‘Already too late’ to save Churchill polar bears claim a false NY Times climate change cliché for COP26 – Watts Up With That?
Dr. Susan Crockford
Not solely is it prime polar bear viewing week in Churchill, Manitoba nevertheless it’s the week of the twenty sixth worldwide elite COP climate change gab-fest: each media outlet on the planet is keen to advertise local weather disaster speaking factors.
Therefore completely anticipated that the New York Times would print somebody’s unsupported declare that the polar bears of Churchill (a part of the Western Hudson Bay subpopulation) are on the verge of extirpation on account of lack of sea ice and different comparable nonsense. Additionally not stunning to seek out that Canadian authorities biologist Nick Lunn used the event to again offer unpublished and misleading data to a reporter. Nevertheless, this time it’s excellent news meant to sound like an emergency: if appropriate, the info he shared point out polar bears are heavier now than they had been within the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s.
“This isn’t one other story about saving Hudson Bay’s polar bears. It’s too late for that. This can be a story about what comes subsequent for a small city that payments itself because the Polar Bear Capital of the World.
In Churchill, an remoted city perched on the southern fringe of the Arctic, local weather change shouldn’t be a looming hazard. It imbues every day life. It’s damaged sewer strains and taller bushes, longer summers and larger snowstorms and moose the place caribou used to go. Most of all, it’s the concern that Individuals received’t come go to anymore.
...There’s not lots of sentimentality about polar bears in Churchill. It’s laborious to mourn the lack of the bears whereas they’re ubiquitous. Certainly, many locals say the bears have grow to be bolder and extra seen lately...“
‘3,000 Miles From Glasgow, a Town and Its Polar Bears Face the Future‘ (Binyamnin Appelbaum, 4 November 2021) [my emphasis].
‘Too late for the bears” makes it sound like they’re already gone. Sorry, an 11% decline in population measurement shouldn’t be a death-knell.
The final reported survey for your entire WH subpopulation was executed in 2016: it estimated 842 bears for one particular area in comparison with 949 bears for a similar area in 2011. These are the one two survey numbers than may be reliably in contrast in line with the scientists who did the 2016 survey (Dyck et al. 2017). Any obvious decline is not statistically significant, which suggests the inhabitants is steady regardless of what the NYT editorial board author claims. I’ve been informed one other survey was executed in August this year however the outcomes will doubtless not be out till September or so subsequent yr.
“Moose the place caribou used to go” makes it sound just like the caribou are gone. Which will depend as poetic journalism nevertheless it’s nonsense: there is no such thing as a proof that Cape Churchill caribou numbers have declined by any quantity lately. the inhabitants is taken into account stable at about 3,000 animals. There are some moose in the wooded areas of Cape Churchill, for positive, however they don’t seem to be thriving on the expense of caribou, preferring the tundra habitat along the coast.
And it might certainly be ‘laborious to mourn the loss‘ of polar bear when they’re in all places round Churchill. How foolish to indicate the bears are to this point gone they’ll’t be saved solely to confess a couple of paragraphs later that the bears are considerable. Again within the Eighties, seeing more bears meant there were more bears; now different excuses should be made to elucidate why bears are considerable the place they had been predicted to be scarce.
Weights of pregnant bears elevated since Nineteen Nineties
The NYTs piece quotes Nick Lunn as saying that the weights of pregnant polar bears declined 15% between 1980 and 2019, which appears like a worrying statistic. Nevertheless, a paper by Stirling and Derocher in 2012 (their Fig. 5, copied under) confirmed the typical weight of a pregnant bear in 1980 was about 295 kg. Subsequently a 15% loss can be 250.75 kg, which is extra than the typical for many years within the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s.
In different phrases, the bears had been in higher form in 2019 than they had been within the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s.
Lunn additionally claimed that “new births are in decline“. Nevertheless, until and till the info supporting such a declare are revealed, it’s secure to say it’s immaterial. That’s, the info may confer with bears from round Churchill however to not the entire of Western Hudson Bay, which is the official subpopulation. Churchill-exclusive knowledge aren’t relevant to official WH subpopulation science.
Lastly, nobody on this piece mentions latest ice situations. After all they don’t as a result of though this yr has been common for WH polar bears, the six previous years have been excellent – common or shorter than typical ice-free seasons, bears good and fats.
This has been an excellent season for polar bear viewing close to Churchill, with fewer than usual problem bear reports. There isn’t a ice on the bay for the week of 1 November however that’s regular, because the chart from the Canadian Ice Service reveals (under) – no blue or crimson displaying alongside the west coast means ‘regular’ situations:
As of right now (4 November), there’s a bit of latest ice forming north of Churchill close to Arviat:
I depart you with my message from a few years in the past:
References
Dyck, M., Campbell, M., Lee, D., Boulanger, J. and Hedman, D. 2017. 2016 Aerial survey of the Western Hudson Bay polar bear subpopulation. Closing report, Nunavut Division of Atmosphere, Wildlife Analysis Part, Iglolik, NU. http://www.gov.nu.ca/environnement/information/wildlife-research-reports#polarbear
Stirling, I. and Derocher, A.E. 2012. Results of local weather warming on polar bears: a evaluate of the proof. World Change Biology 18:2694-2706. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2486.2012.02753.x
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