bears, including a litter of triplet cubs (a sign of very good health), are gathering near Churchill, Manitoba where new ice is forming along the coast. This means the fall seal hunt will soon begin, depending on the winds (it might be a few days from now or a few weeks).


See below for some of the images of bears on the shore of Wapusk National Park taken by Explore.org video cams from Tundra Buggy-based cameras, as well as the most recent Churchill problem bear report.

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Polar bear habitat update: ice forming along Hudson Bay, Wrangel & Franz Josef Islands surrounded
Posted on November 10, 2022 | Comments Offon Polar bear habitat update: ice forming along Hudson Bay, Wrangel & Franz Josef Islands surrounded
Western Hudson Bay polar bears near Churchill will be able to leave shore within days, at most one week later than in the 1980s, although you wouldn’t know that from the climate change activists at Polar Bears International who have spent the last week promoting some egregiously false and misleading statements. PBI controls the narrative surrounding Western Hudson Bay bears through their partnership with the biggest polar bear tourist outfits in Churchill and online.


Yesterday, it was “See how the climate crisis is changing their world”.



Developing no slower than it did in 2007 (16 years of no change), Arctic sea ice is providing polar bears in southern regions with their second-most critical feeding opportunities while in areas like Wrangel Island and Franz Josef Land, they now have easy access to and from important summer refuge/maternity denning islands. And contrary to predictions of increased ‘conflict’ between polar bears and people around Churchill, there have been fewer problem bear reports there in recent years, this year included. In other words, there is no ‘climate crisis’ for polar bears, even in Western Hudson Bay, and recent models of a dire future for polar bears are based on totally implausible worst-case climate scenarios. Sea ice loss since 1979 has been so gradual that polar bears have been able to adapt, either through natural selection or changes in behaviour.

UPDATE 12 November 2022. One of the independents on the ground near Churchill had this to say about the bears and freeze-up conditions this year:

“Bears started leaving on November 10; conservation emptied the jail on the 10th as well.”

[the 10th was the day this post was originally published; ‘the jail’ is the Churchill Polar Bear Alert Program’s ‘holding facility’, see report below]. This information suggests the average date for bears leaving shore will likely turn out to be 12-14 November, again earlier than the average for the 1980s (16 Nov +/- 5 days). There may still be a few bears on the shore of Wapusk National Park that seem to be in no hurry to leave, but a few stragglers doesn’t mean there isn’t ice available for hunting.

Continue reading →

 

Hudson Bay sea ice freeze-up in 2022 like the 1980s for the 5th time since 2015
Posted on November 17, 2022 | Comments Offon Hudson Bay sea ice freeze-up in 2022 like the 1980s for the 5th time since 2015
This is the fifth year out of the last seven that enough sea ice has formed along the west coast of Hudson Bay by mid-November for bears to be able to head out to the ice, just as it did in the 1980s.


‘Green dot’ problem bear released from Churchill holding facility on 10 November 2022. Dorota Walkoski photo.
One of the independent polar bear guides on the ground near Churchill had this to say about the bears and freeze-up conditions this year:

“Bears started leaving on November 10; conservation emptied the jail on the 10th as well.”

‘The jail’ is the Churchill Polar Bear Alert Program’s ‘holding facility’. While the Alert program folks have not released a report for this week (gee, I wonder why?), nearby tourist outfit Great White Bear Tours not only confirmed the bears were released from jail but posted a picture of a ‘green dot bear’: the mark put on problem bears released from the holding facility to keep track of them. Bears are not released before there is ample ice along shore for them to move out. Great White Bear Tours have been tracking bears moving offshore.

This information suggests the average date for bears leaving shore will likely turn out to be 12-14 November, again earlier than the average for the 1980s (16 Nov +/- 5 days) (Castro de la Guardia et al. 2017). That makes five out of the last seven years (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022) since 2015 that bears have left about the same time as they did in the 1980s.

While there are still be a few bears on the shore of Wapusk National Park that seem to be in no hurry to leave, a few stragglers doesn’t mean there isn’t ice available for hunting.



Continue reading →

 

Natural animal populations fluctuate naturally for many natural reasons -- prevailing winds, food supply, disease, predation, etc. The longer numbers have been growing rapidly, as polar bear numbers have, the higher the probability that they will decline. The biggest factor in polar bear populations is human hunting.

 

Motivated reasoning among those publishing their count.

