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Beaufort Sea polar bears starving to death, scientist finds
CBC.ca ^ | Thursday, April 10, 2008 | 10:48 AM CT | CBC Staff

Posted on 04/10/2008 12:31:25 PM PDT by PeterFinn

Polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea are starving as they struggle to adapt to a warming Arctic climate, according to the latest research by a Canadian polar bear expert.

Changing spring sea ice is making it more difficult for the bears to hunt their primary prey, the ringed seal, said Ian Stirling of the Canadian Wildlife Service.

Residents and RCMP in Deline, N.W.T., described the three polar bears that wandered into their community April 2 as being thin and hungry. (Photo courtesy Les Baton) In an article published in the March issue of Arctic, the journal of the Arctic Institute of North America, Stirling documents finding three bears starving to death on the Beaufort Sea ice.

He told CBC News that he also found bears resorting to extreme measures to stay alive.

"We found four different incidents where the bear had been killed by an adult male to eat — in other words, cannibalism," Stirling said Wednesday.

"I thought that was very unusual. I've never seen it, anywhere."

(Excerpt) Read more at cbc.ca ...


TOPICS: Canada; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: agw; arctic; bravosierra; cbc; globalwarming
I've already debunked this. The biologist being cited, Ian Stirling, says "We found four different incidents where the bear had been killed by an adult male to eat — in other words, cannibalism," Stirling said Wednesday.

"I thought that was very unusual. I've never seen it, anywhere."

But in his 1999 book, "Polar Bears" he cites EXACTLY this kind of behavior as typical polar bear behavior.

http://books.google.com/books?id=DevvkxWZxWsC&pg=PA137&lpg=PA137&dq=%22ian+stirling%22+polar+bear+cubs+cannibalism&source=web&ots=X7qrOxyS-F&sig=T9B_lMYHXcdr4fflFcCnmkkx93w&hl=en

So he is LYING and has, indeed, seen this behavior before when he wrote about it in 1999!

1 posted on 04/10/2008 12:31:25 PM PDT by PeterFinn
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To: PeterFinn

“So he is LYING and has,”

How else to get the grant money?


2 posted on 04/10/2008 12:33:54 PM PDT by Shermy
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To: PeterFinn

Ian is a high-ranking member of the AlGore Manmade Global Warming cult - gross exaggerations and outright lies are what they DO.


3 posted on 04/10/2008 12:34:22 PM PDT by Baladas
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To: PeterFinn

polar bears should be on a diet of liberals. might give em gas though.


4 posted on 04/10/2008 12:35:29 PM PDT by kingattax (99 % of liberals give the rest a bad name)
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To: PeterFinn

As well as I imagine it’s likely that bears being thinner this time of year is typical of the cyclic cycle of the availability of food. This occurs with all species in all locations. Our local deer, and thus the local mountain lions, have more to eat in the spring and summer months, while the fall and winter are leaner times. It has nothing to do with ‘glocal warming’.


5 posted on 04/10/2008 12:36:02 PM PDT by CottonBall (A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority. "Civil Disobedience", Henry D.Thoreau)
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To: PeterFinn
that global warming has caused thin ice to layer and bunch together to create ice formations in which seals can hide.

Those new hiding places have meant that the bears must claw through thick layers of ice to get to the seals

Bears starve clawing through thick ice while seals hide in thin ice. Somehow this makes sense to somebody.

6 posted on 04/10/2008 12:36:16 PM PDT by NautiNurse (Plants are people too)
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To: PeterFinn

Great find, you should send an email over to the article publisher and show them exactly what kind of hypocrite he is with his own words.

Since they probably agree completely with the “spirit” of the article they will undoubtedly pull a “fake but accurate” attitude over it like Rather did.


7 posted on 04/10/2008 12:37:04 PM PDT by Abathar (Proudly posting without reading the article carefully since 2004)
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To: Baladas

Aren’t Environmentalists wackos ( I add wackos because we are all Environmentalists) also Evolutionists? What ever happened to The Survival of the Fittest?


8 posted on 04/10/2008 12:37:13 PM PDT by unkus
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To: PeterFinn

9 posted on 04/10/2008 12:39:56 PM PDT by A. Morgan (VOTE FOR A LIBERAL N' WE'LL BE UP TO OUR NECKS IN ILLEGALS and OUTA' GAS!)
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To: PeterFinn
Ringed seals usually make homes of snow on the large, smooth expanses of sea ice during the spring. But Stirling's research has found that global warming has caused thin ice to layer and bunch together to create ice formations in which seals can hide.

