Posted on 09/17/2009 6:36:33 AM PDT by marthemaria
A photographer who tracked down one of the only expanding populations of polar bears in the world was rewarded for his efforts by a series of spectacular images of the animals in their natural habitat..
Steve Kaslowski took the pictures during an expedition to Norway's remote Svalbard archipelago last month.
The fact that he managed to capture several different bears on camera has been seen as the latest evidence that Svalbard's population is on the increase.
Wild otter makes nightly visits to officeMarine mammal expert and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) spokesperson, Dr Tom Arnbom, 50, from Stockholm, Sweden, thinks the bears in these images could be part of only two growing populations in the world.
He said: "There are 19 populations of polar bears on the planet. At present we know that eight are decreasing, three are stable, seven we are not sure about, and the only one we know for sure that is growing is in Canada.
"But it is my personal opinion that the bear numbers in Svalbard are increasing. Compared with the last 20 years we are getting many more reports of sightings and it could be a sign that their numbers are up.
"Monitoring populations is extremely difficult because they are very hard to find and very expensive to follow so it is difficult to get hard data. But the signs are that there are more of them in Svalbard than we have seen over the last few years."
Despite rapidly shrinking sea-ice - the bear's summer hunting ground - Dr Arnbom, who has been visiting the region for several years, thinks a ban on hunting bears and their prey may be causing their number to increase.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
“one of the only expanding populations of polar bears”
Think about that, not the only one, one of the only populations.
See, they asked this dude if this was the “only” polar bear population that was expanding and he said no, so they came up with this highly misleading phrase.
Did you know I belong to one of the only families in America?
“eight are decreasing, three are stable, seven we are not sure about,”
Sounds like the majority are stable or increasing.
Why do they make it sound so difficult to find polar bears? I seem to recall seeing video not that long ago of polar bears wandering down the streets of some northern Alaska towns (bears being the opportunists, and master garbage can raiders, that they are).
Tell the photographer to go to Fort Churchill, Canada, where the polar bears are a growing nuisance.
An article of FR a few days ago contained the following:
The overall polar bear population has increased from about 5,000 in the 1960s to 25,000 today, and the only two subpopulations in decline are in areas where it has been getting colder over the past 50 years. Polar bears have survived long periods of time when the Arctic was much warmer than today. Yet alarmists say the bears cannot survive this present warming without help from government regulators.
Here’s the title under which it was posted:
A Primer on Global Warming: Dispelling Myths
Environment & Climate News ^ | 10/01/2009 | Jay Lehr
As I recall, from an article posted here on FR some time ago...
There are 13 "populations" of Polar Bears in the Arctic.
Eleven of them are growing.
The two that are not, are shrinking because back in the 80's, the weather (climate) in the Hudson Bay area was warmer and more optimal for them. Now the temps are reverting back to a colder norm, and the population is shrinking accordingly.
Now you know the rest of the story.
This author wasn't incorrect, just unbelievably biased.
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