Twenty reasons not to worry about polar bears—updated for 2017

Just in time for Polar Bears International’s self-proclaimed fall Polar Bear Week (5-11 November 2017), here’s a new resource for cooling the polar bear spin.

I’ve updated my 2015 summary of reasons not to worry about polar bears, which is now more than two years old.

In this new version, you will find links to supporting information, including published papers and fully referenced blog posts of mine that provide background, maps, and bibliographies, although some of the most important graphs and maps have been reproduced here.

I hope you find it a useful resource for refuting the pessimism and prophecies of a catastrophe about the future of polar bears. Please feel free to share it.

As global leaders meet in Bonn for COP23 (6-17 November 2017), it’s time to celebrate the proven resilience of polar bears to their ever-changing Arctic environment.

TWENTY REASONS: THE BULLET POINTS

1. Polar bears are still a conservation success story: there are more polar bears now than there were 40 years ago.
2. Fewer populations are in decline than in 2010 (only one, officially) and only six are data deficient (down from nine).
3. Abrupt summer sea ice decline has not affected polar bear numbers as predicted: even though sea ice levels dropped to mid-century levels in 2007, the expected decimation of polar bears failed to occur.
4. The Chukchi Sea population is thriving despite a pronounced lengthening of the ice-free season since 2007.
5. Less sea ice in the summer in the Chukchi Sea has meant a healthy prey base for polar bears because ringed seals feed primarily during the ice-free season.
6. Polar bears have shown themselves to be adaptable to changing ice conditions in several regions.
7. Southern Beaufort numbers have rebounded since the last survey count.
8. Barents Sea numbers have probably increased since 2005 and have definitely not declined despite much less sea ice cover.
9. There is no evidence that record-low summer sea ice in 2012 had a harmful effect on Southern Beaufort bear numbers.
10. Other species are being negatively impacted by high polar bear numbers, especially nesting seabirds and ducks.
11. Western Hudson Bay population numbers have been stable since 2004, despite what scientists are telling the media.
12. Hudson Bay sea ice has not changed since about 1999: breakup dates and freeze-up dates are highly variable but the ice-free period was not any longer in 2015 than it was in 2004. However, this fall freeze-up is shaping up to be the earliest in decades.
13. Problem bears in Churchill are not lean or starving.
14. Churchill Manitoba had the most problem bears in 1983 and 2016, which were late freeze-up years, but many of the incidents in 2016 can be attributed to increased vigilance on the part of patrol officers after an attack in 2013.
15. There have been only marginal sea ice declines during the feeding period in spring when polar bears need sea ice the most.
16. The is no evidence that subsistence hunting is affecting bear populations.
17. Stressful research methods have been curtailed in much of Canada.
18. There have been no reports of polar bear cannibalism since 2011.
19. Polar bears appear unaffected by pollution: studies suggest only that harm is theoretically possible, not that it has happened.
20. Polar bears have survived past warm periods, which is evidence they have the ability to survive future warm periods.

Conclusion

• Polar bears are thriving: they are not currently threatened with extinction.
• Tens of thousands of polar bears did not die as a result of more than a decade of low summer sea ice, as was predicted.
• Polar bears don’t need sea ice in late summer/early fall as long as they are well-fed in the spring.

[FULL TEXT BELOW, PDF WITH FOOTNOTES AND REFERENCES HERE]

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