Polar Bears Not at Risk: Nunavut

polar_bear_clinging1From CBC News

The Nunavut government does not think the polar bear should be classified as a species of special concern under the federal Species at Risk Act, says territorial Environment Minister Daniel Shewchuk.

Shewchuk said there is no clear evidence to support assigning that status to the polar bear despite recommendations to the contrary by Environment Canada and a federal scientific panel.

“We live in polar bear country,” Shewchuk told reporters in Iqaluit on Friday afternoon. “We understand the polar bears, and we do actually think our polar bear population is very very healthy, with the exception of a couple of populations that we are taking action on.”

The polar bear was most recently designated a species of special concern in 2002. “Of special concern” is the least serious “at risk” designation – one level below “threatened” and two levels below “endangered.”

Currently, the special-concern designation has been suspended while the government reviews the polar bear’s status and decides whether to renew the classification or change it.

An arm’s length scientific panel, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), reviewed the polar bear’s status in 2008 and recommended that it remain in the special-concern category.

Change of Position

The recommendation has initiated a long process of hearings and consultations, including a round of hearings in Nunavut in April.

Environment Canada is expected to decide in a couple of months whether to renew the special concern status.

Shewchuk said while the Nunavut government originally agreed with the special-concern listing, it changed its position after consulting with Inuit hunters and others on a recent community tour.

“Through direct consultation, they are unanimous in their belief that polar bears have not declined,” Shewchuk said.

Read the rest of this story at CBC.

39 Responses to Polar Bears Not at Risk: Nunavut

  1. Hal Groar June 3, 2010 at 10:14 pm #

    Well now I can sleep at night. Another example of what AGW deniers have been saying for years. They are coming around, slowly, but they are coming!

  2. paul wenum June 3, 2010 at 10:53 pm #

    Slowly but surely. It will take time to find the truth. Ignorance vanishes, truth prevails.

  3. Rob N. Hood June 13, 2010 at 8:06 am #

    If Obama was a true Liberal he would have told:-

    1) The bank crooks that they would get no more taxpayer money until they came up with proposals to regulate their activities that satisfied him.

    2)The medical industrial complex that they would have an opportunity to propose a universal economical and affordable health care system for all americans or he would.

    3) The “so called democrats” in congress that he expected them to come up with plans to stop the exporting of US jobs and proposals for the regeneration of US manufacturing.

    4)The republicans that they had a choice. Support the regeneration of the US or spend an eternity in limbo.

    5)The IRS to present him with plans to prevent the use of offshore tax havens to avoid US taxes and to propose a system for the fairer distribution of the tax burden among the population.

    6)The military industrial complex to propose drastic reductions in their share of national wealth.

    He would have made all these demands public. The majority of the population would have cheered him and so would the rest of the world.

    • jose June 25, 2010 at 7:40 am #

      those crooks own obummer, isn’t that obvious? he does not want to end up like JFK, but at least he had balls to try and warn us. but no , no none of that pathetic generation took his most infamous speech that got him wacked seriously. google jfk speach.

  4. paul wenum June 13, 2010 at 10:18 pm #

    You said it without even knowing, when you stated it ” when it satisfies him.” See #1. That is our President. Sad, but true but it says it all. Enough said.

  5. Rob N. Hood June 14, 2010 at 2:03 pm #

    Yeah, so? He’s the President. Bush was an imperialistic dictator by comparison so your point is what again??

    Here’s some more of my Obama bashing. Maybe this one will satisfy you.

    Watch what they DO, not what they SAY.
    What they DO is what they really mean.

    Obama could have gotten a lot done, in the beginning with the democrat majority.

    All he had to do was talk direct (not sound bytes, but also not the style he has now) to the people, and to get his party in line.

    They should definitely have gone after Bush and the crimes of that administration. Commissions, no appeasement to a party that only wants the US and this president to fail.

