Polar Bears In “Risky” Ocean Swim?
August 22, 2008
I find this article published by Fox News and written by (the news source that shall not be named), quite disingenuous! The headline reads, “9 Polar Bears Spotted on Risky Open Ocean Swims”. But when you put any facts associated with the story together, it doesn’t match the discussion of the article, which of course coming from (the news source that shall not be named) is all about the death and destruction awaiting us all from global warming.
According to what (the news source that shall not be named) wrote, here’s what anyone can put together as fact.
People in a plane observed 9 polar bears swimming in the Chuckchi Sea. It was said that the bears ranged from 15 to 65 miles “off shore”.
Before I get into the rest of the “facts”, let me tell you the article then proceeds into a slightly unrelated rant about the poor demise of our polar bears because of global warming. (The news source that shall not be named) then gets quite unrelated information from Steven Armstrup, senior polar bear scientist for the U.S. Geological Survey in Anchorage.
Armstrup said the bear “could” have come from a patch of ice that broke up northwest of Alaska’s coast.
“The bears that had been on that last bit of ice that remained over shallow shelf waters, are now swimming either toward land or toward the rest of the sea ice, which is a considerable distance north,”
Armstrup was referring to the patch of ice northwest of Alaska he speculated might be where some or none of the bears came from.
The article further states what Armstup said about swimming polar bears.
It probably is not a big deal for a polar bear in good condition to swim 10 or 15 miles, Amstrup said, but swims of 50 to 100 miles could be exhausting.
Back to gathering facts. Armstrup went on to say that further research would be needed to tell if bears are swimming further and if so, what if any effect this will have on the bears.
At the end of the article, one observer, who happened to be one of the leaders of the groups who observed the polar bears, said she had no idea where the bears came from.
Clark said the animals’ origin and destination could not be known without radio collar monitoring.
“To go out there and say they were going from this point to this point would be complete speculation,” Clark said.
Observers have no indication of the fate of the nine polar bears observed Saturday.
What we know is that polar bears quite readily swim great distances. We know they move from pack ice to pack ice for various purposes - i.e. searching for food, mating and denning. In this case, we had people flying in a plane over the Chuckchi Sea who saw a total of nine bears swimming in the water, estimated to be between 15 and 65 miles from shore.
We also know that the observers had no idea where the bears came from or where they were going AND NEITHER DOES ANYONE ELSE!
The sky is falling Henny Penny! Run for your life!
Tom Remington
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