I have been seeing some articles on a recent study that looked at the POSSIBLE reduction in birth rates in polar bears. This reduction could happen if large amounts of males were ever killed and females could not find a mate. I saw various articles that were worded (with variations) like this: Hunting Male Polar Bears A Risk To Species. I decided I better check it our. One, such article, is this article from the Edmonton Journal or this article from AHN.
After reading them, I wondered why they have to word their titles like that? The study did NOT study the effects of hunting on polar bear fertility rates.

If you read further in the Edmonton paper’s article above, you read this quote from the researcher:

It is certainly something we must take into consideration, but I wouldn’t go that far with the information we have today that we need to change the hunting policies, because we have not seen the changes yet and have not evaluated the hunting strategies in this paper.”

This next quote is the kicker for me:

…There currently appears to be no problem with the pregnancy rate. In Lancaster Sound, for example, 99 per cent of females find partners.”

The study has more to do with number crunching of data than ANY issues with hunting polar bears. As a hunter, if science demonstrated that we were actually putting a species at risk of extinction, you can bet we would all be on board for any changes that had to be made. Don’t make the science (as in the case above) say something it is not.

This is not a “piece de resistance” HSUS and PETA.

Canadian Polar Bears