Surprise! New global-warming report reveals truth about polar bears
WND
A new report finds that, contrary to the predictions of many scientists, polar bars are actually thriving.
“Numbers are so high that Inuit leaders have been pleading with the Canadian government for more polar bear population control as violent attacks against native populations have dramatically risen in recent years,” pointed out Marc Morano at the Climate Depot website, which presents evidence countering the claim that mankind is causing catastrophic global warming.
A decade ago, many scientists predicted the population of polar bears would be down by 67 percent about now.
But the report by zoologist Susan Crockford, writing for the non-partisan Global Warming Policy Foundation think tank, found that the bears are thriving.
Her study noted the finding “contradicts claims by environmentalists and some scientists that falls in sea ice would wipe out bear populations.”
Crockford wrote there now is “very little evidence to support the idea that the polar bear is threatened with extinction by climate change.”
She wrote: “We now know that polar bears are very resourceful creatures. They have made it through warm periods in the past and they seem to be taking the current warming in their stride too.”
She said the people of Nunavut “are not seeing starving, desperate bears – quite the opposite.”
“Yet polar bear specialists are saying these bears are causing problems because they don’t have enough sea ice to feed properly,” she wrote. “The facts on the ground make their claims look silly, including the abundance of fat bears. Residents are pushing their government for a management policy that makes protection of human life the priority.”
The London-based Global Warming Policy Foundation describes itself as being “open-minded on the contested science of global warming” while remaining “deeply concerned about the costs and other implications of many of the policies currently being advocated.”
The report shows that polar bear numbers have risen since 2005, despite the summer sea ice in 2018 being at a low point.
“Despite marked declines in summer sea ice, Chukchi Sea polar bears continue to thrive: reports from the first population-size estimate for the region, performed in 2016, show bears in the region are abundant (almost 3000 individuals), healthy and reproducing well,” the evaluation found.
“National Geographic received such a profound backlash from its widely viewed ‘this is what climate change looks like’ starving polar bear video, released in late 2017, that in 2018 it made a formal public apology for spreading misinformation,” the report said.
“In Canada, where perhaps two-thirds of the world’s polar bears live, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife (COSEWIC) decided in 2018 to continue to list the polar bear as a species of ‘Special concern’ rather than upgrade to ‘Threatened.'”
The report noted the U.S. Geological Survey estimated the global population of polar bears at 24,500 in 2005.
“In 2015, the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group estimated the population at 26,000 (range 22,000-31,000) but additional surveys published 2015-2017 brought the total to near 28,500. However, data published in 2018 brought that number to almost 29,500 with a relatively wide margin of error,” the report said.
“This is the highest global estimate since the bears were protected by international treaty in 1973. While potential measurement error means it can only be said that the global population has likely been stable since 2005 (but may have increased slightly), it is far from the precipitous decline polar bear experts expected given summer sea ice levels as low as they have been in recent years.”
Said the report: “The International Union for the Conservation of Nature, in their 2015 Red List assessment, again listed the polar bear as ‘vulnerable’ to extinction, just as it did in 2006. Similarly, in 2016, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service upheld its 2008 conclusion that polar bears were ‘threatened’ with extinction under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. In both of these instances, polar bear conservation status is based on computer-modeled future declines predicted to exceed standard threshold levels … not observed declines.”
The possible current population total of 29,500 “is a far cry” from the 7,500 “we were assured would be all that would remain.”
Further, “there has been no increase in the percentage of starving or dying bears in recent years compared to the 1980s, despite the hungry bear photos and videos that have gone viral on the internet.”
“While such images have been used to make points about human-caused global warming and loss of Arctic sea ice, none of the photos circulated to date show[s] bears that were unequivocally harmed due to reduced sea ice and lack of prey.”
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