Polar Bears Successfully Adapt to Climate Change, Scientist Says

Published September 17, 2012

Polar bears have successfully adapted to severe climate change many times in the past and will likely adapt to future climate change as well, Professor Susan Crockford, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Victoria (Canada), told attendees in a public lecture at the University of Toronto. 

Crockford, who has been published many times in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, said alarmist polar bear claims are contradicted by real-world evidence.

“We tend to hear nothing but alarming messages about the current status and future welfare of polar bears from animal advocates of all kinds, including lobby groups and activist scientists,” Crockford said in a press release accompanying her talk. “Many of these tales of imminent doom, however, have important facts left out, glossed over or misrepresented—and much of the uncertainty in the underlying research has been downplayed.” 

Crockford is an expert on evolutionary biology with a special focus on polar bear evolution. She wrote her Ph.D. dissertation on “Animal Domestication and Vertebrate Speciation: A Paradigm for the Origin of Species.” 

James M. Taylor ([email protected]) is Managing Editor of Environment & Climate News.