Dr. Susan Crockford
Researchers have found that 300 polar bears living in SE Greenland (under 64 degrees N) are so genetically and geographically distinct that they qualify as a single cub population. , adding one more to the 19 subpopulations currently described by the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group.
Previously, polar bear researchers simply assumed that all bear species in East Greenland belonged to the same subpopulation but no field work done in the southernmost region until 2015-2017. When they included the area, they received a big surprise: now they are filming it that has important implications for polar bear conservation (Laidre et al. 2022).
From a new paper by Kristin Laidre and colleagues today in the journal Sciencethe map below shows this newly identified population in red in SE Greenland (south 64 degrees N), known as King Frederick VI’s Coast:
Story
Apparently several bears were found at the southwestern tip of Greenland, near former Norse ‘Eastern Settlement’ (dark blue in the map above) are not part of this new population, which means recent problems on the SW head of Greenland – including a horse was killed in the winter of 2016–The members of this new subpopulation cannot be blamed.
My own work on undisclosed ancient polar bear remains any archaeological specimens from that area (Crockford 2022). Just a few known ancient Inuit sites in the area, mainly around Timmiarmiit.
Danish naval officer Wilhelm August Graah explored the SE coast in 1828-30 while searching for the lost Northeastern European Settlement and, after circumventing the cape at Cape Farewell, described the now extinct SE Greenland Inuit (Graah 1837). In 1929, he named the area King Frederick VI’s Coast but was prevented from going beyond the area of Koge Bay (see map above) by thick pack ice.
Currently, the largest community on the SE coast is located further north, at Tasiilaq, but the territory of polar bears SE Greenland is currently uninhabited. Few hunters ventured far south, even temporarily.
New Population
This newly discovered population of SE Greenland bears appears to use sea-terminating glacial fronts (including fragments of freshwater glaciers) that exist in coastal fjords as a platform for hunting seals. rings when the fast ice that is locked on land disappears. As they also do in Svalbardsome ringed seals use glacial frontal habitat year round, possibly because the presence of ice creates aquifers nutrients and thus, the fish eat (Hamilton et al. 2016, 2017). In other words, ring seals and polar bears across the Arctic are almost certainly capable of using glacier-front habitats whenever they emerge, as they did in SE Greenland.
According to the authors:
Southeast Greenland bears appear to have adapted their movements to the specific physical geography of the area. The seasonal high-velocity East Greenland coastal current (12) carries a narrow band of low-concentration ice south of 64°N and around the southern tip of Greenland (sum. S8 to S10) (13) . All Southeast Greenland bears tracked moving out of the fjord (n = 11) were captured in this case
drift ice, and transported south to Cape Farewell, drifted an average of 189 km in <2 weeks (Figure S4). Notably, all swam to shore and walked overland to their home fjord within 1 to 2 months, demonstrating the high fidelity of the site. Bears in Southeast Greenland must stay inside the fjord or risk being exported to human settlements in South Greenland or into the North Atlantic.Lairdre et al. 2022: 1333.
The map above from Laidre’s paper shows the genetic variation of this subpopulation (‘SEG’). Evidence of some northern immigration suggests that this group was not completely isolated, and the authors mention that the new immigrants soon learned to live in this pre-glacial environment (Laidre et al. 2022). : 1337).
However, genetic data also indicate that subpopulations have diverged for only about 200 years (189-264). This suggests to me the possibility that the thick ice at about 65 degrees N that prevented Graah’s northward voyage in 1829 mentioned above could be a decades-long phenomenon that also traps polar bears on the coast of Southeast Asia and keep them completely separate from NE. Greenland suffered until very recently. The authors did not mention this as a possibility: in fact, they did not offer any explanation for why the populations diverged about 200 years ago or comment. why such distinctive genetic markers would be obvious after such a short evolutionary period. .
The authors suggest, of course, that this new subpopulation – although unnoticed by them for decades, easily survived an ice-free period similar to conditions predicted in the Arctic. high in the late 2100s – must be conserved to protect the genetic diversity of the species (Peacock 2022). In other words, they mostly see it as a welcome additional pressure to protect polar bears from global warming.
Peacock concludes [my bold]:
It is not clear whether the Agreement [1973 International Agreement to Protect the Polar Bear], has been very successful in bringing the global population back from overharvesting, would be an appropriate mechanism to protect polar bears from habitat loss due to climate change. The population in southeastern Greenland is a group of small, genetically distinct bears with distinctive ecosystems. In conserving this polar bear population, we see a clear test of the modern influence of the half-century-old International Agreement for the Conservation of Polar Bears.
