Appalled researchers accuse Tory MP of peddling ‘completely bogus’ polar bear stats to Yukon constituents

A Conservative MP has been peddling what researchers describe as “bogus” information on polar bears and citing U.S. climate skeptics as experts on the iconic creatures.

In a letter that shocked scientists, Yukon MP Ryan Leef said: “The global polar bear population has quadrupled over the last 40 years.”

Polar Bear Poachers Use Canadian Documents To Disguise Illegally Hunted Pelts, Russians Say

Russian officials are becoming increasingly concerned about polar bear poachers in their country using Canadian documents to disguise illegally hunted pelts.

"I think it is a real problem," said Nikita Ovsyanikov, one of Russia's top polar bear scientists and a member of the polar bear specialist group, the leading international research consortium on the mighty and controversial predators.

Isolated Canada insists on being a polar bear bad guy

In a world where symbols matter, Canada’s reluctance to ban the trade in polar bear body parts speaks volumes.

For an increasing number of countries, protecting the majestic polar bear is a no-brainer. The United States, as well as Britain, wants an international ban on commercial trade in polar bear pelts, teeth, claws and other body parts.

So it seems, do a good many others among the 178 nations that have signed the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

Canada's management of polar bears at risk

Canada is in danger of losing a major international battle over its management of polar bears with former allies reversing their position and supporting a proposed ban on cross-border trade in parts of the animals.

At stake is a growing and lucrative business for Inuit hunters, who sell the skins as a byproduct of their traditional hunt. A defeat would also be a "warning" to Canada's self-image as a responsible steward of the mighty Arctic predator.

Canada must explain polar bear policies to global watchdog

Canada is being forced to explain its polar bear policies to an international environmental watchdog.

The Commission on Environmental Co-operation, which is part of the North American Free Trade Agreement, has accepted a petition from a U.S.-based group that says Canada isn't following its own laws on protecting the bears.

In accepting the petition, the commission has found that the Center for Biological Diversity has registered a legitimate concern under the terms of the treaty.

Oil Company Polar Bear Rules Affirmed By Appeals Court

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Oil companies operating in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska's northwest coast will have a negligible effect on polar bears and walrus, according to a federal Appeals Court ruling Tuesday that backed U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rules on harassment of the animals.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the agency correctly issued rules that provide legal protection to oil companies if small numbers of polar bears or Pacific walruses are incidentally harmed.

Top polar bear scientists warn population isn't as 'abundant' as reported

EDMONTON — Two of Canada's top polar bear scientists have warned that recent attempts to justify an increase in the hunting of the storied animal in western Hudson Bay could lead to trade sanctions against Canada.

University of Alberta scientists Ian Stirling and Andrew Derocher say the population is neither as "abundant" nor as "healthy" as a Nunavut Inuit organization claimed last week when it used the preliminary results of a recent survey to justify an increase in the annual harvest.

Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. says preliminary results from the Nunavut government survey contradict previous reports by Stirling, Derocher and other scientists who have been tracking polar bears in this region for the past 40 years. They say it also vindicates Inuit hunters who insist there are more bears than ever.

Suggesting that the research was "faulty," as Nunavut Tunngavik stated in a news release, is both "untrue and inflammatory," says Stirling.

"The Nunavut aerial survey estimated the population to be between 717 and 1,430. This aerial survey-based estimate is not significantly different from the 2004 estimate of 934 bears we did, which was based on more reliable mark-recapture studies in Manitoba."

Beaver be dammed

Sen. Nicole Eaton had no idea when she stood up in the Red Chamber last week to propose the polar bear replace the beaver as Canada’s national emblem that she was about to mine a national nerve.

And what a geyser she hit. Within hours of her statement, inflamed blog posts and “shocked and appalled” letters to the editor were flowing from the inhabitants of a nation built on lust for the once-fashionable, highly lucrative beaver pelts, one so great the Hudson’s Bay Company adorned its coat of arms with four of the rodents in 1678.

Since then, Castor canadensis has become enmeshed in the mercantile fabric of the country, as apparent in the swift reaction from Michael Budman and Don Green, co-founders of clothing company Roots, which has had a beaver on its logo since 1973, two years before the animal received official emblem status from the Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau. They immediately launched a “Save the Beaver” petition online, collecting more than 6,000 signatures by early this week. The senator’s remarks also triggered response from foes of the aquatic rodent, rallying a group of 100 Ottawa-area farmers who’ve seen trees destroyed and land flooded by a surging beaver population.

Star Polar Bear Scientist in the Dog House

Everything you've been told about polar bears and global warming is a lie. Or at least that's what climate skeptics have rushed to claim in response to the news that the government is investigating a scientist who wrote a significant paper five years ago about drowned bears in the warming Arctic. Charles Monnett, a wildlife biologist with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE) in Alaska, has been placed on administrative leave as the agency's inspector general undertakes an investigation into unnamed "integrity issues." But an environmental watchdog group believes that the real reason for the investigation is pressure from oil and gas interests who see polar bears as pests that stand between them and the vast mineral reserves deep beneath the Arctic.

The details of the investigation are odd, to say the very least. On February 4, 2011, Monnett received a request for an interview from Eric May, a criminal investigator with the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of the Interior. May and another agent interviewed Monnett on February 23, 2011, in the Anchorage office of BOEMRE.

Scientist who warned of threat to polar bears is suspended

A U.S. wildlife biologist whose observation in 2004 of presumably drowned polar bears in the Arctic helped to galvanize the global warming movement has been placed on administrative leave and is being investigated for scientific misconduct, possibly over the veracity of that article.

Charles Monnett, an Anchorage-based scientist with the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, or BOEMRE, was told July 18 that he was being put on leave, pending results of an investigation into “integrity issues.” But he has not yet been informed by the inspector general’s office of specific charges or questions related to the scientific integrity of his work, said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.