Talk:Polar bear/Archive 5

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Life expectancy

Probably "the oldest captive" ("a female who died in 1991 at the age of 43") also lived before she died. So what does "The oldest living polar bear was Debby of the Assiniboine Park Zoo, who was probably born in December, 1966 and died on November 17, 2008" mean? --91.32.87.244 (talk) 17:19, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Addition of "people controversy" material to U.S. endangered species legislation section

I don't think that recent additions crossed the line, but I think we're getting close to wp:undue, with that being about personnel issues that are about the legislation which is about polar bears. North8000 (talk) 10:48, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, this over 100kB article shouldn't delve that far off topic. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:21, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Maybe it did cross the line already. North8000 (talk) 14:46, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

When I saw it I almost reverted it, but what stopped me was that the Contemporary Regulations section seemed to have other issues. Information about the Cold War is similarly irrelevant, and I can't work out why Canada and the USA are grouped together, their laws don't seem to be related at all. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:35, 15 August 2011 (UTC

It is confusing. First, it's covered in 2 different places, once under hunting (where US and Canada are combined) and again under endangered species legislation (where they are separated). The whole hunting section is pretty confusing. I guess one reason to mix US/Canada there is because the US classification can significantly affect sport hunting in Canada, i.e. by US hunters. North8000 (talk) 16:05, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I would be fine having the sections combined if they cooperated with their legislation or something like that, but as it currently stands I don't see the pont of mixing them. I think Canadian laws would be the same with or without US hunters. Perhaps this section can be trimmed down? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:58, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

On the latter point, I think that Canadian hunting is affected by US laws, since it sounds like US sport hunting was (or is) the main sport hunting in Canada. And if they can't bring their trophies home they don't hunt.

As a preface, I'm not an expert and don't have sources on this. My main involvement was that I did the GA review and then have been just watching the article ever since. But I do know when a section is confusing due to missing the main key statements. In the hunting section, that would be for each time period (including now) saying what the relevant aspects of the laws were/are and how that affects hunting.

On the endangered species section, in hindsight, I think that getting so deep in on the situation on the one individual crossed the line into WP:undue. So IMHO that is a good candidate for reduction. I think that the backstory that is unsaid is that I think that this is the first high-impact case where the US "remedy" for an endangered species is for the US to do tings to try to change the global climate. But the whole climate change thing is a slippery slope for the article to even go near, and, while it is related to the topic, it is not the topic. North8000 (talk) 17:48, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I see your point on the hunting. It could be clearer though. I agree with the slippery slope, with such a long article there's not much room for anything which isn't directly about the topic. Anyway, since this is now a GA, focus should be on refining rather than expanding. I'll try my hand at editing the section. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 17:56, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

This was my edit of that section. I rearranged the sections and held back from removing the information completely. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 18:27, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Polar cannibalism

Polar bears do eat other polar bears in acts of desparation mainly in late July to late September. It has been on the rise recently becuase of the melting of ice which they hunt on. Here is a news article about it called Polar Bear "cannibalism" pictured. It is a bbc article. You should put it under diet.

>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16081214< — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.162.250.7 (talk) 01:49, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Edit request on 22 February 2012

At the end of first paragraph it says "often living off fat reserves when no sea ice is present." On f too much in off, should be changed to "often living of fat reserves when no sea ice is present."

158.39.33.159 (talk) 09:59, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

No, off is correct in this sense. See live off the fat of the land. CMD (talk) 10:07, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

First cub in ZOO

The world's first cub (successfull birth and rearing) of polar bear was in 1942 in Prague's ZOO. She was a female named "Ilun".

for details see: http://www.zoopraha.cz/en/about-zoo/history/from-the-history-of-the-prague-zoo — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.230.156.3 (talk) 22:02, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Talk:Polar_bear&action=edit&section=new — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.230.156.3 (talk) 21:58, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Also, Zoo Sauvage in St-Felicien, QC has a pair of twin cubs, born in 2009. From the wiki for Zoo Sauvage... "Polar Bear Cubs On December 4 2009, the Zoo Sauvage de St-Félicien female Polar Bear, Aisaqvaq gave birth to two polar bear cubs, which is the first time that a Canadian zoo experienced the birth of twin polar bears.[6] The polar bear cubs at first were only viewed from a hidden camera inside the den and eventually at three months old wandered outside with their mom away from public viewing. When the cubs were six months old, they made their first public appearance at the Wild Zoo in June 2010.[7]" — Preceding unsigned comment added by LydiaBoroughs (talk • contribs) 06:08, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

This directly contradicts the assertion in the Polar Bear page that the earliest zoo-born bear was born Oct 2011 in Toronto. that is so sweet — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.211.69.143 (talk) 15:28, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Add Internal Link and/or Information to Article?

