This week, the Department of the Interior caved in to the Greenbats by declaring a thriving species “endangered.”
From Planet Gore:
Polar Bears: More Journalistic Malpractice [Henry Payne]
How do you declare a species endangered when its numbers are increasing?
Once again, my profession — journalism — failed its fundamental duty to report the facts Wednesday as the Interior Department bowed to political pressure from green groups to declare polar bears an threatened species due to global warming. This, despite the fact that bear populations have increased from 5,000–10,000 in the early 1970s to between 20,000 and 25,000 today (during the very period their habitat was allegedly shrinking). This is in part due to concentrated efforts to impose harvesting controls that have allowed this once-overhunted species to recover.
Indeed, Dr. Mitchell Taylor, a bear biologist with the Canadian government, wrote in 2006: “There is no need to panic. Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present.”
GLOBALONEY wrote an excellent article on thriving polar bears in January. Included here is a very entertaining animation of thriving bears I found on Globaloney. Click for full size.
According to new research, the numbers of the giant predator have grown by between 15 and 25 per cent over the last decade.
Some authorities on Arctic wildlife even claim that hunting, and not global arming, has been the real cause of the decrease in polar bear numbers in areas where the species is in decline.
A leading Canadian authority on polar bears, Mitch Taylor, said: “We’re seeing an increase in bears that’s really unprecedented, and in places where we’re seeing a decrease in the population it’s from hunting, not from climate change.”
Mr Taylor estimates that during the past decade, the Canadian polar bear population has increased by 25 per cent – from 12,000 to 15,000 bears.
UPDATE: Iain Murray offers that this is NOT about polar bears.
Quite right. This was nothing to do with the polar bear and everything to do with advancing a ludicrous “alternative energy now” agenda.
It appears that Interior Secretary Dick Kempthorne is listening to whoever beats the drum louder. In the case of the polar bears, science disagrees with the listing, but Kempthorne is concerned about a ‘legacy.’ In an unrelated issue, that of carrying firearms in National Parks, Kempthorne listened to 51 U.S. Senators who recommended a rules change to allow the NPS to comply with local state law on carrying.
This puts Kempthorne in a position to be embraced by greens and gunners alike.
Don’t you just love politicians?
We’ve blogged about this place before. The son of Frank Lloyd Wright, Lloyd Wright, designed this unique chapel. Located just west of Portuguese Bend, the Chapel has been in continuous operation for many years on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. 
May 13, 2008: NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander is preparing to end its long journey and begin a three-month mission to taste and sniff fistfuls of Martian soil and buried ice. The lander is scheduled to touch down on the Red Planet on Sunday, May 25th.
