I guess the Russians are not hunting them, just buying them up.

Shub — I am not wasting time with this clown anymore.
matthu — Shub - I agree

I suggest we make that a threesome. Life really is too short ...

BBD - alright, here's your opportunity to prove whether you are being a right proper charlie (or not): don't try to pull the wool over our eyes by telling us when the paper was written - instead, tell us when the sub-population data was collected?

matthu

Yes! The sub population data pre-date 2009. This is a non-point. Do you not understand that the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the IUCN are using the same total population estimate based on the same sub-population data because that is the only data avaiable?.

How thick are you??

Mike Jackson

Still nothing to say about your deliberate misrepresentation of Derocher, I see.

matthu

Come on then - prove to me you aren't a clown: where did the US Fish & Wildlife service get its estimate of 20k - 25k from?

Hmm?

You may notice that BBD did not actually answer my question by giving me any dates for his sub-population data although he did grudgingly acknowledge that they pre-dated 2009. Be assured that they are actually all very much earlier than 2009.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (which is continually updating their research into polar bear populations) states,

". . . extensive scientific studies have indicated that the increased observation of bears on land is a result of changing distribution patterns and a result of changes in the accessibility of sea ice habitat.”

Fancy that!

It seems that Polar bears are actually altering their distribution patterns as a result of changes to their usual habitat! So the measured declines in certain sub-populations may actually be because polar bears are wandering off in search of a better life?

What a clown.

matthu

The dates are on the status table I have already linked to, but here it is again.

Once more: the sub population data pre-date 2009. This is a non-point. Do you not understand that the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the IUCN are using the same total population estimate based on the same sub-population data because these are the only data avaiable?

The statement from the US Fish and Wildlife Service you quote illustrates the problem. Yup, polar bears are being forced inland because of sea ice loss. They are adapted to hunt off the ice because it allows them access to a rich source of food. If there was sufficient food to go around on land, why did the bears adapt to hunting off ice in the first place? And what might happen if they are increasingly forced to hunt on land because of sea ice loss?

Now, where did the US Fish & Wildlife service get its estimate of 20k - 25k from?

BBD being evasive again.

Only 8 sub-population surveys have even been conducted this century. And of those only 3 suggest a current decline.

So lets' consider the best available, most alarming data individually.

Western Hudson Bay (2004)
100% of PVA simulations resulted in subpopulation decline after 10 years. Subpopulation is declining without harvest. Local people are seeing more polar bears and TEK suggests that there may have been a northward shift in distribution.

So the local evidence contradicts the simulation.

Southern Beaufort Sea (2006)
The SB-NB boundary is being re-considered, which may affect estimates of the size and status of both subpopulations.

This suggested post hoc adjustment looks like an attempt to be more "helpful".

What a joke.

Davis Strait (2007)
New estimates of natural survival and current harvest suggest the population may begin to decline. Scientific and local knowledge suggest the population has significantly increased

So the scientific and local evidence contradicts the simulation.

What a joke.

Polar bears? You're all talking about Polar bears??

Fer gawd's sake somebody start a new thread.

BTW as a fisho/hunter I can tell you that predator populations always tend to increase up to a point of unsustainability. Then catastrophically collapse. It's nature's way. If the Polar bear population recently reached an all time high of ~25,000 then you know what is coming next. And since the brutes are increasingly coming into contact with well-armed humans, expect a lot of red ice.

Each and every year the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service updates their research into polar bear populations relying on scientific and local knowledge which appears to contradict the output of computer simulations. They estimate polar bear populations are at an historic high and by definition, this precludes their being in current decline.

But if you are an alarmist - you place your trust in the output of computer simulations i.e. one model for the mating ecology of polar bears, a different model for how temperatures would warm, another model for how sea ice would fragment following projected warming, and yet another model for how mating behaviour would change as sea ice fragments, a separate model to estimate how fast bears will use up fat and protein stores and a final model to estimate the impact of all this on bear survival rates.

(No need to provide evidence that any of these models validate against real life data because that would probably not be helpful.)

I think we are done here.

matthu
Have a read at this
http://tinyurl.com/mv8rbj
or this
http://tinyurl.com/yq5xqj
and this
http://tinyurl.com/7ptjsox, which includes the results of a WWF survey of 2002 (!) in which they claimed that at that time 45% of the bear populations were stable, 14% were increasing and 16% decreasing. Oddly enough the increases appeared to be in areas where the temperatures were also increasing and the decreases in areas where the temperatures were decreasing.
Which suggests that warm is better than cold, even if you're a polar bear! It also gives the lie to their subsequent attempts to use species decline as an excuse for trying to get oil exploration banned.

Gixxerboy
Yes, I know! Sad bastards that we are! But you know how easy it is to get sucked into futile argument with the culpably ignorant.

Thanks, Mike - a useful trio of articles.

