To be fair, it's no more stupid than the deniers who present every snowflake as proof positive that there's no global warming.
The bear's probably old or sick. Kidney or liver failure could do it. Stomach or intestinal problems.
Canadian photographer's video of emaciated polar bear on Baffin Island goes viral
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To be fair, it's no more stupid than the deniers who present every snowflake as proof positive that there's no global warming.
The bear's probably old or sick. Kidney or liver failure could do it. Stomach or intestinal problems.
Polar Bears usually do not Eat much in the summer, they eat the most in spring and early summer, before the ice melts.
While this deeply sad video is evidence of cold mother nature, it is not evidence of death due to global warming in itself but could be.
The fact of the matter is global warming is reducing the amount of ice time the bears can eat. I think the latest word on that I read was 3 weeks less ice then 50 years ago. 3 weeks is big considering the amount of good hunting time they have. And the point of this story is that you are going to see many more images like that that is caused by global warming. They say a 20 to 30% reduction in bear population by 2050.
While this deeply sad video is evidence of cold mother nature, it is not evidence of death due to global warming in itself but could be.
The fact of the matter is global warming is reducing the amount of ice time the bears can eat. I think the latest word on that I read was 3 weeks less ice then 50 years ago. 3 weeks is big considering the amount of good hunting time they have. And the point of this story is that you are going to see many more images like that that is caused by global warming. They say a 20 to 30% reduction in bear population by 2050.
I was listening to the that kooky left wing radio show, AS IT HAPPENS, last night and they spoke with an Inuit polar bear monitorin Inuvik and it was his opinion thatthis likely had nothing to do with Climate Change.He stated that he has seen this before it was likely the bear was old and sick. Sad as it is, it's nature.I really don't know why this bear was in the shape it was, but what jumps out at you is not starvation, but cancer. I will say that those who are activist for climate change do themselves a disservice when the start putting out propaganda without the facts.
I couldn't find a clip of from AS IT HAPPENS, but here is an interesting piece from the NP.
EMACIATED POLAR BEAR: WHAT EVERYBODY GOT WRONG.
It is likely one of the most widely viewed images that is going to emerge from Canada all year: An emaciated polar bear digging through garbage that was quickly branded around the world as proof of the ecological horrors of climate change. Even Catherine McKenna, Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change, wrote in a tweet: “THIS is what climate change looks like.”
But ask the people who actually spend their time around polar bears — Arctic biologists and the Inuit — and it quickly emerges that all is not what it seems.
The bear might have been injured or diseased
“The video shows what appears to be an old male in declining health, but clear clinical signs of starvation aren’t obvious (e.g. convulsions),” said longtime polar bear biologist Andrew Derocher in an email. In a series of tweets, Arctic wildlife biologist Jeff Higdon similarly speculated that the animal could be suffering from an aggressive form of bone cancer. “That bear is starving, but (in my opinion) it’s not starving because the ice suddenly disappeared and it could no longer hunt seals,” he wrote, noting that bears routinely survive long stretches of ice-free water during the summer. “It’s far more likely that it is starving due to health issues,” he added. However, noted University of Alberta polar bear researcher Ian Stirling disputed that it was an older bear, pointing out the lack of scarring around the animal’s neck. In an email, Stirling added that it’s impossible to know for sure what caused the bear’s emaciation, but it “is what a starving bear would look like, regardless of the cause.”
The bear lives in an area where populations are doing well
Climate change is definitely very bad for the future of polar bears. As Stirling said, “more instances of starvation will be inevitable” if polar bears don’t have ice to use as a hunting platform. But for the time being, disappearing ice is having varied effects on Canadian polar bears. Depending on where they live, some bears are getting utterly decimated, while others are thriving. Notably, the emaciated polar bear quite likely lives in an area where polar bears are doing rather well. According to data collected by the federal government, polar bears along the entire west coast of Baffin Island are “stable.” On the southeastern side of the island (around the Nunavut capital of Iqaluit) polar bears have even experienced a “likely increase.” It’s only on the island’s northeastern corner — in a management area that meets Greenland — that polar bears are suspected to be in decline.
