Polar Bear Science

Letter to the editor, published in the OMR, Feb '07.

In a recent column published in the Pittsburgh Tribune, author Sterling Burnett called attention to satirist Stephen Colbert’s coined term, ‘truthiness’, which Wikipedia explains is “to claim to ‘know’ something….‘from the gut’ without regard to evidence, logic…. Or actual facts.” “Truthiness is an emotional appeal meant to short-circuit intellectual examination of the claims being made” says Mr. Burnett.

A great example is the claim of radical, capitalism bashing environmentalists who have presented one, one mind you, study of ‘a’ population of polar bears in Western Hudson Bay whose numbers have fallen by 21%, and with that claim attempted to persuaded all of us the bears should be listed as endangered due to “human caused global warming that will melt most of the North Pole in 50 years”.

For those of you who claim science backs this up, I present Dr. Mitchell Taylor, a biologist with Nunavut Territorial government in Canada, who pointed out in testimony to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, that warming may be beneficial to bears since it creates better habitat for seals and would dramatically increase blueberry production which bears gorge themselves on when available.

Fortunately for polar bears, Dr. Taylor is correct, supported by facts. Not diminishing the plight of one group of bears, population trends on the whole are on the rise. Since 1970, “all while the world was warming”, numbers of bears have increased from 5,000 to 25,000. Historically, polar bears have thrived in temperatures even warmer than today, calling your attention to the medieval warm period 1000 years ago and during the Holocene Climate Optimum between 5,000 and 9,000 years ago.

The true problem for polar bears is competing for food and overpopulation, not extinction, and if blueberries are growing, “Watch out Mr. Bear, I have blueberry pancakes every Sunday morning.”