Page 1 of 1
#1 Polar Bear population increased
Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2013 4:28 am
by General Havoc
I'm reposting this rather tentatively, as it triggered a fight with the last person I brought it up to.
http://www.npr.org/2013/02/02/170779528/the-inconvenient-truth-about-polar-bears?ft=1&f=1025
In 2008, reports of polar bears' inevitable march toward extinction gripped headlines. Stories of thinning Arctic ice and even polar bear cannibalism combined to make these predators into a powerful symbol in the debate about climate change.
The headlines caught Zac Unger's attention, and he decided to write a book about the bears.
Unger made a plan to move to Churchill, Manitoba, a flat, gray place on the Hudson Bay in northern Canada accessible only by train or plane. For a few months out of the year, as the bay starts to freeze, tiny Churchill boasts as many polar bears as it does people.
Unger packed up his wife and three small kids, and set out with a big bold idea. He wanted to write the quintessential requiem of how human-caused climate change was killing off these magnificent beasts.
In the end, he came away with something totally different, Unger tells NPR's Laura Sullivan.
Interview Highlights
On wanting to write the next great environmental tract
"My humble plan was to become a hero of the environmental movement. I was going to go up to the Canadian Arctic, I was going to write this mournful elegy for the polar bears, at which point I'd be hailed as the next coming of John Muir and borne aloft on the shoulders of my environmental compatriots ...
"So when I got up there, I started realizing polar bears were not in as bad a shape as the conventional wisdom had led me to believe, which was actually very heartening, but didn't fit well with the book I'd been planning to write.
"... There are far more polar bears alive today than there were 40 years ago. ... In 1973, there was a global hunting ban. So once hunting was dramatically reduced, the population exploded. This is not to say that global warming is not real or is not a problem for the polar bears. But polar bear populations are large, and the truth is that we can't look at it as a monolithic population that is all going one way or another."
On moving his family to "Polar Bear Capital of the World"
"We were in this town in northern Manitoba where polar bears literally will walk down Main Street. There are polar bears in this town. People will leave their cars and houses unlocked, and it's perfectly good form just to duck into any open door you can find when there's a polar bear chasing you.
"People use what they call Churchill welcome mats, which is a piece of plywood laid down in front of the door or leaned up against the door with hundreds of nails sticking out so that when the polar bear comes up to pad across your porch, he's going to get a paw full of sharp nails."
#2 Re: Polar Bear population increased
Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2013 4:14 pm
by rhoenix
This is actually great news to hear - there were some indications I've read within the past two years that predicted dire circumstances for polar bears, and this appears to be a tentative reversal from that.
Or, of course, there was some THE WORLD IS DYING BECAUSE OF YOU skewing of the reporting. Either way, no matter the bias on other articles, this is great to hear.
On the other hand, polar bears being so common that they just nonchalantly walk down the street is rather cool, even if the people there have to resort to nailed welcome mats to discourage polar bears from performing a walk-in dining experience in someone's refrigerator.
It kinda makes me wonder what would happen if there were siberian tigers in the area though. ;)
#3 Re: Polar Bear population increased
Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2013 4:31 pm
by Batman
Don't those welcome mats make it really difficult to keep outdoor pets? And wouldn't simply locking your door be just as effective? I mean yeah, a polar bear up to speed packs quite a wallop, but why would it bother? Isn't it far more likely to just go elsewhere?
Of course, simply locking your door seems to be anathema to US americans in general for some reason.
#4 Re: Polar Bear population increased
Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2013 6:37 pm
by Soontir948
One town frankly doesn't mean anything except that it's a great place to find a source of food.
#5 Re: Polar Bear population increased
Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2013 7:23 pm
by frigidmagi
Actually it's kinda complicated. See, Polar bear populations are divided into 19 population via geography. 6 of them are stable, 7 are declining and the one in Churchill is expanding.
#6 Re: Polar Bear population increased
Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2013 7:40 pm
by Josh
Batman wrote:Of course, simply locking your door seems to be anathema to US americans in general for some reason.
I don't know where you get that impression. Most people most places lock their doors.
I don't, but I live in the hick-ass boonie outskirts. When I lived in the nearby towns, be damn sure I always locked my doors and so did everyone else.
#7 Re: Polar Bear population increased
Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2013 7:44 pm
by General Havoc
frigidmagi wrote:Actually it's kinda complicated. See, Polar bear populations are divided into 19 population via geography. 6 of them are stable, 7 are declining and the one in Churchill is expanding.
That... adds up to 14.
Batman wrote:Don't those welcome mats make it really difficult to keep outdoor pets? And wouldn't simply locking your door be just as effective? I mean yeah, a polar bear up to speed packs quite a wallop, but why would it bother? Isn't it far more likely to just go elsewhere?
Of course, simply locking your door seems to be anathema to US americans in general for some reason.
You are aware that Manitoba is not in the US, right?
#8 Re: Polar Bear population increased
Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2013 9:54 pm
by frigidmagi
That... adds up to 14.
I don't mention all of the zones.
#9 Re: Polar Bear population increased
Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2013 12:44 am
by Comrade Tortoise
Batman wrote:Don't those welcome mats make it really difficult to keep outdoor pets? And wouldn't simply locking your door be just as effective? I mean yeah, a polar bear up to speed packs quite a wallop, but why would it bother? Isn't it far more likely to just go elsewhere?
Of course, simply locking your door seems to be anathema to US americans in general for some reason.
Did you not read?
Polar bears are the only bear species that regularly hunt adult people. Other bears might take a human opportunistically or kill one to defend their cubs, but polar bears see a person and will often chase them down and eat them.
People dont lock their doors in that area, because if a polar bear is stalking you, you might not be in reach of your own house and so may need to seek refuge within someone else's home.
When I was a kid in Alaska, we had a similar arrangement with our neighbors who lived between the bus stop and our house. In the Autumn and Spring, the bears would either be trying to fatten up for hibernation, or coming out of hibernation hungry. While a black bear might not want to take on adult humans, a six year old child is easy meat, and because we lived in the woods, that was a very real possibility (in fact, that reality is the reason our house had a bear skin rug. Daddy Dearest for all his faults had a strong work ethic, and was a very very good shot and you dont want a black bear deciding your front yard is a nice place to set up shop). So, the neighbors kept their door unlocked during the day. Just in case. Incidentally, we also had Bear and Moose safety curriculum in schools.
That... adds up to 14.
There is not enough data from Svalbard and the northern coast of Russia to be able to say. Monitoring there is just not as good.
Look at the image above. Chances are, the populations along the coast of Manitoba are stable because the bears in Baffin Bay and Barrow Alaska etc are migrating there. Not enough sea ice, so those bears that survive have to spend longer on the coast and might not leave at all.
In Churchill, they are probably maintained by human subsidy (ie. trash etc).