https://www.fws.gov/news/ShowN...lar-bear?-&_ID=35939


Press Release
Would the Arctic still be the Arctic without the polar bear?
Global action on climate change needed to save great northern icon but conservation plan provides roadmap for near-term survival of species
January 9, 2017

Contact(s):
Andrea Medeiros
907-786-3695
andrea_medeiros@fws.gov


ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Two great bears are emblematic of the Arctic: Ursa Major – arktos in Greek – the constellation from which the Arctic derives its name, and the polar bear, which has lived beneath the northern stars for hundreds of thousands of years. It’s hard to imagine the region without either of them, but the future of the polar bear is being jeopardized by the rapid loss of its sea-ice habitat. Its fate is not determined by the stars, but by our willingness and ability to address climate change. While the international community grapples with that long-term challenge, U.S. government agencies, Native communities, private organizations, scientists and subsistence hunters have collaborated on a plan for improving the polar bear’s immediate chances of surviving in the wild.

This final Conservation Management Plan (CMP) for the polar released today by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, outlines actions that will help this revered symbol of the Arctic persist in the wild in the near-term, while also acknowledging the primary threat to the bear will entail longer-term actions.

“This plan outlines the necessary actions and concrete commitments by the Service and our state, tribal, federal and international partners to protect polar bears in the near term,” said Greg Siekaniec, The Service’s Alaska Regional Director. “But make no mistake; without decisive action to address Arctic warming, the long-term fate of this species is uncertain.”

The plan was developed by a diverse team of experts and partners and reflects input on the draft plan submitted during the 2015 public comment period. It calls for reducing human-bear conflicts, collaboratively managing subsistence harvest, protecting denning habitat, and minimizing the risk of contamination from oil spills. Most of these actions are already underway, in partnership with Alaska Native communities, nonprofit groups, and industry representatives who participated in the plan’s creation. The plan also calls for increased monitoring and research to determine whether the actions in the CMP are being effective or need to be modified.

While the CMP focuses on management actions for the two U.S. subpopulations of polar bears that live off the coast of Alaska, it contributes to efforts to conserve polar bears in the other four range states of Norway, Greenland, Canada and Russia.

The polar bear was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 2008 due to the loss of its sea-ice habitat. The area of the Arctic covered by sea ice in October and November 2016 was the lowest on record for those months since recordkeeping began in 1979. The current global polar bear population is estimated to be 26,000. If greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at the current rates throughout the 21st century, polar bears will likely disappear from much of their present-day range.

The Service will continue to work with diverse partners to implement the CMP. The team will share information, identify priorities, leverage resources and adapt the plan according to new and emerging science and information.

Read the plan and learn more about the conservation work of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and partners: https://www.fws.gov/alaska/fis...polarbear/pbmain.htm

https://www.fws.gov/alaska/fis...BRT_CMP_QA_final.pdf


USFWS questions and answers link.

The plan may help conserve the dwindling population, but it can't save the polar bear. I'm not a young man, but I anticipate that the polar bear will be extinct in the wild before my lifetime is over. It doesn't appear that the climate trends (both natural and man made) can be arrested quickly enough to preserve sufficient sea ice to sustain viable populations of such a highly specialized hunter.

Not sure if the polar bear population in Russia is included. The Canadians still hunt them and I think they would know more about polar bears than our folks.

"We do not have projections that are specific to the U.S. Based on population dynamics data
collected from 2001–2006 by Regehr et al. (2010), Hunter et al. (2010) estimated a high
probability that the Southern Beaufort Sea subpopulation would face severe reductions by the end of the 21st century, and possibly by mid-century. This was based on a correlation between reduced sea ice and reduced survival and breeding during from 2001–2006, combined with
projected sea-ice conditions from global climate models. A more recent study for the Southern
Beaufort Sea covering the years 2001–2010 (Bromaghin et al. 2015) indicated a more complex
relationship between ice and population dynamics. Projections for the Southern Beaufort Sea subpopulation have not yet been updated in light of Bromaghin et al. (2015), although the
expected risk of extirpation likely remains high. "

