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?
“to be embraced by greens and gunners alike” – an interesting dichotomy.
Why Do We Care If Polar Bears Become Extinct?
This is not any sort of revelation: Polar bears declared a threatened species , but it does raise the question: Why do we care? By some estimates, 90% of all species that once existed are now extinct and new species are always taking their place. For the species that’s going to become extinct, for whatever reason, extinction is the end of it. However, for the species that remain, is the extinction of another species good or bad? When Europeans first colonized North America, there was an estimated five (5) billion Passenger Pigeons alive and well in North America. In 1914, they were extinct. Passenger Pigeons didn’t live in little groups, but huge flocks that required extraordinary quantities of hardwood forests for them to feed, breed and survive. Deforestation to build homes, create farmland and over hunting for cheap food decimated their population. The westward drive to grow the United States in the 1800s and early 1900s was incompatible with the needs of the Passenger Pigeon and they literally could not survive in the new North America being carved out by the U.S. economy. The interesting thing about the Passenger Pigeon was the impact its extinction had on another species—man. That impact was essentially none. Man continued to find ways to feed himself through agriculture and other technologies and the United States and its citizens continued to prosper from the early 20th century till today. Whether or not Polar Bears become extinct because of Global Climate Change or other reasons, we need to address the larger question of: Do we care and why? One of the ways a nation, its citizens and the global community can answer that question is addressed by John A. Warden III in Thinking Strategically About Global Climate Change. He asks some interesting biodiversity questions in his post to include How Many Species Is the Right Number and Which Ones?
Wow – shades of Dennis Miller – maybe you should have prefaced your comment with – “Now, I don’t want to get off on a rant here, but, . . .” – and finished it off with “but, that’s just my opinion, I could be wrong.”
But, seriously, I agree that the collective ‘we’ are too consumed with activism to see the bigger picture: things evolve whether we like it or not.
Seems strange that the word “evolve” is used here. I would think that this would be a website where evolution would be considered to be as big of a “Hoax” as the idea of man made climate change. But then again, in this world all that “ludicrous alternative energy” nonsense is just that – because $4 a gallon gas is just fine and dandy right?
What planet do you people live on.
Editorial Note:
We live on the third one from the sun whose climate is 100 percent dependent on solar activity. Unfortunately, we share that planet with ideologues who embrace myths as opposed to science and facts. Spend a little time and find out some of the facts on GW at the Resources Page.