Bear with us, one might say:


"Excerpt from one of about 100 sources I found debunking the GW polar bear scare:

Indeed, since the 1970s -- all while the world was "warming" - polar bear numbers increased dramatically from around 5,000 to as many as 25,000 today (higher than at anytime in the 20th century).

And historically, polar bears have thrived in temperatures even warmer than at present -- during the medieval warm period 1000 years ago and during the Holocene Climate Optimum between 5,000 and 9,000 years ago.

Polar bears have thrived during warmer climates because they are omnivores just like their cousin's the Brown and Black bears.

Though Polar Bears eat seals more than any other food source at present, research shows that they have a varied diet when other foods are available including, fish, kelp, caribou, ducks, sea birds, the occasional beluga whale and musk ox and scavenged whale and walrus carcasses.

In addition, Dr. Mitchell Taylor , a biologist with Nunavut Territorial government in Canada, pointed out in testimony to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, that modest warming may be beneficial to bears since it creates better habitat for seals and would dramatically increase blueberry production which bears gorge themselves on when available .

Alaska's polar bear population is stable, and Taylor's research shows that the Canadian polar bear population has increased 25 percent from 12,000 to 15,000 during the past decade with 11 of Canada's 13 polar bear populations stable or increasing in number.

Where polar bear weight and numbers are declining, Taylor thinks too many bears competing for food, rather than arctic warming, is the cause.

That's right, the problem confronting polar bears may overpopulation not extinction!

Posted by: Lorraine at May 7, 2007 10:00 PM"