Could we either add a link to the Interspecies fertility or hybridization section from the Evidence of common descent article to the Taxonomy and Evolution section of this article or copy and paste the actual information found there on polar bear evolution to this one? I ask because that small section includes a lot of specific examples of PB evolution that I think would improve this article. Thanks. 4.246.207.237 (talk) 15:34, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Taxonomy and Evolution section

This section relies heavily on the mtDNA analysis of a few years back. More recent nuclear genome sequencing shows this to be an anomaly, and not an accurate reflection of polar bear origins. [1] This section will need to be rewritten. Agricolae (talk) 02:08, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

I put the main assertion (time of divergence) in cautiously. Left the old one in place as well, with minor word tweak to no longer sound categorical. Others can go farther if they wish. North8000 (talk) 11:47, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

It really needs more than this - the result changes the whole spin (e.g. the peripatric/paraspecies/paraphyletic paragraph becomes moot if the nuclear results are correct). I will just be bold. Agricolae (talk) 14:09, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Why is this article locked?

Here is just one small part of the article with mistakes:

"10 of them had a cub swim with them (their mother) and after a year 6 cubs survived. The study don't determine if the others lost their cubs before, during, or at some point after their long swims."

The whole article is like this. There are mistakes and it's awkwardly written. This is what happens when an article is locked. The whole point of wiki is to be open, that's why we have the best articles on the most subjects. Can someone either a)fix that mistake and the others in the article or b)unlock this article.
thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.58.11.158 (talk) 11:54, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

The article is semi-protected since 16 January 2011, 19:58 (UTC), as indicated by the silver-colored padlock icon at upper right, meaning that you need to create a Wikipedia account and perform a number of constructive edits over a four-day period before you can edit such articles; during the probation time the quality of your edits will be monitored by other Wikipedia editors. Articles that are subjected to repeated acts of vandalism or "edit wars" get this status. It doesn't stop registered users from editing them, but it does eliminate much "drive-by" vandalism by anonymous editors.
That said, I've cleaned the paragraph up for style, grammar and punctuation and replaced the source link with the the original Reuters article from which it was copied. — Quicksilver^{T @} 15:42, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually Declining?

The article seems to state that the population of Polar Bears is not decreasing. "Some estimates of the global population are around 5,000 to 10,000 in the early 1970s; other estimates were 20,000 to 40,000 during the 1980s. Current estimates put the global population at between 20,000 and 25,000." This pretty clearly is not a downward trend. More so the article doesn't actually try to give numbers showing any kind of decline, it's all based on future predictions, not actual data.69.246.10.65 (talk) 06:05, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Add Brown bear reference?

• How Brown and Polar Bears Split Up, but Continued Coupling July 23, 2012

99.112.212.152 (talk) 07:58, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

The section on brown bear/polar bear evolution has been updated according to not only the NYT article but also a peer-reviewed publication in PNAS. They split up over 4 million years ago. The interspecies breeding is not all that important, since overlap of territory is very minor. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 17:38, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Good work on the clean-up. Thanks for declumsifying my effort. After researching and reading, then writing and checking and trying to do the cites right, I get a little cross-eyed. Re: the importance of the interspecies breeding: I think it's the discovery of how long it's been occurring that's immediately important, not the fact that it happens - though interbreeding itself is important if it contributes to the polar bear's survival (that's unclear in the NYT piece - there was nothing about brown bear genes in polar bears). According to the article, the discovery has ramifications regarding global warming, the polar bear's historic ability to adapt, the question of whether it can adapt fast enough to the current rapid warming, and the likelihood of more interbreeding in the future. But thanks again.Wlegro (talk) 19:45, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

