WWF Misleading RussiaToday Suggesting Polar Bears In Steady Decline
2013-11-22 - 615 - Carl Friis-ansen
In an article November 21st 2013 on rt.com titled "Russian sperm bank for bears: Surrogate grizzly to carry polar cubs" , the argument for the experiment is "...the polar bear population has been declining dramatically year by year...". WWF is fairly correct though in stating that the world wide population is around 25,000. However, in reality the population world wide has steadily increased from around 5,000 in the 1950's to between 22,600 and 32,000 today.
The WWF is also insinuating in the article, that polar bears are drowning and cannot get enough food, due to "global warming", which make me speculate over how they survived previous warm periods warmer than the present: "If current global warming trends continue unabated, polar bears will be vulnerable to extinction within the next century, scientists warn." I guess the "scientists" in question are from the WWF propaganda department, because in the real world there has been no global warming for the last 16 years according to the MET office, and the North Pole sea ice extend had it's minimum in 2007 and is now recovering fast.
Furthermore, it is not really a sensation that the good scientists have been able to use grizzly bears as surrogate mothers for polar bears, as they already are matting in the wild from time to time. One could also question the purpose of the exercise, as the population in most colonies are stable to increasing. It is more likely serving as propaganda.
The main reason why the polar bears are thriving, is almost certainly due to a general ban against killing them. The rapid increase in numbers has very little to do with the variable climate over the last 70 years.
Here is a nice little film clip from Parks Canada showing mamma polar bear with two youngsters: (Available in HD 1080 too on Youtube)