Oh my gosh! The connection is so very clear. The trace amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased because of evil man. This has caused measured temperature to go up, sort of, when carefully measured as an average over the whole Earth (not necessarily in any one place, mind you, which could be colder). This average global temperature statistic, that has little to do with any particular area, has caused some ice to form. This has caused hungry animals, probably for the first time ever...

Could intentional satire be any more ridiculous?

10 posted on 04/10/2008 12:40:09 PM PDT by AndyTheBear (Disastrous social experimentation is the opiate of elitist snobs.)
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To: Abathar
Great find, you should send an email over to the article publisher and show them exactly what kind of hypocrite he is with his own words.

Thank you! And CBC (amazingly) posted my reply in the comments section below the article.

11 posted on 04/10/2008 12:40:53 PM PDT by PeterFinn (Charlton Heston & Ronald Reagan - my two favorite Presidents.)
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To: PeterFinn
But in his 1999 book, "Polar Bears" he cites EXACTLY this kind of behavior as typical polar bear behavior.

So he is LYING and has, indeed, seen this behavior before when he wrote about it in 1999!

Great find Peter!

He sure is lying now, or he was lying then.

I went through that excerpt and he reports many instances including mothers eating their own cubs and males killing and eating females which he reported seeing first hand! And he reported that happened over 30 years ago.

Just another damn hustler out after PC grants.

12 posted on 04/10/2008 12:43:18 PM PDT by Ditto (Global Warming: The 21st Century's Snake Oil)
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To: PeterFinn

Thanks for this Peter. I have placed it in my archives for when the article is used as “Proof” in the future...after all the man IS and “EXPERT”, therefore will be cited as a resource of proof by some Leftist Globalarmist.


13 posted on 04/10/2008 12:49:10 PM PDT by rockinqsranch (Dems, Libs, Socialists...call 'em what you will...They ALL have fairies livin' in their trees.)
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To: PeterFinn

Several higher mammals will kill the offspring of females within their range to bring them into heat so that they can breed them. Other bears do this, why not Polar Bears?


14 posted on 04/10/2008 12:51:11 PM PDT by Tallguy (Tagline is offline till something better comes along...)
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To: PeterFinn

Looks like Ted Turner was right afterall, first the bears, then the holess, then....

The folks up in Fort Yuk killed a polar baer out at the dump couple of weeks ago. 250 South of where polar bears ‘are supposed’ to be.

Shot with an AR15 no less.

see
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/ap_alaska/story/359798.html


15 posted on 04/10/2008 12:53:17 PM PDT by ASOC (Training Storungen werden auf Papier notiert. Taktische Storungen werden im Stein geatzt. Gen Rommel)
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To: PeterFinn
Polar bears eat people.

Any liberal volunteers to help them out?

16 posted on 04/10/2008 12:55:04 PM PDT by dead (I've got my eye out for Mullah Omar.)
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To: Ditto

As is often said follow the money.
I hope I have more integrity than this man/women when times are tough


17 posted on 04/10/2008 12:56:28 PM PDT by Nailbiter
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To: kingattax

polar bears should be on a diet of liberals. might give em gas though.

If one eats “Ted the swimmer” it’s going to have one heck of a hangover!


18 posted on 04/10/2008 12:58:23 PM PDT by gc4nra ( this tag line protected by Kimber and the First Amendment (I voted for McClintock))
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To: PeterFinn

Saw your post at CBC but and then read through about 5 pages of posts. Does not look like anyone bothered to go to the link.


19 posted on 04/10/2008 1:00:53 PM PDT by Red_Devil 232 (VietVet - USMC All Ready On The Right? All Ready On The Left? All Ready On The Firing Line!)
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To: PeterFinn
You never cease to amaze me.

have you thrown it back in his face ?

Ian Stirling Canadian Wildlife Service
5320-122 Street Edmonton, Alberta Canada, T6H 3S5
Phone: (780) 435-7349 Fax: (780) 435-7359
Email: Ian.Stirling@ec.gc.ca

20 posted on 04/10/2008 1:01:41 PM PDT by stylin19a
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To: PeterFinn
This polar bear certainly wasn't starving:

Polar Bear: I come in peace

21 posted on 04/10/2008 1:03:11 PM PDT by CholeraJoe (Flatland Warrior: "All your Jap auto plants are belong to us.")
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To: PeterFinn

I knew before reading the debunking that bears will kill and eat younger rival males, definitely cubs not their own. Also, his seeing three “starving” looking bears is evidence of nothing. I also suspect that early in the year the bears are thin before food becomes more abundant.