The largest polar bear ever recorded was shot in Kotzebue Sound, Alaska in 1960 weighing a grizzly 1002 kilograms or 2,210 pounds and stood 11 feet 11 inches in height. The largest brown bear, a Kodiak bear, which is a subspecies of the brown bear, weighed in at over 2,500 pounds and was almost 14 feet tall. this article is false the polar bear is not bigger than a Kodiak — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.253.234.235 (talk) 08:05, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Polar and Kodiak bear males have similar average weights/heights, with polar bears generally being slightly larger. The largest Kodiak bear on record was Clyde, a captive bear residing in the Dakota Zoo in Bizmarck, ND. He seemed to have been somewhat obese, and weighed 2130 lbs. when he died, though the zoo director claims he was close to 2400 previously. I cannot find any reference for your claim of 14' feet tall and 2500 lbs. Niado (talk) 16:03, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Unprotect

I haven't seen signs of any vandalism lately and I think semi-protection is no longer needed. This page can now be unprotected. As well as vandalism, this prevents me from making constructive edits! 212.139.210.42 (talk) 19:01, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

If you check the logs, you'll see that we've tried that many times before. This page is one of the most vandalized on Wikipedia whenever it is left unprotected, and that prevents everyone from making constructive edits. You can edit this page by creating an account and letting us see a few of your edits on unprotected pages. It's easy and provides several advantages.--Yannick (talk) 19:39, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Using the Term Eskimo?

Eskimo, is an inclusive and somewhat controversial term. According to Wikimedia, it says 'the term Eskimo is commonly used by those in the lower 48 (states of the USA) and in Alaska to include both Yupik and Inupiat. No universal term other than Eskimo, inclusive of all Inuit and Yupik people, exists for the Inuit and Yupik peoples.[1] In Canada and Greenland, the term Eskimo has fallen out of favour, as it is sometimes considered pejorative and has been replaced by the term Inuit. The Canadian Constitution Act of 1982, sections 25[2] and 35[3] recognized the Inuit as a distinctive group of aboriginal peoples in Canada.'

 Therefore, by using the word Eskimo, the article loses its objectivity and somehow adopt a more American perspective.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by LyrebirdandLynx (talk • contribs) 01:52, 6 January 2013 (UTC) 

Edit request on 6 February 2013

Please add a link to the following site which details much more academic and uptodate research into polar bears.

http://polarbearscience.com/

In fact large parts of the text of this article are not well supported by modern research and need a radical reworking.

Ecrockford (talk) 09:09, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. A quick check of the site you linked suggests it doesn't meet the guideline. Rivertorch (talk) 20:32, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Drop "In video games" section?

What do y'all think about dropping the video games section? IMHO just the fact that the species shows up in a video game seems a little "far removed" / trivia to be in the article. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:41, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Not sure that I would agree with dropping the section. Many articles on animals have sections which list where the animal is a character in a book, a poem, in folklore etc. Why should video games be considered any differently?__DrChrissy (talk) 22:45, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

My thought was that there are hundreds of millions of inclusions of polar bears in media (books, movies, TV shows, games, paintings, photographs, magazines so any particular one of those hundreds of millions individually is just one of the hundreds of millions and not notable enough for the article. Just bringing it up, I can live with it wither way. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 23:31, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes I have encountered the same issue and had the same thoughts for animals like pigs and hens. On second thoughts, I really don't think the average reader would feel the article was incomplete if the section was deleted. Like you, I don't feel strongly about this and I can live with it either way.__DrChrissy (talk) 00:21, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Drop The video game depictions have nothing to do with polar bears. There is little useful information by including these entries. Dger (talk) 01:31, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Unquestionable assumptions

Search for the term "unquestionable assumptions" in the Polar Bear article. From reading the relevant footnote I believe "questionable assumptions" was intended.