Dr Taylor had obtained funding to attend this week's meeting of the PBSG, but this was voted down by its members because of his views on global warming. The chairman, Dr Andy Derocher, a former university pupil of Dr Taylor's, frankly explained in an email (which I was not sent by Dr Taylor) that his rejection had nothing to do with his undoubted expertise on polar bears: "it was the position you've taken on global warming that brought opposition".

Dr Taylor was told that his views running "counter to human-induced climate change are extremely unhelpful". His signing of the Manhattan Declaration – a statement by 500 scientists that the causes of climate change are not CO2 but natural, such as changes in the radiation of the sun and ocean currents – was "inconsistent with the position taken by the PBSG".

Now we see the true character of the PBSG: they have clearly adopted a pre-ordained position on polar bears requiring only modelling to back it up.

Gixxer

Mike will have (conveniently) forgotten, but he started all this:

I take it you're not suggesting that using the threat to polar bears as a means of stopping oil drilling in the Arctic was scientifically correct, are you?
I mean, given the actual state of the polar bear population, WWF (et al) were in fact lying, were they not? They were tugging at people's heartstrings with a completely false tale to pursue an aim that they would not have succeeded in obtaining by legitimate means. Yes?

Isn't it fascinating though, how when you get down to to the basics, nobody will respond to specific questions. For example, as at Jan 8, 2012 at 10:05 PM.

I am sick and tired of this bloody thread, but on it grinds because matthu cannot understand that he has made a prat of himself again and just stop. He is one of the stupidest commenters I have ever come across. Painfully so.

"... because matthu cannot understand that he has made a prat of himself again and just stop. He is one of the stupidest commenters I have ever come across. Painfully so"

Meaning, he's handed your ass to you time and again.

I can read BBD

I am sick and tired of this bloody thread, but on it grinds because [insert name of choice here] cannot understand that he has made a prat of himself again and just stop.

Shub

Meaning, he's handed your ass to you time and again.

If you can read, you will have no difficulty in providing an example. Will you?

BBD says

I am sick and tired of this bloody thread, but on it grinds ...

And yet up he pops again.

Somehow I don't see him convincing anyone on this thread that unvalidated modelling by CO2 fixated scientists is a sound basis for alarmism, so if he is finding this as painful as he claims he should simply lick his wounds and go home.

Save your energy to fight another day. This topic is dead.

matthu

What wounds? You know you've made a fool of yourself again.

This 'discussion' will be dead when you answer the following questions succinctly and clearly:

- Do you not understand that the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the IUCN are using the same total population estimate based on the same sub-population data because these are the only data avaiable?

- When did you realise that you had screwed up because you thought the US F&WS was using a different basis for the 20K - 25K population estimate to the IUCN?

- If there was sufficient food to go around on land, why did the bears adapt to hunting off ice in the first place?

- What will happen if they are increasingly forced to hunt on land because of sea ice loss?

This topic was dead before it started.
It would have got nowhere except for BBD's obsession with proving everybody else wrong. He's already admitted he knows nothing about polar bears and he's gone hunting through the best available alarmist evidence he can find, happily ignoring every other argument there is on the subject and refusing to believe the evidence of those people who actually live and work alongside the animals, including a survey (by WWF of all people!) that says that populations are increasing with temperature rises and falling with temperature decreases.
And all this because of a casual throw-away remark about a certain degree of dissembling (let's be polite about this) by the very same WWF in order to stop oil exploration. A comment which was easily checkable and could have put the whole argument to bed in a minute.
Then to crown it all he — for the thousandth time — demands answers to one of his questions and produces this ...

If there was sufficient food to go around on land, why did the bears adapt to hunting off ice in the first place?
What will happen if they are increasingly forced to hunt on land because of sea ice loss?

mmm...polar bears are bears...if they see something smaller than them, they will eat it. If they happen to live on ice floes they will eat seals and walruses ad fish, just like grizzlies do. If they are on dry land they will eat humans, caribou, moose......you name it...they have the strength to overpower just about any other animal...the polar bear will get through. Whereas BBD's rhetoric fails every time.

MJ

Hint: you didn't answer the question.

Surprise.

I go on holiday for a while and the thread has turned into Bishop Hill's Flying Circus!

Is this a 400 or a 500 comment argument? ;-)

Time for a new thread, chaps, surely? If not, just let me pop down the shops for beer and popcorn...

Gixxer

I wish you had one of those 10:10 boxes. You could press the red button and cause us all to explode, mercifully ending the collective misery.

I have been having another discussion elsewhere that you may have missed (and might find more interesting):

http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/1/6/cosmos-and-consensus.html?currentPage=2#comments

(The ever-amusing 'mydogsgotnonose' kicks it off at Jan 6, 2012 at 6:07 PM.)

Thanks BBD

When I am not filleting (CAGW-endangered) snapper tomorrow I am sure I shall find a hole in that argument. ;-)