Susan Crockford
A brand new Sir David Attenborough-narrated BBC six-part documentary, Frozen Planet II, has simply hit TV audiences within the UK with a contemporary litany of sob tales about Arctic and Antarctic animals designed to amplify the ‘save the planet’ rhetoric that Attenborough has been pushing for years, which I described intimately my e-book printed earlier this 12 months, Fallen Icon: Sir David Attenborough and the Falling Walrus Deception. h/t Toby Younger.
Filming of Frozen Planet II sequence started in 2018, which suggests it was a part of Attenborough’s relentless ‘local weather change’ and ‘tipping level’ messaging agenda that began in 2015 with the inception of the WWF/Netflix ‘Our Planet‘ blockbuster sequence and the notorious Russian ‘falling walrus’. I’m certain it’s no coincidence that the second episode of this new sequence (‘Frozen Ocean‘) is ready to air subsequent week, across the time that Arctic sea ice will attain its lowest extent for the 12 months.
Frozen Planet II: Sunday [11 September], 8pm, BBC One
Penguins! Gerbils! Seals! The fluffiest (and grumpiest) cats on the earth! David Attenborough returns with one other epic exploration of the world’s frozen areas. One minute you’re screaming at a grizzly bear chasing a muskox calf that’s misplaced its dad and mom, the subsequent you’re weirdly unhappy {that a} polar bear can’t hunt seals due to the melting ice – and this picture nails the pressing message on this unbelievable six-episode sequence. The frozen wilderness is disappearing at a sooner charge than ever earlier than, with the Arctic predicted to see ice-free summers by 2035. Every closeup shot of those wonderful animals is a reminder of what the world will lose with out taking speedy motion. [my bold] Hollie Richardson, The Guardian, 11 September 2022
Svalbard/Barents Sea
Summers within the Arctic at this time carry record-breaking warmth. With local weather change, it’s warming sooner than wherever else on Earth. It’s predicted that the Arctic Ocean might turn out to be ice-free every summer season by 2035, elevating new challenges for polar bears. [my bold] Episode 2: Frozen Ocean.
The primary a part of the above snippet appears like a common description of life within the Arctic for polar bears however it’s not: one of many scenes on this episode was shot in Svalbard (an archipelago east of Greenland, see under), which is decidely not consultant of the Arctic usually.
Svalbard has certainly been experiencing heat summers in recent times and that is mirrored in the truth that by 2015, summer season sea ice extent within the Barents Sea had retreated greater than 6 occasions as a lot because it had in Southern Hudson Bay, probably the most southern subpopulation. The charts of summer season sea ice decline from 1979-2015 under are from a paper by Eric Regehr and colleagues in 2016:
If the professed correlation between summer season sea ice and polar bear well being and survival acknowledged by polar bear specialists was right (e.g. Amstrup et al. 2007; Crockford 2017, 2019, 2022), there ought to be no bears left in Svalbard. This portion of the Barents Sea subpopulation particularly has endured greater than a decade of critically low sea ice in summer season.
Nonetheless, regardless of this dramatic decline in summer season sea ice, polar bears in Svalbard are “unexpectedly” thriving, in keeping with one of many polar bear specialists who repeatedly displays their situation. Over the last inhabitants survey within the spring of 2015, bears had been discovered to be in glorious situation and plenty of cubs had been counted. As just lately as spring 2022, this was nonetheless the case and an in depth research printed in 2019 had this to say in regards to the well being of polar bear females specifically:
“Unexpectedly, physique situation of feminine polar bears from the Barents Sea has elevated after 2005, though sea ice has retreated by ∼50% because the late Nineteen Nineties within the space, and the size of the ice-free season has elevated by over 20 weeks between 1979 and 2013. These adjustments are additionally accompanied by winter sea ice retreat that’s particularly pronounced within the Barents Sea in comparison with different Arctic areas” [Lippold et al. 2019:988]
The reply to the conundrum of polar bear survival in Svalbard is that sea ice in Spring (i.e. April-Could), when the bears do most their feeding, is plentiful and that has not modified in recent times, as this sea ice space chart for 7 April 2020 exhibits:
Right here is the essential take-home message about polar bears within the Barents Sea:
“Regardless of the declining sea ice within the Barents Sea, polar bears are seemingly not missing meals so long as sea ice is current throughout their peak feeding interval.” [Lippold et al. 2019:988]
Wrangel Island/Chukchi Sea
With out sea ice, increasingly bears have gotten stranded on distant Arctic islands. It’s a harmful place to be for a mom bear with cubs, surrounded by bigger, predatory males. Episode 2: Frozen Ocean.
