In what one zoologist is calling “fake news,” the US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) announced the final version of a draft report that #Climate Change is the chief threat to polar bears.
Released yesterday, the Conservation Management Plan (CMP) is a wide-ranging report to help save the Arctic polar bear as warmer temperatures eat away at their sea ice.
And media outlets took the bait and ran misleading headlines using a recycled report from mid-2015.
According to Dr. Susan Crockford, an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria, British Columbia and a zoologist with 35 years’ experience, the USFWS is deliberating deceiving the public with phony animal survival predictions.
In the last 50 years, their populations have nearly doubled, with the IUCN Red List assessment report showing an estimated 22,000-31,000 bears in the Arctic region alone.
Fake news on polar bear survival predictions is political posturing https://t.co/2McohzZu0X pic.twitter.com/WwzWxw1skM
— Susan Crockford (@sjc_pbs) January 9, 2017
Recycled report
This is the same report that was distributed in mid-2015 in preliminary draft form, but little has changed and key information is still wrong or missing.
Crockford doesn’t think it’s a coincidence the report is being “recycled” ahead of President-elect #Donald Trump‘s inauguration and used for political machinations.