A caribou or a moose is never allowed to get this skinny: Long before it gets close to starvation, a predator has usually turned them into a meal. But if a polar bear doesn’t drown or get shot, it’s most likely going to end up looking like the bear in the photo. “Polar bears, they don’t have natural enemies, so when they die, it’s of starvation,” Steven Amstrup, chief scientist at Polar Bears International, said in 2015. And, like many other bears, such as the grizzly, polar bears sometimes go through dramatic cycles of feast and famine. “Bears can respond to improved conditions: We’ve followed bears that went from bone racks to obese over a few months,” said Derocher. Niko Inuarak lives in Pond Inlet, NU and comes from a family of hunters and guides. He said his father Charlie was “not baffled to see a polar bear in that state” and had seen it often before. In fact, the elder Inuarak had once spotted “two polar bears together one very healthy and the other bear showing the same behaviour as in the video footage,” said Niko by email.
Activists captured these photos
These images aren’t the work of a scientist, an impartial documentarian or even a concerned bystander. They are part of a very calculated public relations exercise by SeaLegacy, an organization whose stated purpose is to capture photos that drive “powerful conservation wins.” The group dispatched five expeditions in 2017, all with the goal to “trigger public and policy support for sustainable ocean solutions.” Terry Audla is a past president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, an advocacy organization representing all Canadian Inuit. In a Sunday tweet, he called the photos a “stunt” that represented a “complete disservice to climate change science.” SeaLegacy’s social media posts about the bear also failed to mention that the images were taken in August, when ice cover naturally disappears from many polar bear habitats.
Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that Audla is the current president of ITK. As corrected, he is the past president.
The Ice Age @Jamie_Woodward_
Heart-breaking scene of emaciated polar bear searching for food in Arctic Canada http://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/animals/heart-wrenching-video-shows-starving-polar-bear-on-iceless-land.aspx … @NatGeo pic.twitter.com/Fjy632IVw2
Gordy Kidlapik @Ingutaq
I was reminded of some of the fat bears I took pictures of on September 4 ‘16. No ice with lots of black flies this time of the year, seals aren’t their only food. pic.twitter.com/oC7aohqCrH
3:36 PM - Dec 8, 2017
SeaLegacy itself doesn’t know why the bear is starving
In an Instagram post, SeaLegacy co-founder Cristina Mittermeier called the bear the “Face of Climate Change.” Nevertheless, she acknowledged “we don’t know what caused this animal to starve.” In an interview with the Washington Post, SeaLegacy’s Paul Nicklen was similarly reported as having “no definitive proof that the bear’s condition was connected” to climate change.”Why he was dying, I don’t know,” said Nicklen. As Higdon noted, SeaLegacy should have contacted a Nunavut conservation officer to euthanize the bear and submit its body for a necropsy to determine the definitive cause of its ill health. “The narrative of the story might have turned out quite different if they had,” he wrote.
This isn’t how climate change works
Critics have noted an obvious flaw with pointing to a starving bear as the “face of climate change.” By the same logic, Canada’s many healthy polar bears could similarly be used as mascots for climate change denial. “Arguing (climate change) is real because of a video of one sick bear is like claiming that it is a hoax because yesterday it snowed in southern Texas,” read a tweet by Université de Sherbrooke biologist Marco Festa-Bianchet. This is why, when scientists conclude that Earth is warming or polar bears are in danger, they don’t use anecdotal information. Rather, they base their forecasts on reams of data collected over years. Derocher noted that Baffin Island polar bear populations are expected to fall off a cliff in the coming years, but it will take careful population monitoring to know for sure. “As a scientist, we look for population level changes. This video is at the individual level,” he wrote. “Of course, if this situation was observed over many bears, the interpretation may change.”