    But he is managing to do that on his own. It’s possibly the most devastating to those that waited for some hope under the idiotic, mean-sprited, wrong-way Bush years…at least we knew WHY things were happening the way they were. With this president we all wanted “change” and are not getting it. Clumsy, ham-handed and flip-flopping ineptitude is what we’re getting instead.

    Dennis Kucinich was the only real hope we had, but he’s short, and looks kinda funny, and his wife towers over him, so even though he is the kind of statesman that in other times would have been a gold standard of what the people want and deserve, we got another shiny new bought-for president.
    Hope dies.

  6. paul wenum June 15, 2010 at 11:30 pm #

    Vote for what you wish my friend is all that I can say. Life is choices. Take your pick.

  7. Rob N. Hood June 16, 2010 at 7:32 am #

    BUT THEY ARE ALL CROOKS !!!

    *(99% in my opinion)

  8. paul wenum June 16, 2010 at 11:27 pm #

    Opinions and idle chatter doesn’t matter. Voting does. Opinions don’t pull the trigger at the voting booth, voters do. I have no time for people that don’t vote and then complain thereafter. To me, they don’t exist because they have no commitment. They are nothing but another shallow scream in the wind that eventually passes. Similar to your constant blather.

  9. Rob N. Hood June 18, 2010 at 6:45 am #

    You voted and you still complain. Why do you persist in demonstrating your hypocrisy for all to see?

  10. paul wenum June 19, 2010 at 12:00 am #

    If you voted, you can complain all you wish. Absent a vote for any candidate and then complain?, I have no time for your comments/complaints. They never voted their convictions, they should have no argument. Stand for your beliefs right, wrong or indifferent.

  11. Rob N. Hood June 20, 2010 at 2:48 pm #

    Hypocrisy should be one of the mortal sins, or whatever it’s called.

  12. paul wenum June 20, 2010 at 9:49 pm #

    Love the word hypocrisy don’t you. You use it quite often. Nice word.

  13. Rob N. Hood June 21, 2010 at 8:39 am #

    It’s one of the main problems with Right-wingers, so yes I use it a lot. Projection is its evil twin.

  14. paul wenum June 21, 2010 at 10:17 pm #

    No further comment going forward. You obviously are set in your ways and never look, analysis reality.

  15. Rob N. Hood June 22, 2010 at 7:42 am #

    Yes I am, like all humans, fairly set in my ways- admitted. So are you, and that is why you just projected that onto me. But I also believe I have a fairly flexible mind, one that uses logic and rational problem-solving. And reatin and “open” mind for new information or even old information that when connected with other logical “dots” I form new and previously discounted beliefs. This is an on-going process, obviously. And it is a process, even philosphy, for daily living that some humans apparently do not utilize, for some reason, which I am trying to understand.

  16. Rob N. Hood June 22, 2010 at 7:45 am #

    correction: retain an open mind…

    -apparently my beautiful mind refuses to learn to type proficiently.

  17. Kristy June 22, 2010 at 5:52 pm #

    i love polar bears i hope that arent at risk

  18. paul wenum June 22, 2010 at 10:39 pm #

    Trust me Kristy, they are not. In fact they are on the upswing! they now have more Ice than ever. That said, the seals are now at risk.

  19. Rob N. Hood June 23, 2010 at 8:44 am #

    Thank you Paul Cousteau.

  20. paul wenum June 23, 2010 at 10:30 pm #

    Factual statement. Facts don’t lie, people like you that post dribble do. Research and you will find that I’m correct.

