There are more polar bears now than there have been in the last 50 years.
Got a link to support that, LB?
A lot of interesting info at wikipedia.
en.wikipedia.org
Including these clips:
"It is difficult to estimate a global population of polar bears as much of the range has been poorly studied, but biologists use a working estimate of about 20,000-25,000 polar bears worldwide.
There are 19 generally recognized discrete subpopulations.[5][4] The subpopulations display seasonal fidelity to particular areas, but DNA studies show that they are not reproductively isolated.[22] The thirteen North American subpopulations range from the Beaufort Sea south to Hudson Bay and east to Baffin Bay in Western Greenland and account for about 70% of the global population. The Eurasian population is broken up into the East Greenland, Barents Sea, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, and Chukchi Sea subpopulations, though there is considerable uncertainty about the structure of these populations due to limited mark-recapture data.
The range includes the territory of five nations: Denmark (Greenland), Norway (Svalbard), Russia, USA (Alaska) and Canada. These five nations are the signatories of the 1973 International Agreement for the Conservation of Polar Bears which mandates cooperation on research and conservations efforts throughout the polar bear's range.
Modern methods of tracking polar bear populations have been implemented only since the mid-1980s, and are expensive to perform consistently over a large area.[23] The most accurate counts require flying a helicopter in the difficult Arctic climate to find polar bears, shooting a tranquilizer dart at the bear to sedate it, and then tagging the bear.[23] In Nunavut, some Inuit have reported increases in bear sightings around human settlements in recent years, leading to a belief that populations are increasing. Scientists have responded by noting that hungry bears may be congregating around human settlements, leading to the illusion that populations are higher than they actually are.[23] The Polar Bear Specialist Group of the IUCN takes the position that "estimates of subpopulation size or sustainable harvest levels should not be made solely on the basis of traditional ecological knowledge without supporting scientific studies."[24]
Of the 19 recognized polar bear subpopulations, 5 are declining, 5 are stable, 2 are increasing, and 7 have insufficient data.[4][5]
and.........
The global polar bear population, estimated to be 22,000-25,000 bears, is relatively stable.[90]
and........
The U.S. Geological Survey predicts two-thirds of the world's polar bears will disappear by 2050, based on moderate projections for the shrinking of summer sea ice caused by global warming.[43] The bears would disappear from Europe, Asia, and Alaska, and be depleted from the Arctic archipelago of Canada and areas off the northern Greenland coast. By 2080, they would disappear from Greenland entirely and from the northern Canadian coast, leaving only dwindling numbers in the interior Arctic archipelago.[43] |