I couldn't find a clip of from AS IT HAPPENS, but here is an interesting piece from the NP.
EMACIATED POLAR BEAR: WHAT EVERYBODY GOT WRONG.
It is likely one of the most widely viewed images that is going to emerge from Canada all year: An emaciated polar bear digging through garbage that was quickly branded around the world as proof of the ecological horrors of climate change. Even Catherine McKenna, Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change, wrote in a tweet: “THIS is what climate change looks like.”
But ask the people who actually spend their time around polar bears — Arctic biologists and the Inuit — and it quickly emerges that all is not what it seems.
The bear might have been injured or diseased
“The video shows what appears to be an old male in declining health, but clear clinical signs of starvation aren’t obvious (e.g. convulsions),” said longtime polar bear biologist Andrew Derocher in an email. In a series of tweets, Arctic wildlife biologist Jeff Higdon similarly speculated that the animal could be suffering from an aggressive form of bone cancer. “That bear is starving, but (in my opinion) it’s not starving because the ice suddenly disappeared and it could no longer hunt seals,” he wrote, noting that bears routinely survive long stretches of ice-free water during the summer. “It’s far more likely that it is starving due to health issues,” he added. However, noted University of Alberta polar bear researcher Ian Stirling disputed that it was an older bear, pointing out the lack of scarring around the animal’s neck. In an email, Stirling added that it’s impossible to know for sure what caused the bear’s emaciation, but it “is what a starving bear would look like, regardless of the cause.”
The bear lives in an area where populations are doing well
Climate change is definitely very bad for the future of polar bears. As Stirling said, “more instances of starvation will be inevitable” if polar bears don’t have ice to use as a hunting platform. But for the time being, disappearing ice is having varied effects on Canadian polar bears. Depending on where they live, some bears are getting utterly decimated, while others are thriving. Notably, the emaciated polar bear quite likely lives in an area where polar bears are doing rather well. According to data collected by the federal government, polar bears along the entire west coast of Baffin Island are “stable.” On the southeastern side of the island (around the Nunavut capital of Iqaluit) polar bears have even experienced a “likely increase.” It’s only on the island’s northeastern corner — in a management area that meets Greenland — that polar bears are suspected to be in decline.
- Terence Corcoran: Canadian finds polar bears are doing fine — and gets climate-mauled
- How climate change could be making polar bears healthier and more dangerous
- Lawrence Solomon: Debunking the penguin climate panic
A caribou or a moose is never allowed to get this skinny: Long before it gets close to starvation, a predator has usually turned them into a meal. But if a polar bear doesn’t drown or get shot, it’s most likely going to end up looking like the bear in the photo. “Polar bears, they don’t have natural enemies, so when they die, it’s of starvation,” Steven Amstrup, chief scientist at Polar Bears International, said in 2015. And, like many other bears, such as the grizzly, polar bears sometimes go through dramatic cycles of feast and famine. “Bears can respond to improved conditions: We’ve followed bears that went from bone racks to obese over a few months,” said Derocher. Niko Inuarak lives in Pond Inlet, NU and comes from a family of hunters and guides. He said his father Charlie was “not baffled to see a polar bear in that state” and had seen it often before. In fact, the elder Inuarak had once spotted “two polar bears together one very healthy and the other bear showing the same behaviour as in the video footage,” said Niko by email.
Activists captured these photos
These images aren’t the work of a scientist, an impartial documentarian or even a concerned bystander. They are part of a very calculated public relations exercise by SeaLegacy, an organization whose stated purpose is to capture photos that drive “powerful conservation wins.” The group dispatched five expeditions in 2017, all with the goal to “trigger public and policy support for sustainable ocean solutions.” Terry Audla is a past president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, an advocacy organization representing all Canadian Inuit. In a Sunday tweet, he called the photos a “stunt” that represented a “complete disservice to climate change science.” SeaLegacy’s social media posts about the bear also failed to mention that the images were taken in August, when ice cover naturally disappears from many polar bear habitats.
Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that Audla is the current president of ITK. As corrected, he is the past president.
The Ice Age @Jamie_Woodward_
Heart-breaking scene of emaciated polar bear searching for food in Arctic Canada http://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/animals/heart-wrenching-video-shows-starving-polar-bear-on-iceless-land.aspx … @NatGeo pic.twitter.com/Fjy632IVw2
Gordy Kidlapik @Ingutaq I was reminded of some of the fat bears I took pictures of on September 4 ‘16. No ice with lots of black flies this time of the year, seals aren’t their only food. pic.twitter.com/oC7aohqCrH
3:36 PM - Dec 8, 2017
In an Instagram post, SeaLegacy co-founder Cristina Mittermeier called the bear the “Face of Climate Change.” Nevertheless, she acknowledged “we don’t know what caused this animal to starve.” In an interview with the Washington Post, SeaLegacy’s Paul Nicklen was similarly reported as having “no definitive proof that the bear’s condition was connected” to climate change.”Why he was dying, I don’t know,” said Nicklen. As Higdon noted, SeaLegacy should have contacted a Nunavut conservation officer to euthanize the bear and submit its body for a necropsy to determine the definitive cause of its ill health. “The narrative of the story might have turned out quite different if they had,” he wrote.
This isn’t how climate change works
Critics have noted an obvious flaw with pointing to a starving bear as the “face of climate change.” By the same logic, Canada’s many healthy polar bears could similarly be used as mascots for climate change denial. “Arguing (climate change) is real because of a video of one sick bear is like claiming that it is a hoax because yesterday it snowed in southern Texas,” read a tweet by Université de Sherbrooke biologist Marco Festa-Bianchet. This is why, when scientists conclude that Earth is warming or polar bears are in danger, they don’t use anecdotal information. Rather, they base their forecasts on reams of data collected over years. Derocher noted that Baffin Island polar bear populations are expected to fall off a cliff in the coming years, but it will take careful population monitoring to know for sure. “As a scientist, we look for population level changes. This video is at the individual level,” he wrote. “Of course, if this situation was observed over many bears, the interpretation may change.”
Very well said.
in the grand scheme of things and with multiple bodies suggesting that this sad event is an accepted part of the life cycle, the comments of Minister Mckenna speaks volumes of the personal agenda that she is promoting.... That agenda is not part-in-parcel of the duties that she is expected to execute in office
Environment Minister, Katharine McKenna is tweeting that this is the face of climate change, while Inuit Bear Monitor Leo Ikakhik states that he doubts this has anything to do with climate change. The bear was sick, but it could have been stricken with cancer, leukemia or a host of other diseases. Nature can be incredibly cruel.
Just so were clear, Katherine McKenna lives in Ottawa Centre,while Leo Ikakhik lives in the north around Hudson Bay among the the polar bears he monitors.
So, I'll close this by saying that activist groups do themselves and their cause a great disservice when they spread uneducated information for propaganda purpose.
Just so were clear, Katherine McKenna lives in Ottawa Centre,while Leo Ikakhik lives in the north around Hudson Bay among the the polar bears he monitors.
So, I'll close this by saying that activist groups do themselves and their cause a great disservice when they spread uneducated information for propaganda purpose.
Again, well said.
Had these activists reported on the condition of this critter in an objective fashion and then pursued the opportunity of exploring a cause (or contributing factor) of global warming, then it would at least have the optics of a discussion or an issue worthy of investigation.
unfortunately, the MO these days is to actively seek a circumstance or event, declare that causation is an absolute with the statement that there is no discussion (ie the science is settled) and finally follow-up with a program of child-like insults of denier, etc for any and all that seek to pursue discourse.
Regrettably, this is how I (and many) interpret the statements of Minister McKenna in this event