Lol, how convenient. You don't have projections based on the most recent data (because the best data shows that too thick of spring ice was the likely cause of the population decline from 2001-2006 per Bromaghin et al) so you continue to use the old projections without even adjusting the population numbers identified as GROWING in the Chukchi and Beaufort sea areas. You know the old saying, if the facts don't support your ideology---ignore them! Truth is, of the known 19 sub populations of polar bears only 10 have reliable population data. Of those 10, only 1 population is in decline and the others are all growing--quite rapidly in some cases. We very likely have more polar bears now than were ever counted in the 70s, but instead of allowing this to be a positive, success story for conservation USFWS chooses to ignore the data and push their fear mongering in order to support the continued bans on hunting/importation of hunting trophies. Hopefully Zinke can get some of this garbage cleared out.

quote:

Originally posted by Stonecreek:
The plan may help conserve the dwindling population, but it can't save the polar bear. I'm not a young man, but I anticipate that the polar bear will be extinct in the wild before my lifetime is over. It doesn't appear that the climate trends (both natural and man made) can be arrested quickly enough to preserve sufficient sea ice to sustain viable populations of such a highly specialized hunter.

I've been working on the edge of the Central Beaufort Sea for several years and my office is within 1000 feet of the shore. Our project is a postage stamp in a gymnasium to give you a comparison as to our size in all of the Arctic North Slope.

We had 103 polar bears on project this year and another 40-50 sightings on the islands a couple miles off shore. That's in a tiny area, a speck really in all of the Arctic Coast.

Two years ago USFW admitted they didn't really have a good estimate on how many bears they had worldwide. They admitted they had been using 26,000 to 27,000 for many years but stated the number was considerably higher.

As for the shrinking ice cap, I don't buy it. I watch the ice every season and it changes as much as a woman's mind. This season saw less ice than last year. Last year we had more ice than many of the locals could remember. I just don't buy the doom and gloom, "the sky is falling" climate change rhetoric. We simply don't have enough years of Arctic weather data to accurately predict anything. We have decades when we should have centuries.

Some of you may recall the early 70's and the predicted oncoming ice age. We spent a whole week in 4th grade with our teacher dedicating the hour of science studies to discussing how we were going to survive the imminent ice age that was upon us. The scientist who were espousing this were just as passionate about their findings as the climate crazies today. The difference was they didn't have access to near the financial resources and science was still, to a degree, driven by hypothesis and supporting or disproving data. And when it was disproved they didn't continue to drive it down everyone's throat. They accepted that facts had not supported their hypothesis and moved on.

I don't know how many polar bears there are world wide but I know how many I have to deal with over the course of a year and it's considerable. If my little corner of the world supports that many bears then I have to believe the population is not in the dire straits the doomsayers would have you believe.

Don't buy into the idea that somehow polar bears are dangling over the precipice of extinction. There will be polar bears to keep your zoos in Texas well stocked for generations.

I have no idea of the population either. I do know that last August, some fellow sheep hunters hopped in a bush plane in Kavik. In a very few minutes they saw more polar bears than they thought possible given the doom & gloom reports.

quote:

We had 103 polar bears on project this year and another 40-50 sightings on the islands a couple miles off shore. That's in a tiny area, a speck really in all of the Arctic Coast.

Exactly. When the range, or habitat, to which a species is adapted shrinks, then that species concentrates in the remaining habitat. Seeing a concentration of polar bears in limited ranges is to be expected -- as is conflict and fratricide among the unnaturally concentrated population. This, just like the "plan", leads to greater mortality among the remaining population.

The issue, as with any species, is not how many you find at one time in one place, or even how many get shot by sport hunters, but rather how much habitat is available to sustain the population.

I'm in the same mindset as "justanotherhunter" and "Mart".
The data is being manipulated to "prove" the agenda, any data not in line with the agenda is ignored.
We haven't collected enough weather and ice pack data to come to a conclusion, a few years worth is not enough.
If you compare some notes of early arctic explorers some places they were able to sail to (open water)people haven't been able to get there in years and other places where they were blocked are open for modern day explorers = nothing conclusive.
I recently read a short article about a glacier that is receding and exposing a forest that was overtaken thousands of years ago and the article stated this is similar to an expanding glacier 100 miles away that is overtaking a forest (?) How come an expanding glacier is not news worthy but one that is shrinking is newsworthy......back to the agenda.

I should have been more specific on the 103 bears. They were not hanging around the project looking for food. They were simply passing through our little corner during their normal circuit of travel. We never saw a bear or cub that looked malnourished or sickly. Every animal appeared healthy and well fed.

