Spiked
"How did the polar bear, a vicious killing machine that is thriving, become the poster boy of climate-change alarmism? ......Save the whale? That’s so 1970s. Now it’s the mighty polar bear that has become the poster child of the environmental movement. But are polar bears really facing extinction, or are they just a photogenic vehicle for promoting alarm about global warming? ...
Crockford’s first point is that polar bears represent a ‘conservation success story’. The biggest threat to the bears in the past was hunting. Since 1973, when restrictions on hunting were introduced, it is commonly agreed that polar-bear numbers have bounced back from a low of around 10,000 to between 20,000 and 25,000. In addition, four sub-populations of polar bears are currently listed as ‘zero’, says Crockford, because they haven’t been surveyed. Add in those animals, and she argues that the true population figure could easily be between 27,000 and 32,000.
The only population shown to have declined in recent years - a fall in numbers described by Crockford as ‘modest’ - is the one in the western Hudson Bay area. Even here, claims that polar-bear numbers continue to decline are based on data that is ‘unpublished, woefully out of date, or both’, says Crockford. Polar bears have actually shown a remarkable ability to survive and thrive after months without food."
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