The opposite story about polar bears offered on this sequence takes place on Wrangel Island, the place “…a mom polar bear finds herself stranded on a distant island stuffed with threatening males as she struggles to feed her cubs.” Though the episode hasn’t aired but, it’s doable to pre-emptively refute the implied narrative of a wrestle for survival caused by human-caused local weather change leading to a sea ice dying spiral.
Chukchi Sea polar bears are the opposite subpopulation that’s ‘unexpectedly’ thriving regardless of latest dramatic declines in summer season sea ice and a rise in time spent on land throughout the summer season (Rode and Regehr 2010; Rode et al. 2013, 2014, 2015, 2018). Chukchi Sea polar bears are plentiful and in glorious situation. Wrangel Island has all the time been used as a summer season refuge for polar bears when the ocean ice retreats throughout the summer season (and a essential denning space for pregnant bears), which implies this ‘stranding’ of a mom bear and her cubs is just not a brand new phenomenon.
And whereas barely extra polar bears have certainly spent about one month extra on land throughout the 2010s, in recent times that sample has modified. Sea ice alongside the coast of Chukotka and round Wrangel was very thick final summer season and at 1 September this 12 months Wrangel was nonetheless surrounded by ice (see under):
The conundrum of polar bears and seals thriving within the Chukchi Sea regardless of much less summer season sea ice is defined by the truth that main productiveness has elevated since sea ice declined after 2002. Research have proven that extra daylight reaching open water for longer durations in recent times has meant extra meals for all the Arctic meals chain and that these results have been strongest within the Chukchi and Barents Seas (Coupel et al. 2019; Crockford 2021; Frey et al. 2020). Extra meals for fish and seals has meant extra meals for polar bears within the spring and fatter bears imply extra wholesome cubs.
In different phrases, any suggestion within the Frozen Planet II sequence that Wrangel Island polar bear moms and cubs is perhaps struggling to outlive on account of lack of sea ice wouldn’t be supported by scientific information.
In conclusion, this sequence is extra deliberate emotional manipulation meant to make viewers amenable to ‘taking motion on local weather change’ (whether or not voluntarily or through authorities edict), as Frozen Planet II government producer Mark Brownlow informed the BBC:
Environmental storytelling is way more engrained on this sequence. We get the viewers invested in our characters, which we then use to speak the message. Our harp seal sequence in Greenland is an efficient instance. Females abandon their pups at simply 12 days previous, having launched them to swimming, to allow them to breed once more. On the level within the sequence that our feminine leaves her teen – alone on a small ice floe in the midst of freezing nowhere – you’re emotionally engaged.
Then we reveal the troublesome reality: on account of local weather change, storms are extra frequent and the ice is thinning, which implies many pups are being blown into the water earlier than they’re correctly capable of cope. It’s heartbreaking.
By no means thoughts that harp seal abundance throughout the Arctic is at an all-time excessive as a result of numbers within the NW Atlantic are booming or {that a} storm or low ice protection on the mistaken time in any 12 months could cause excessive pup mortality: the BBC/Attenborough agenda calls for a sure a message be informed about local weather change and the folks concerned are usually not about to let scientific info get of their approach. That is calculated ‘local weather change’ propaganda marketed as ‘leisure’. Purchaser beware.
