BiPolar Reporting
Arctic thaw brings boom in reindeer population - Times Online
Climate change may be bad for polar bears but one type of reindeer and several other species are thriving in the rising temperature, according to a comprehensive study of the impact of global warming in the Arctic.
The loss of snow cover has resulted in a booming population of wild reindeer on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, with numbers doubling in the past 30 years. Other species, including muskox, sockeye salmon, pink-footed goose, grey whale and alpine pika, are also benefiting from the warmer Arctic climate or adapting well to it.
Polar bears are particularly vulnerable to the reduction in sea ice because that is where they catch the seals on which they feed. In the past two decades the number of polar bears in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea has halved and around Hudson Bay has fallen by 22 per cent.
Two populations of polar bears falling, where have I heard that before?
Polar bear expert barred by global warmists - Telegraph
Dr Mitchell Taylor has been researching the status and management of polar bears in Canada and around the Arctic Circle for 30 years, as both an academic and a government employee. More than once since 2006 he has made headlines by insisting that polar bear numbers, far from decreasing, are much higher than they were 30 years ago. Of the 19 different bear populations, almost all are increasing or at optimum levels, only two have for local reasons modestly declined.
But The Telegraph has a different slant:
Polar bears caught on camera - Telegraph
Dr Tom Arnbom, 50, from Stockholm, Sweden, thinks the bears in these images could be part of only two growing populations in the world.
He said: "There are 19 populations of polar bears on the planet. At present we know that eight are decreasing, three are stable, seven we are not sure about, and the only one we know for sure that is growing is in Canada.
"But it is my personal opinion that the bear numbers in Svalbard are increasing. Compared with the last 20 years we are getting many more reports of sightings and it could be a sign that their numbers are up.
"Monitoring populations is extremely difficult because they are very hard to find and very expensive to follow so it is difficult to get hard data.