You are correct. Fixed. Dger (talk) 02:25, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

use of the word "fall"

Use of the word "fall" in this article to denote a season is not helpful. When does this season occur in the habitat of the polar bears, e.g. is it August to October? I think this needs stating in the article for accuracy.__DrChrissy (talk) 19:24, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 30 June 2013

The section on Charles Monnett is outdated - he was suspended for six weeks and reprimanded for improperly releasing government documents, but was cleared of scientific misconduct. Source: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/polar-bear-science-and-the-spin-cycle/ 166.205.68.18 (talk) 12:13, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

If you are doing an edit request you need to propose a specific proposed edit. If you are providing input / information that you want somebody else to turn into an edit, then that should go in regular talk. North8000 (talk) 12:24, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree with North8000 about the use of an edit request here, so I'm deactivating that for now - please feel free to reactivate it with a specific request in the form of "Change X to Y". That being said, in looking over this request I have to question Monnett's relevance to this article... his research, sure, and his work is cited a couple of times in this article. But if he's been cleared of scientific misconduct with regard to his research on polar bears, his legal / professional troubles would be better covered in his own article (and in fact already are) - why does a reader of this article care that a polar bear researcher was suspended for releasing documents? --ElHef (Meep?) 14:52, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Monnett material

ElHef's comments I believe point to the question of whether or not the Monnett material should even be the article. The only thing that is giving this notability is claims by supporters that the suspension was in retribution for having done the research, a claim that we're seen nothing else on, the latter notable for its absence. Other than that it would be just an investigation into the methods and actions of one scientist. But if the material is kept in the article, then I believe it should be updated. Depending on the decision or discussion here, I'd be happy to either delete or update the material. North8000 (talk) 12:40, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

As an editor with only a general interest in this article, I find the endangered status section/s confusing and detract from a very good article. I suggest the average reader wants to know only the status at the time of reading, i.e. today. This should be in a short, clear paragraph. Then in a sub-section e.g. "History of decision" the details of the controversy can be given for those that are interested.__DrChrissy (talk) 17:25, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Indigenous people

This section says that "The fur was used in particular to sew trousers". Can anyone explain that? Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 15:42, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

It means like this. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 10:54, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Those are pants made out of polar bear, not just sewed. Although "sew" is possible, I suspect that it is an error. North8000 (talk) 12:33, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

I just understood it to mean that polar bear skin was used to make pants. But using sew in that way looks odd. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 17:42, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

The pelts were used to make trousers. Bus stop (talk) 20:32, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#Sew trousers. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 03:51, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Partial protection?

It looks like about 95% of the edits on this article have been vandalism by IP's and the reverting of such. Should we seek a low level of protection for this article, either edit = autoconfirmed or the lowest level of "pending changes? North8000 (talk) 01:12, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Agree. Gaba ^(talk) 02:59, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

I asked for lowest level of pending changes protection. North8000 (talk) 22:02, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Can I write a large population of polar bears live in Churchill Manitoba and in Nunavut Manitoba

70.54.88.170 (talk) 22:44, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

I would think you need to state the numbers of bears to ensure it is notable, and you would need to cite good sources.__DrChrissy (talk) 23:03, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree with DrChrissy. 70.54.88.170, please comment here if you can tell us a source that mentions this population. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 00:39, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Nunavut is not in Manitoba, it is a territory far larger than Manitoba. Aside from that problem, saying that the are polar bears in Nunavut is like saying that there are Russians in Russia. Certainly accurate, but not much of a statement. Regarding Churchill, it is immensely famous (subject of TV specials etc.) that for a small portion of the year lots of polar bears hang out near and in Churchill. But either way, it's a matter of getting sources and writing material from them. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 00:55, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Here are some links so you can see what the above are referring to, Churchill, Manitoba, Manitoba and Nunavut. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 11:40, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

altricial or precocial at birth?

Here's a question the current article doesn't answer:

Are polar bears born with their eyes open (precocial) or closed (altricial)? If they are altricial, how long is it before their eyes first open? Chris (talk) 07:59, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

altricial or precocial at birth?

Here's a question the current article doesn't answer:

Are polar bears born with their eyes open (precocial) or closed (altricial)? If they are altricial, how long is it before their eyes first open? Chris (talk) 08:38, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Largest terrestrial predator?

The article claims the polar bear is the largest terrestrial predator. This is incorrect. The title actually goes to the saltwater crocodile (which is terrestrial as well as riparian). 213.205.251.100 (talk) 09:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

TRIVIA: The oldest polar bear fossil (Kew Bridge referenced in the article) was found with crocodile fossils in London. Both are really aquatic predators, which may allow them to be this large. ~~

Sows and boars?

The section "Long distance swimmer" refers to "sows" and "boars". This seems like an error that should be fixed, or possibly vandalism.

--Ilnyckyj (talk) 16:53, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Bears may be referred to as sows and boars ~~