Climate myths: Polar bear numbers are increasing
The best-studied population, in Canada’s western Hudson Bay, fell by 22% from 1194 animals in 1987 to 935 in 2004, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Climate myths: Polar bear numbers are increasing – environment – 16 May 2007 – New Scientist
Even NPR knows that is not a myth.
Unger made a plan to move to Churchill, Manitoba, a flat, gray place on the Hudson Bay in northern Canada accessible only by train or plane. For a few months out of the year, as the bay starts to freeze, tiny Churchill boasts as many polar bears as it does people. Unger packed up his wife and three small kids, and set out with a big bold idea. He wanted to write the quintessential requiem of how human-caused climate change was killing off these magnificent beasts. In the end, he came away with something totally different, Unger tells NPR’s Laura Sullivan.
“… There are far more polar bears alive today than there were 40 years ago. … 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. 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.”