They move through our area in the summer and fall, generally moving west to east. In late October/early November they move out on the ice and remain there until late spring. Only the pregnant sows stay near or on land while they den and give birth. Sows with yearling cubs, young adult bears and mature boars all spend their winters on the ice hunting seals. Some mature boars never come in off the ice and will travel hundreds of miles out on the permanent ice. It's not uncommon for these bears to make an annual loop of 7-800 miles.

In the late spring, the females with cubs and younger bears, as well as a few boars make their way to shore. Some are following the native whaling, most are hunting seals that frequent the open water. I even watched one kill a swan two years ago. The bear stalked it like a cat, using the terrain to its advantage and waiting, crouched like a cat until it was time to spring. It made short work of the swan.

If, like was suggested, the loss of habitat was so severe, where are the starving bears. We don't have bears hanging around trying to get into dumpsters. Of course we do a great job of waste management for that very reason, to prevent habituation by bears. In my few years up here and having had contact with a few hundred polar bears, I've never seen a bear that appeared to be starving. All have appeared healthy and well fed. That would be contrary to what one would expect with the alleged devastating loss of habitat.

I'm certainly no polar bear expert. I can only comment on what my experience has shown me and the conclusions I draw from that experience.

The study that the USFWS had the audacity to mention and admit that they ignored it is quite interesting. First, the study found that having lower or no levels of summer ice were either negligible on polar bear populations or were actually beneficial--if the following spring ice was not too thick. The lack of ice in the summer increases the feeding productivity of the seals leading to better pup rates. Too thick of ice is bad for the seals and the bears as it is harder for them to make holes to access the water. This is what caused the declines from 2001-2006 that were the projection bases for the 2009 listing and forecast of a 50 year extinction. BUT the sea ice conditions that were forecast to be the cause of the polar bear extinction in 2050 were a reality from 2010-2014...and the polar bears in EVERY observed population increased...spurring the basis of the Bromaghin study in 2015 finding that the Regehr and Hunter studies were baloney.

Polar bears are interesting in that they eat the overwhelming majority of their food in the winter/spring and can essentially fast during the summer/fall. But this new USFWS plan intentionally uses the old, flawed projection and ignores the "best available science" as required by the ESA.

Hey, if the polar bears don't have enough to eat you can always convince a few thousand "greenies" to go there to participate in a new study on them. I am sure the bears will find them tasty! Of course, we can repeat this yearly because the greenies never learn.

Ever notice how environmental regulations do more to screw the American taxpayer than any achievement towards their intended purpose?

I dont believe the Liberal agenda. Their record is one of ideologues and liars at best.

Don't join the sheep in thinking everything is an absolute. Climate change will occur with or without our presence. The Achilles Heel of liberals is their inability to see shades of gray and decipher/care about what's fact.

Nonsense. Fuzzy math and half assed explanations are the Liberals favorite tool, while they Lie and cajole the constitution into irrelevance and establish their Statist utopia. The only distinction that needs to be made are between the liars spewing their lies and the suckers who buy their BS. They are the real sheep! We have a Constitution, it is "supposed" to be the Law of the land. That is a fact. The sheep are the ones who dont think they are supposed to be smart enough to understand how the Constitution works, and so they also dont recognize their own Liberties being diminished right under their noses. Shades of gray? Bullshit! The very foundation of the United States is under an ideological assault!! And "Global warming" is just one of the many tools being used to crush it.

quote:

Originally posted by Wstrnhuntr:
Nonsense. Fuzzy math and half assed explanations are the Liberals favorite tool, while they Lie and cajole the constitution into irrelevance and establish their Statist utopia. The only distinction that needs to be made are between the liars spewing their lies and the suckers who buy their BS. They are the real sheep! We have a Constitution, it is "supposed" to be the Law of the land. That is a fact. The sheep are the ones who dont think they are supposed to be smart enough to understand how the Constitution works, and so they also dont recognize their own Liberties being diminished right under their noses. Shades of gray? Bullshit! The very foundation of the United States is under an ideological assault!! And "Global warming" is just one of the many tools being used to crush it.

Um....I think you're agreeing with me?

I despise the liberal ideology btw. They're so intellectually dishonest it's astounding.