NO DOOM FOR POLAR BEARS AND PENGUINS according to articles in The Globe and Mail 4 April, BBC News and ScienceDaily 13 April 2012, and PLoS ONE 7(4): e33751. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0033751. A recent survey of polar bear numbers on the western shores of Hudson Bay Canada has defied predictions of declining polar bear populations by climate change doomsayers. The bears in this region were considered the most threatened populations of polar bears. In 2004, Environment Canada researchers concluded that the numbers in the region had dropped by 22 per cent since 1984, to 935 and predicted the population would decrease to about 610 bears.
The new survey conducted by the Government of Nunavut indicates the bear population is actually increasing, and now stands at 1,013. According to Drikus Gissing, Nunavut’s director of wildlife management, the survey shows that “the bear population is not in crisis as people believed”. He added: “There is no doom and gloom”. These results fit with reports from the native Inuit people who claim polar bears are increasing in number across the Arctic regions. Drikus Gissing estimates there are about 25,000 polar bears across Canada’s Arctic and commented: “That’s likely the highest [population level] there has ever been”.
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