 

Five years old but still true.
Polar bear numbers not declining despite media headlines suggesting otherwise
Posted on January 21, 2018 |
In scanning comments generated by the recent flurry of internet interest in polar bears and blogs I noticed that a good many people, fed alarming media stories, are still convinced that polar bear numbers are declining rapidly when nothing could be further from the truth. . . .

 

Here's a little more recent conformation Arctic Air at decade high <-link

 

Here is an interesting (on-topic) titbit of information about this species that has been declared vulnerable. The ice pack in the Hudson Bay has decreased by nearly 50% in summer since the 1980s. There were approximately 1200 bears in 1980s, so bear numbers have approximately halved as well.

 

Well, no. Bear numbers are stable or increasing, and they do not diminish with sea ice.
Crockford, S.J. 2017. Testing the hypothesis that routine sea ice coverage of 3-5 mkm2 results in a greater than 30% decline in population size of polar bears (Ursus maritimus). PeerJ Preprints 2 March 2017. Doi: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.2737v3 https://peerj.com/preprints/2737/

 

Are bear numbers stable or increasing in Hudson bay area?

 

There is no basis to claim otherwise -- information on the condition of the bears is decades out of date.

". . . .Despite almost a dozen papers (and perhaps more) on various aspects of WH polar bear health and life history studies based on capture/recapture data published since 2004 (e.g. Castro de la Guardia 2017; Lunn et al. 2016; Pilfold et al. 2017), none have reported the body condition data that supposedly support the claim that sea ice loss is having a severe impact — and the same is true for litter size, proportion of independent yearlings, and cub survival 1

And as I discuss in my new book, The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened, poor body condition, lowered reproductive rates and much reduced cub survival was a hallmark of Western Hudson Bay polar bears in the 1980s and early 1990s – before declining sea ice was any kind of issue but when polar bear numbers were higher than they’d been in perhaps a century or more (Derocher 1991; Derocher and Stirling 1992, 1995; Ramsay and Stirling 198.

Too many bears relative to the food supply seemed a logical explanation at the time. But before Stirling had time to investigate fully, he jumped on the climate change bandwagon and banged the climate drum so loudly that concerns about WH bears in the 1980s were forgotten. From that point forward, everything bad that has happened to polar bears in general – and Western Hudson Bay bears in particular – has been blamed on global warming (Stirling and Derocher 1993, 2012; Stirling et al. 1999). . . . "

 

Thanks for playing. Have a good day.

 

" . . . In something resembling a new pattern for Western Hudson Bay polar bears, most of the animals are still out on the ice in late July this year, just like they were in the 1980s. The same thing happened last year but was brushed off as a happy anomaly. However, after last fall’s 1980s-like early freeze-up, this makes the sixth year in a row of good to very good sea ice conditions for Western Hudson Bay polar bears. No wonder polar bear experts haven’t published these data: good sea ice conditions along with polar bears coming ashore fat and healthy are not just inconvenient – they threaten to destroy the extinction panic narrative that depends on Western Hudson Bay bears showing evidence of harm from reduced sea ice. . . . "

Six good years in a row for the polar bear subpopulation used to predict species demise
2020 › 07 › 29 › six-good-years-in-a-row-for-the-polar-bear-subpopulation-used-to-predict-species-demise
good sea ice conditions for Western Hudson Bay polar bears. No wonder polar bear experts haven’t published ... that the Hudson Bay ice had been “similar to the 80s” and that Western Hudson Bay polar bears had had

 

The bears came through just fine.
Another New Study Affirms The Arctic Was Warmer With Less Sea Ice During The Mid-Holocene
By Kenneth Richard on 29. December 2022

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“Compared to the present climate, the Arctic climate in MH [Mid-Holocene] summer became warmer and had less sea ice” (Dong et al., 2022).
While the modern Arctic “remains largely covered by sea ice in June and July,” the higher summer sea surface temperatures (SSTs) from about 3,000 to 7,000 years ago meant the East Siberian Sea had “sea-ice free conditions throughout the MH summer.”



Image Source: Dong et al., 2022

 

Nothing about polar bear numbers. "A good year" repeatedly. A picture of a fat bear. Not very scientific, is it?

 

Off topic. Please try not to spam this thread about the decline of Hudson bay bear populations.

 

It's hardly spamming when your thesis is that declining sea ice endangers the bear population.