22 posted on 04/10/2008 1:06:51 PM PDT by Williams
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To: PeterFinn
Yes. I looked at the comments section. They have an amazing number of mind numb Kool-Aid drinkers.

I especially like to one guy who concluded that thicker, more extensive sea ice was further proof of global warming.

23 posted on 04/10/2008 1:07:11 PM PDT by Ditto (Global Warming: The 21st Century's Snake Oil)
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To: NautiNurse
" . . . global warming has caused thin ice to layer and bunch together to create ice formations in which seals can hide . . . Those new hiding places have meant that the bears must claw through thick layers of ice to get to the seals."

You are correct - there's some weird logic going on in those sentences. Global warming is somehow causing thin layers of ice to meld together into layers so thick that the bears can't claw through them? And those melded layers of thin ice are thicker than the ice that was formed when the climate was cooler? Somehow I'm skeptical of this theory.
24 posted on 04/10/2008 1:08:02 PM PDT by Steve_Seattle ("Above all, shake your bum at Burton.")
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To: stylin19a
have you thrown it back in his face ?

No, but I will. Thanks for his email addy.

25 posted on 04/10/2008 1:10:57 PM PDT by PeterFinn (Charlton Heston & Ronald Reagan - my two favorite Presidents.)
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To: PeterFinn
This one passed up a canine meal, and opted for a playmate insteadPolar Bear thread from yesterday
26 posted on 04/10/2008 1:13:53 PM PDT by Sax
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To: Steve_Seattle
It's extremely convoluted, the idea that seals can effectively hide inside ice layers or underneath ice and the bears can't get to them. The seals can't stay under the ice indefinitely, also you have noted he is explaining "thicker" ice as the result of many thin ice sheets, but somehow you still end up with thicker ice when the ice is supposed to be melting.

I've read a number of articles quoting locals who say these "scientists" are constantly observing behavior that is routine, and reporting it to the world as something unusual.

27 posted on 04/10/2008 1:13:53 PM PDT by Williams
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To: Steve_Seattle

And this so called “Zoologist” has never heard of bears “resorting to cannibalism”, should go to Alaska, anywhere to see this happen almost daily, especially among the coastal Brown Bear population. Some very well fed (Salmon) bears still prefer their own flesh, especially male cubs or females killed trying to defend their cubs from the males.

The ignorance and lies flow so freely from these Liberal scum.


28 posted on 04/10/2008 1:16:09 PM PDT by PSYCHO-FREEP (Juan McCain....The lesser of Three Liberals.")
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To: PeterFinn
A couple of inconvenient truths:

1. The population of polar bears is increasing;

2. Sea ice is coming back.

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/02/15/arctic-ice.html
29 posted on 04/10/2008 1:19:51 PM PDT by USFRIENDINVICTORIA
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To: PeterFinn
Save the ringed seal,stop the polar bears!


No justice, no polar bears!

I sending this to PETA!

30 posted on 04/10/2008 1:19:59 PM PDT by mdittmar (May God watch over those who serve,and have served,to keep us free)
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To: PeterFinn

Good find.

A little more research shows that this information is rather old (23 years old):

LUNN, N.J., and STENHOUSE, G.B. 1985. An observation of
possible cannibalism by polar bears (Ursus maritimus). Canadian Journal of Zoology 63:1516–1517.

TAYLOR, M., LARSEN, T., and SCHWEINSBURG, R.E. 1985.
Observations of intraspecific aggression and cannibalism in
polar bears (Ursus maritimus). Arctic 38:303– 309.


The IPCC was not established until 1988.


31 posted on 04/10/2008 1:23:08 PM PDT by kidd
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To: Williams

To catch a Polar Bear....

Cut a hole in the ice...surround the hole with peas...

When the Polar Bear comes over to take a pea....

Kick him in the ice hole....


32 posted on 04/10/2008 1:25:24 PM PDT by Boonie
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To: PeterFinn

I thought all the polar bears have already drowned just like in the cartoon in Al Gore’s movie.


33 posted on 04/10/2008 1:26:34 PM PDT by The Great RJ ("Mir we bleiwen wat mir sin" or "We want to remain what we are." ..Luxembourg motto)
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To: PeterFinn
From: foxnews.com/

In the 1950s the polar bear population up north was estimated at 5,000. Today it's 20- to 25,000, a number that has either held steady over the last 20 years or has risen slightly. In Canada, the manager of wildlife resources for the Nunavut territory of Canada has found that the population there has increased by 25 percent."