Peacock 2022: 1268
I really appreciate Lily Peacock’s admission that The number of polar bears has really increased since the 1960s, as I was criticized for pointing it out (Crockford 2017, 2019; Crockford and Geist 2018). Ignore all the meaningless hands of impending doom based on Unbelievable climate model, the existence of this new population is exciting but hardly a game changer. In two articles and several press releases, there is no mention of the fact that polar bears are generally savvy and flexible enough to be able to survive. some warmth between the tapes warmer than today (Cronin et al. 2014; Cronin and Cronin 2015) or more recent Svalbard bears move onto the sea ice or to Franz Josef Land as sea ice on the west coast of the archipelago became scarce (Aars et al. 2017; Andersen et al. 2012; Crockford 2019).
Bottom line: I agree with 20 polar bear populations and am pleased that adding SE Greenland to the mix, separate from NE Greenland, is the right thing to do. I am pleased to see evidence that pre-glacial habitats can support a small polar bear population even without sea ice in the summer. Now let’s look at the population size estimate for the whole of East Greenland that we have been waiting for over ten years (Laidre et al. 2012). There are only about 600 bears (as a PBGS estimate gives) or around 2,000 (the ballpark estimate used by 2015 Red List Review)? Or is there more?
Presenter
Aars, J., Marques, TA, Lone, K., Anderson, M., Wiig, Ø., Fløystad, IMB, Hagen, SB and Buckland, ST 2017. Number and distribution of polar bears in the western Barents Sea. Polar research 36: 1. 1374125. doi:10.1080 / 17518369.2017.1374125
Andersen, M., Derocher, AE, Wiig, Ø. and Aars, J. 2012. Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) Maternity den distribution in Svalbard, Norway. Biological Pole 35: 499-508.
Crockford, SJ 2017. Test the hypothesis that regular sea ice cover of 3-5 mkm2 leads to a decline of more than 30% in polar bear population size (Ursus maritimus). PeerJ Preprint March 2, 2017. Doi: 10.7287 / peerj.preprints.2737v3 Open access. https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.2737v3
Crockford, SJ 2019. The polar bear disaster has never happened. Global Warming Policy Fund, London. Available in paperback and eBooks formats.
Crockford, SJ 2022. Polar bear fossils and archaeological records from the Pleistocene and Holocene relate to sea ice extent and open water polynyas. Open Quaternary 8 (7): 1-26. https://doi.org.10.5334/oq.107
Crockford, SJ and Geist, V. 2018. Conserve Fiasco. Range Magazine, Winter 2017/2018, p. 26-27. Pdf here.
Cronin, MA, Rincon, G., Meredith, RW, MacNeil, MD, Islas-Trejo, A., Cánovas, A. and Medrano, JF 2014. Molecular phylogenetics and SNP variation of polar bears (Ursus maritimus), Brown bear (U. arctos), and black bear (U. americanus) are derived from genome sequences. Genetics Magazine 105 (3): 312-323. http://jhering.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/01/28/jhering.est133.abstract
Cronin, TM and Cronin, MA 2015. Biological responses to climate change in the Arctic Ocean: perspectives from the past. Arktos 1:1-18 [Open access] http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41063-015-0019-3
In 1837, Graah WA. Report of the Expedition to the East Coast of Greenland, sent by the Order of the King of Denmark, in search of the lost colonies, under the command of Captn. WA Graah (JW Parker, 1837).
Hamilton, CD, Kovacs, KM, Ims, RA, Aars, J. and Lydersen, C. 2016. Coastal habitat use of the annular seal Pusa hispida after regional sea ice collapse: The importance of glacial refugia in a changing Arctic region. Sea Ecological Progress Series 545: 261-277.
Hamilton, CD, Kovacs, KM, Ims, RA, Aars, J. and Lydersen, C. 2017. Continuous Arctic predation-predation system: climate change affects coastal space use by polar bears and ring seals. Animal Ecology Magazine 86: 1054–1064.
Laidre, KL, Born, EW, Gurarie, E., Wiig, O., Dietz, R. and Stern, H. 2012. Females roam while males patrol: differences in the breeding season of ice polar bears (Ursus maritimus). Proceedings of the Royal Society of B 280: 1-10. DOI: 10.1098 / rspb.2012.2371 Open Access http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1752/20122371
Laidre, KL, Supple, MA, Born, EW, et al. Year 2022. The glaciation supports a distinct and undocumented polar bear population that existed in sea ice conditions in the late 21st century. Science 376 (6599): 1333-1338. Additional pdf here.
Peacock, E. 2022. A new polar bear population: Can international conservation agreements protect these bears? Science 376 (6599): 1267-1268.
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