“30,000 is still a surprisingly small number”
What number would be “un-suprising”?
Considering they cover an area from Alaska north to the North Pole and then across all of Canada, I think over to Greenland, I would have thought there were maybe 100,000 or more of them. The town I grew up in had 30,000 people. If that was all the people on Earth, I would feel like we need to be careful. I am thinking in terms of genetic diversity and risk to the species, not historic numbers or optimum levels. It is good that the numbers have gone up significantly. And it won’t be the end of the world if all polar bears died off; grizzlies would move into that niche, and they would, once again, develop into polar bears. But as I said, I was surprised that the number is that low. If you were not surprised, then bully for you.