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Bay Post Archives - 10,000 Down
Typo
in Time Magazine Makes Editor's Day
Sweet!
The Hudson Bay Post editorial content is officially on par with
Time Magazine! As judged by the Hudson Bay Post, of course.
Yes,
in the July 18, 2005 Edition of Time Magazine, a classic ‘typo’
appeared in an article by Deborah Jones, entitled ‘Are Polar
Bears on Thin Ice?’ Now, aside from the overused ‘thin
ice’ cliche, this article contains the classic line - ‘...western
Hudson Bay, where the bear population has declined from 11,000
to 950 in the past decade.’ You know, if this trend continues,
our bears might be in trouble!
Okay,
I am not going to gloat about this mistake through the entire
article but to a guy who forgot the Russian Ambassador’s
name and mispelled fur trade as furt trade, this is a true victory!
I just sit here and read the article over and over - it is great!
The beginning of the newspiece quotes Andrew Desrocher of the
Canadian Wildlife Service talking about how the IUCN is considering
raising the polar bear’s status to ‘vulnerable’,
but not quite endangered. Sure, we have lost 10,050 bears on western
Hudson Bay in the last ten years and we have just raised hunting
quotas by 28%, but let’s take things slow here.
Before
I get too carried away, this really is an issue for Churchill
and Nunavut. Traditional knowledge and scientific research have
parted ways when it comes to our polar bears. The western Hudson
Bay population is thought to have been hovering around 1100 bears
(not 11,000) for more than a decade now.
The
Canadian Wildlife Service has been the main source of information
about these bears, gathering data on these animals for over thirty
years. They have just finished the latest three year population
study and it appears that their new estimate will place numbers
around 950.
Conversely,
Inuit Qamanarjuat (traditional knowledge) indicates that the polar
bear population has increased, maybe numbering 1400 bears now.
This has resulted in the
Government of Nunavut increasing harvesting quotas for most Inuit
communities, including the truly endangered McClintock population.
This
is a dilemma and one that will likely be with us for many years.
Canadian Wildlife Service is backed up by scientific evidence
and field research. Inuit knowledge draws from 1,000 years of
experience in this region.
Of
course, scientific evidence has also resulted in overestimates
of polar bear populations further north (again see McClintock
Channel). Could these estimates be wrong again? Does it even matter
considering the ice may be gone in fifty years?
On
the other hand, Inuit Knowledge has not dealt with an exploding
population, and the resulting growth of waste disposal sites throughout
the Kivalliq region. Could these garbage dumps be attracting bears
that would have otherwise avoided the communities?
So,
maybe we could meet in the middle and just sit down and agree
that there are 1100 bears. I mean we were all happy when there
were 1100 bears, not 950 and not 1400. Sounds good to me.
But
back to the Time article. In all truth, I feel bad for Ms. Deborah
Jones. I know the sinking feeling when your article comes out
and something (and there always is something) is screwed up or
mispelled. Of course, if it was not a typo, then this is an open
job offer to Ms. Jones. Come on up to Churchill! We never let
the truth get in the way of a good story!
Or
even better, media from across Canada and the United States should
send as many film crews as you can to Churchill and Arviat and
Rankin Inlet to investigate this issue thoroughly! Contact the
Hudson Bay Post to make all your media arrangements and hire a
local guide who will give you the real story about our bears on
‘thin ice’!
By
the way, if anybody cares, polar bears can actually walk on ice
that would not support the weight of a typical human being. They
spread out their weight until they are almost walking on their
bellies and kind of shuffle along. So maybe ‘Are Polar Bears
Walking on Broken Glass?’ would be a better title instead.
-
prepared by Kelsey Eliasson, first appearing in the Hudson Bay
Post, Churchill, Manitoba's monthly newspaper published occasionally
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