References
Amstrup, S.C., Marcot, B.G. & Douglas, D.C. 2007. Forecasting the rangewide standing of polar bears at chosen occasions within the twenty first century. US Geological Survey. Reston, VA. Pdf right here
Coupel, P., Michel, C. and Devred, E. 2019. Case research: The Ocean in Bloom. In State of Canada’s Arctic Seas, Niemi, A., Ferguson, S., Hedges, Ok., Melling, H., Michel, C., et al. 2019. Canadian Technical Report Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 3344.
Crockford, S.J. 2017. Testing the speculation that routine sea ice protection of 3-5 mkm2 leads to a higher than 30% decline in inhabitants dimension of polar bears (Ursus maritimus). PeerJ Preprints 19 January 2017. Doi: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.2737v1 Open entry. https://peerj.com/preprints/2737/
Crockford, S.J. 2019. The Polar Bear Disaster That By no means Occurred. World Warming Coverage Basis, London. Out there in paperback and book codecs.
Crockford, S.J. 2021. The State of the Polar Bear Report 2020. World Warming Coverage Basis Report 48, London. PDF right here.
Crockford, S.J. 2022. The State of the Polar Bear 2021. World Warming Coverage Basis Be aware 29, London. pdf right here.
Frey, Ok.E., Comiso, J.C., Cooper, L.W., Grebmeier, J.M. and Inventory, L.V. 2020. Arctic Ocean primiary productiveness: the response of marine algae to local weather warming and sea ice decline. 2020 Arctic Report Card. NOAA. DOI: 10.25923/vtdn-2198 https://arctic.noaa.gov/Report-Card/Report-Card-2020/ArtMID/7975/ArticleID/900/Arctic-Ocean-Major-Productiveness-The-Response-of-Marine-Algae-to-Local weather-Warming-and-Sea-Ice-Decline
Lippold, A., Bourgeon, S., Aars, J., Andersen, M., Polder, A., Lyche, J.L., Bytingsvik, J., Jenssen, B.M., Derocher, A.E., Welker, J.M. and Routti, H. 2019. Temporal tendencies of persistent natural pollution in Barents Sea polar bears (Ursus maritimus) in relation to adjustments in feeding habits and physique situation. Environmental Science and Technology 53(2):984-995.
Regehr, E.V., Laidre, Ok.L, Akçakaya, H.R., Amstrup, S.C., Atwood, T.C., Lunn, N.J., Obbard, M., Stern, H., Thiemann, G.W., & Wiig, Ø. 2016. Conservation standing of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) in relation to projected sea-ice declines. Biology Letters 12: 20160556. http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content material/12/12/20160556 Supplementary information right here.
Rode, Ok. and Regehr, E.V. 2010. Polar bear analysis within the Chukchi and Bering Seas: A synopsis of 2010 discipline work. Unpublished report to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Division of the Inside, Anchorage. pdf right here.
Rode, Ok.D., Douglas, D., Durner, G., Derocher, A.E., Thiemann, G.W., and Budge, S. 2013. Variation within the response of an Arctic high predator experiencing habitat loss: feeding and reproductive ecology of two polar bear populations. Oral presentation by Karyn Rode, 28th Lowell Wakefield Fisheries Symposium, March 26-29. Anchorage, AK.
Rode, Ok.D., Regehr, E.V., Douglas, D., Durner, G., Derocher, A.E., Thiemann, G.W., and Budge, S. 2014. Variation within the response of an Arctic high predator experiencing habitat loss: feeding and reproductive ecology of two polar bear populations. World Change Biology 20(1):76-88. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.12339/summary
Rode, Ok. D., R. R. Wilson, D. C. Douglas, V. Muhlenbruch, T.C. Atwood, E. V. Regehr, E.S. Richardson, N.W. Pilfold, A.E. Derocher, G.M Durner, I. Stirling, S.C. Amstrup, M. S. Martin, A.M. Pagano, and Ok. Simac. 2018. Spring fasting conduct in a marine apex predator gives an index of ecosystem productiveness. World Change Biology http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.13933/full
Rode, Ok.D., Wilson, R.R., Regehr, E.V., St. Martin, M., Douglas, D.C. & Olson, J. 2015. Elevated land use by Chukchi Sea polar bears in relation to altering sea ice situations. PLoS One 10 e0142213.
