More polar bears alive today than 40 years ago

[88m3]

@newworldafro

uthor Zac Unger was originally drawn to the arctic circle to write a “mournful elegy” about how Global Warming was decimating the polar bear populations. He was surprised to find that the polar bears were not in such dire straits after all.

“There are far more polar bears alive today than there were 40 years ago,” Unger told NPR in an interview about his new book, “Never Look a Polar Bear in The Eye.” “There are about 25,000 polar bears alive today worldwide. 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,” Unger added. “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.”

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, there are an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears worldwide, living in Canada, Greenland, the northern Russian coast, islands of the Norwegian coast, and the northwest Alaskan coast.

Polar bears became a focal point for environmentalists after former Vice President Al Gore featured them in his 2006 global warming documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.” The bears were classified as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act to in May 2008 because their habitat was being threatened by global warming.

Unger wanted to write the definitive book on how man-made global warming was destroying polar bear habitats and leading to their extinction. He packed up his family and moved north to Churchill, Manitoba — called the ”Polar Bear Capital of the World” because of the large amounts of bears that congregate near it in the autumn.

“My humble plan was to become a hero of the environmental movement,” Unger told NPR. “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,” he added.

In the U.S. the bears are protected from hunting by non-Alaska Natives — who can hunt some polar bears for tribal needs. There are also special importation rules for polar bears and polar bear parts and products.

Polar bears are also protected by international conservation agreements between the U.S. and other countries, such as the Russian Federation.

A federal court recently threw out a federal government plan to protect polar bears and designate a 187,000-square mile area of Alaska — larger than the state of California — as a critical habitat for polar bears. The court ruled that the plan went too far, and that the government needed to correct “substantive and procedural deficiencies.”

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URL to article: More polar bears alive today than 40 years ago | The Daily Caller

 

[Julius Skrrvin]

that bear is so cute

 

[Orbital-Fetus]

20-25,000 is not a very large population.
it may be larger now than it was 40 years ago but i bet it's not larger than it was 100 years ago.

i'm willing to bet that 40 years ago Polar Beer populations were at an all time low because of hunting.

controls were put on hunting so the population could build again.

you are comparing the current population size to when it was at it's worst.

 

[daze23]

i'm willing to bet that 40 years ago Polar Beer populations were at an all time low because of hunting.

that's the catch. they're doing better than when we almost hunted them to extinction, but that doesn't mean they're not effected by climate change

 

[Orbital-Fetus]

that's the catch. they're doing better than when we almost hunted them to extinction, but that doesn't mean they're not effected by climate change

what pisses me off is that facts like this one are presented to legislators who
do not exercise critical thinking that would allow them to see through such a farce.

 

[88m3]

what pisses me off is that facts like this one are presented to legislators who
do not exercise critical thinking that would allow them to see through such a farce.

Everyone knows critical thinking is for homosexuals

 

[Liquid]

Everyone knows critical thinking is for homosexuals

why think when all you have to do is look for information on wikipedia?

 

[Orbital-Fetus]

Everyone knows critical thinking is for homosexuals

check my location.

i'm spay painting my name there right now.

 

[Bud Bundy]

does this mean i am going to see polar bear meat in stores?

 

[88m3]

why think when all you have to do is look for information on wikipedia?

why bother looking at wikipedia when people can tell me what to think.
That way I won't even have to bother reading or seeing alternative points of view.

check my location.

i'm spay painting my name there right now.

you're too shook to ever pick up a can of spray paint again you've said so yourself

 

[Orbital-Fetus]

you're too shook to ever pick up a can of spray paint again you've said so yourself

 

[newworldafro]

@newworldafro

I'm like the author that moved his family all the way to Churchill, Manitoba to watch the last days of polar bears, or so he thought.......which is the reason I picked polar bears in the first place as my avi..............come to find out during the 2009 Climate Conference in Cancun........that all the skeptics I had called idiots and climate deniers, may not have been so "evil" and apathetic (not completely) after all, and like I say in my custom user title, it really is "DeeperThanHipHopBiggerThanRap"........ so many gray areas, and spots of deception that's its mind numbing.....

Petroleum/Fossil Fuel processes and products does pollute and is not super envir0-friendly, especially when companies are allowed to cut corners....and when no alternative processes or materials are allowed to compete........ industrial hemp for instance......

With that said.....I'm not so completely 100% absolutely positive like I was pre-December 2009 that anthropogenic reasons are affecting climate solely ...........so many other factors that dont' get play in the MSM discussion of this......

Nonetheless this is a good story ......

 

[jackswstd]

Cacs are cleaning their guns and loading up as I type to right this wrong.

 

[Blackking]

Everyone knows critical thinking is for homosexuals

polar bear discussions are for homosexuals .


hunting laws are the reason for this increase. climate affects all; but that's not what's doing these creators in. They can adapt, they can survive. They can live in San Fran Zoo or Antarctica.

These Bears aren't out here protesting to protect the endangered whales and seals they love munching on.... This is a survival of the fittest world, and polar bears are some of the most vicious. That muthafckas not cute - it's dangerous and just another part of the food chain.

They don't fck (intercourse) like that - and they only have like 2 cubs after being pregnant for almost as long as a human (without the ability to control the environments like humans). Even without human abuse of the environment- the Earth naturally goes in cycles... these bears are domed to fail anyway being dependent on packed ice.


NTM, this gives cac and Japanese a reason to get back out there n get that blubber n fur.