34 posted on 04/10/2008 1:27:01 PM PDT by Species8472 (People who do not believe in God will believe anything!)
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To: PeterFinn
The report estimates the Beaufort Sea polar bear population at 1,526, down from a previous estimate of 1,800 bears. That would be a 15 percent decline, but researchers said the current study used different counting methods and the two estimates could not be statistically differentiated.

Here's another alarmist report from the USGS through the AP.

35 posted on 04/10/2008 1:29:29 PM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: ASOC

“Shot with an AR15 no less”

Whoa! Brave dude. I trust it had a 30 round clip. I’d want a whole bunch of those wee little 55 grain bullets right handy. I suspect the first 2 or 3 rounds would just p*ss him off.


36 posted on 04/10/2008 1:45:40 PM PDT by technically right
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To: PeterFinn
"We found four different incidents where the bear had been killed by an adult male to eat — in other words, cannibalism," Stirling said Wednesday. "I thought that was very unusual. I've never seen it, anywhere.

You've gotta be kidding me. Polar bears are carnivores. They're predators. They kill and eat things smaller than they are. I don't think it would be much of a stretch to include other polar bears in that category.

I also didn't think it was that uncommon for male carnivorous predators to kill and eat the young of their own species, which is why females with young tend to be just a wee bit protective of their young and irritable with the males of the species.

37 posted on 04/10/2008 2:07:06 PM PDT by susannah59
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To: technically right

Shot at the bear “from the hip”

8 rounds -

And to think my wife inisists we carry a 12ga while camping....


38 posted on 04/10/2008 2:07:37 PM PDT by ASOC (Training Storungen werden auf Papier notiert. Taktische Storungen werden im Stein geatzt. Gen Rommel)
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To: technically right
Check this out:


39 posted on 04/10/2008 2:11:07 PM PDT by facedown (Armed in the Heartland)
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To: kidd

Thank you for the citations!


40 posted on 04/10/2008 2:18:15 PM PDT by PeterFinn (Charlton Heston & Ronald Reagan - my two favorite Presidents.)
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To: PeterFinn

This is part of the plan to have the polar bear declared endangered. Once that happens, they can sue to close down all oil producing operations in Alaska (produces CO2).


41 posted on 04/10/2008 2:24:37 PM PDT by anoldafvet (To liberals, building a wall across the Mexican border is a violation of the Voting Rights Act.)
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To: facedown

How big of a set of cajones would it take to bow hunt polar bears?

Criminy. I don’t think I’ve even DREAMED of having a pair that big...


42 posted on 04/10/2008 2:30:33 PM PDT by L,TOWM (Liberals, The Other White Meat)
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To: L,TOWM
The picture is of a guy, but...


Michele and Jim Leqve at the Whisker Bisquit arrow rests booth. Michele is the (sic) Last year Michele became the first woman to bag a polar bear with bow and arrow.

YIKES!!!

43 posted on 04/10/2008 2:56:07 PM PDT by facedown (Armed in the Heartland)
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To: PeterFinn; rdl6989; IrishCatholic; Delacon; TenthAmendmentChampion; Horusra; CygnusXI; Fiddlstix; ..
 




Beam me to Planet Gore !

44 posted on 04/10/2008 4:35:37 PM PDT by steelyourfaith
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To: ASOC

10 shots with an AR-15 from the hip.


45 posted on 04/10/2008 4:39:19 PM PDT by RightWhale (Repeal the Law of the Excluded Middle)
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To: facedown

That would make a purdy rug..


46 posted on 04/10/2008 4:43:31 PM PDT by MaxMax (It's not the politics I despise, It's the politicians for being so stupid..)
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To: technically right

The bear was first sighted about ten yards off and charging. The bear stopped about ten feet from the trapper. Ten shots in 20 feet and charging means as fast as the AR-15 would fire.


47 posted on 04/10/2008 4:44:03 PM PDT by RightWhale (Repeal the Law of the Excluded Middle)
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To: Steve_Seattle


Crafty seals outfox starving polar bears

48 posted on 04/10/2008 6:51:14 PM PDT by NautiNurse (Plants are people too)
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To: PeterFinn
Current Beaufort Sea Ice area is exactly NORMAL right now so I guess the Bears are starving whenever the ice is normal.


49 posted on 04/10/2008 7:24:26 PM PDT by JustDoItAlways
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