  21. jose June 25, 2010 at 7:18 am #

    poor poor polar bears

  22. jose June 25, 2010 at 7:32 am #

    are some of these people serious?? the polar bear population has never been at risk, heck i remember some years back that pb population was so high that they showed people (with consent) clubbing the baby cubs to death. i believe time mag covered it. now i was in school and it shocked me to see what humans were capable of doing.

    so this crap today i do not believe one bit! while 4000 babies die every day we’re to feel sorry for polar bears that are not endangered at all.
    and a damned tax won’t fix anything. this scam on a global scale is so repulsive yet sooooooo many dummies believe al gore the guy who cheats on his wife
    and ruins his marriage

  23. Rob N. Hood June 26, 2010 at 9:45 am #

    And I am accused of “dribble”?! Top shelf discourse this is not. Sorry Dan but I am seriously considering ending my self-inflicted martyrdom (is there any other kind?) as self-satisfying as it has sometimes been. But what oh what will become of Paul and Neil?? I worry about them… Take good care of them Dan, please feed and water them daily.

  24. Rob N. Hood June 26, 2010 at 9:47 am #

    Hal too! (sorry Hal)

  25. paul wenum June 26, 2010 at 11:09 pm #

    Will miss your constant Blather, however, good decision. If you were true in your previous posts, your time is better spent with family than time spent with BS discourse with guys like me as well other others. Channel your energy towards family first, work second and this site as well as any others last. Never forget that. “Family First.”

  26. Rob N. Hood June 30, 2010 at 7:35 am #

    Preening hypocritical lecturing = GO(B)P

  27. paul wenum June 30, 2010 at 9:56 pm #

    I don’t understand your equation. Please explain. I’m sure that my children that read this would be amazed. Please let us all know. We are all waiting with bated breath.

  28. Rob N. Hood July 1, 2010 at 1:59 pm #

    Oh I get it…. trying to fool me are ya? Gotta get up Pretty early in the mornin’ to fool you Paul…

    -or are those ALINSKY tactics you are pulling??? Either way, you got me. I confess. It isn’t real math !!

  29. paul wenum July 1, 2010 at 10:14 pm #

    Cut to the chase and quit attempting to baffle is with your Bull. Statements with no substance are boring. My daughter asked what that meant and I could not answer. Don’t profess to be what I’m not. Please explain your “excellence.” I prefer it in detail by the way. Waiting for a smart arse response. Use to that in my business. Waiting impatiently.

  30. Rob N. Hood July 2, 2010 at 6:34 am #

    GO(B)P I like that… it’s funny, and true all at the same time…

    I can’t take credit for it though, unfortunately. Sorry, I don’t know who first came up with it.

    At least I respond directly to you- which you rarely do in kind. But, I know – you think you do…

  31. paul wenum July 9, 2010 at 11:53 pm #

    GO(B)P? Is that a spell check problem? My daughters and friends still have no idea for what you speak. Typo error I assume? Please explain what this means.
    Must be something I don’t wish my children to hear? Let me know.

  32. Rob N. Hood July 11, 2010 at 3:18 pm #

    Feel free to disseminate that slogan, thanks.

  33. paul wenum July 12, 2010 at 10:31 pm #

    Ten of us don’t understand what the hell you say. Please explain in simple English or is that something that you cannot cut and paste?

  34. Rob N. Hood July 13, 2010 at 7:40 am #

    Only you don’t get it, I’m sure. Here goes: the GOP loves all oil companies and has even defended the recent criminality of BP, to the astonishment and disgust of intelligent Americans.

    And yes, many Democrats take money from oil companies, Obama included. And that fact simply strengthens my premise that they all suck.

    But the Repubs are much more in the pocket of Big Oil, at least historically.

  35. paul wenum July 13, 2010 at 10:10 pm #

    Your statement is a direct contradiction.

  36. Rob N. Hood July 14, 2010 at 7:51 am #

    Uhh, of what exactly? I sure don’t see it.

  37. paul wenum July 14, 2010 at 10:01 pm #

    Put on your glasses.

  38. anonymous November 5, 2011 at 3:53 pm #

    What, did an oil company pay you to write this? It’s a problem! Don’t deny it! Polar bears shouldn’t be drowning because of us, humans! It’s our fault, it’s not natural! We better clear up our mess, NOT HIDE IT!!!

A project of Minnesota Majority, hosted and maintained by Minnesotans for Global Warming.