Pirate's Cove

Mights and coulds and maybes. Silly Louise Gray brings this breathless scaremongering.

Researchers at the University of Alberta looked at how melting sea ice in the 1990s effected the breeding success of polar bears.

During the spring and summer months the females are hunting seals on the ice to build up energy for the autumn and winter when they will hibernate for up to eight months and give birth.

The study found the early melting of the ice made it more difficult for the bears to hunt seals successfully and build up energy.

Therefore there is less chance of a successful pregnancy.

In the early 1990s 28 per cent of energy-deprived pregnant polar bears in the Hudson Bay region failed to have even a single cub.

Of course, this means

The polar-bear population of western Hudson Bay is currently estimated to be around 900 which is down from 1,200 bears in the past decade.

Except, others, like the Inuet, say that the bear population is growing, to the point that they are becoming a nuisance to the people who live around western Hudson Bay.

And

The number of polar bears across the Arctic is estimated to be between 20,000 and 25,000.

Silly Louise forgets to mention that the the polar bear population grew from 5,000 to 10,000 in the 50’s to that 20K to 25K number. And, it was colder in the 50’s. Yet, as the climate warmed up due to natural forces from the 80’s on, the numbers increased. Silly Louise should also work on her grammar (yes, I do make mistakes myself, but, then, I’m not a professional, nor am I actually paid.) And silly Louise should perhaps worry more about the crocs and manatees

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Service documented at least 244 manatees killed by cold, leading to a one-year record for total deaths. A plunge in ocean temperatures all but wiped out corals in shallow waters from Biscayne Bay through much of the Florida Keys and left hundreds of sea turtles dead or stunned and sick. The 100-plus carcasses of rare North American crocodiles represented about 10 percent of the coastal population.

The cold snap also produced one of the largest fish kills seen in decades.

That was from last year’s cold snap. And we have seen the same thing this year, with manatees dying all over the place, sea turtles being “shocked” by the cold waters, and much of the same as last year. No videos of lizards falling frozen from trees, but, interestingly, the biologists have found that many of the species which had problems last year have adapted and their numbers exploded. Ain’t global cooling grand?