Blog posts | Susan J. Crockford

TV interview with Andrew Bolt in Australia talking about polar bears: the podcast

Posted by susanjcrockford on March 27, 2019 in interviews, Population size, Sea ice conditions, Sea ice predictions

This television interview aired a few hours ago on The Bolt Report (Sky News Australia, 26 March 2019). A short excerpt was made available as a tweet but a link to the full 10 minute interview is below.

Bolt report interview intro_26 March 2019

Ironically, despite the huge effort made by polar bear specialists and climate change activists to silence and discredit me over the last year or so, all it’s done is made more people willing to listen to what I have to say. My new book is selling phenomenally well and getting great reviews: if you haven’t ordered your ebook or paperback copy, you can do so here.

Tags: Bolt, book, catastrophe, Crockford, estimate, interviews, numbers, podcast, polar bear, population, sea ice, TV Permalink

Radio interview with Glenn Beck from 19 March 2019 talking about polar bear numbers

Posted by susanjcrockford on March 20, 2019 in interviews, Polar bear attacks, Population size, Sea ice predictions

Yesterday I joined talk show host Glenn Beck to discuss polar bear numbers.

Here is the podcast on YouTube, about 4:30 minutes:

You can also just listen to the whole thing here:

Tags: estimates, interviews, numbers, podcast, polar bear, population, sea ice, video Permalink

Now on sale: The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened

Posted by susanjcrockford on March 19, 2019 in Polar bear attacks, Population size, Sea ice habitat

On sale at Amazon today, my new full-length science book, The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened, published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

The official book launch is 10 April in Calgary, details below.

About the book

Final cover 15 March 2019 image The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened explains why the catastrophic decline in polar bear numbers we were promised in 2007 failed to materialize. It’s the layman’s story of how and why the polar bear came to be considered `Threatened’ with extinction and tracks the species rise and fall as an icon of the global warming movement. The book also tells the story of my role in bringing that failure to public attention – and the backlash against me that ensued.

For the first time, you’ll see a frank and detailed account of attempts by scientists to conceal population growth as numbers rose from an historical low in the 1960s to the astonishing highs that surely must exist after almost 50 years of protection from overhunting. There is also a discussion of what thriving populations of bears mean for the millions of people who live and work in areas of the Arctic inhabited by polar bears.

Title: The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened
Author: Susan J. Crockford
Publisher: Global Warming Policy Foundation
Publication date: 17 March 2019
Distrbutor: Amazon
Formats: Papberback and Ebook
Number of pages: 209

Find it on Amazon here.
Continue reading

Tags: attacks, decline, failed models, global estimate, polar bear, Population size, predictions, sea ice, threatened, thriving Permalink

My opinion piece in the Financial Post on International Polar Bear Day 2019

Posted by susanjcrockford on March 15, 2019 in Polar bear attacks, Population size, Sea ice habitat

27 Februrary 2019. See the original here (with photos).**

Crockford Financial Post Opinion_photo_27 Feb 2019

Tags: attacks, Churchill, fatal, Novaya Zemlya, opinion, polar bear, Polar Bear Day, Russian Permalink

Polar bear gift bonus: bookmarks and signed author note to print & insert

Posted by susanjcrockford on November 21, 2017 in Sales

As you plan your Amazon Black Friday/Cyber Monday shopping (see the deals in the US here, in Canada here, in the UK here), don’t forget to add a few polar bear books to your order to give as gifts to relatives, friends, and local libraries. Although price cuts don’t appear to extend to my books, there are other good book offers and free shipping deals, and I’ve designed a special bonus offer to brighten your gift package.

Book mark and note_adults Special bonus: I’ve made two polar bear bookmarks and a postcard-sized personal note signed by me to include with your gift. Find the bookmark for kids here and one for adults here (both three per page), and the person note here (four per page) as downloadable pdfs to print out on heavy photo paper or card stock.

My thriller (EATEN: A novel) couldn’t be more relevant this year: remember that while 2016 had the second lowest coverage of summer sea ice since 1979, the East Coast of Canada had much thicker spring ice than average this year. As a result, Newfoundland and Labrador in particular experienced heavy ice conditions and were inundated with polar bears.

And as described in my novel under similar circumstances, Newfoundland in 2017 had the most sightings ever recorded and was a wakup call that polar bears really could become the kind of wildlife problem that EATEN describes. This food-for-thought thriller is a great gift for teenagers and adults alike.

Don’t forget the science! Polar bear science got a recent boost with my books for kids and adults that relays facts without fearmongering. Expand the minds of those around you and give them something to think about. Both are perfect library donations.

There’s even a preschooler picture book version (Polar Bears Have Big Feet) so they don’t feel left out if older siblings or parents have their age-appropriate books (Polar Bear Facts & Myths for ages 7 and up — the first ever for this age group, which is also available in French and German — and Polar Bears: Outstanding Survivors of Climate Change for adults and teens).

Tags: bonus, bookmark, children, gifts, kids, Newfoundland, novel, problem bears, science, teens, translations, writer Permalink

EATEN the movie – could polar bears trump sharks at the theatre?

Posted by susanjcrockford on November 5, 2016 in Polar bear attacks

Would EATEN make a good movie? What do other scary predator attack films tell us (if anything) about the probability of EATEN becoming a successful motion picture?

In June 1975 (one year after the book was published), JAWS the movie became a huge box office hit. Fast forward to June 2016, when another shark-attack film called THE SHALLOWS was released (now considered a “sleeper success.”)

Compare the posters for these two films below:

jaws-1975-and-the_shallows_poster_aug-2016

Hmmm….menacing teeth vs. half-naked blonde. Is this natural evolution acting on 40-odd years of marketing styles or a reflection of the fact that THE SHALLOWS is more survivor thriller than pure predator attack film? I’m thinking a bit of both but more of the latter. I happen to think the parallels between these two shark attack films and the EATEN story line are stronger than for other predators-gone-bad thrillers, even grizzly attack movies. Perhaps it’s the premise of people living and having fun within shouting distance of the beach, which becomes such a fine, dangerous line of interface with these predators.

Other films of this genre that had varying levels of box office success include Alfred Hitchcock’s classic THE BIRDS (1963) and Stephen King’s CUJO (1983), two serious crocodile thrillers from 2007 (ROGUE and BLACKWATER), a survival thriller involving a pack of wolves called THE GREY , and two bear attack thrillers, BACKCOUNTRY (2014) and THE EDGE (1997) – see descriptions and some original trailers here.

Less successful offerings depend on mutant or otherwise farfetched versions of real predators, which suggest that making attacking animals larger-and-more-ferocious-than-life backfires at the box office, like the two below: Continue Reading »

Tags: attack, Bite Club, box office hits, grizzlies, GRIZZLY, JAWS, movie, polar bears, predator, sharks, survivor, suspense, THE SHALLOWS, thriller Permalink

Sharks off Cape Cod vs. my polar bear attack thriller – an unnerving parallel

Posted by susanjcrockford on July 5, 2016 in Uncategorized

I watched an episode of Discovery Channel’s Shark Week last Friday and I have to admit, it gave me a terrifying déjà vu moment.

SharkAttacks seal cape cod 2012 video capture

Specifically, it was the episode called “Shark Bait” (1 July 2016) – about the potentially explosive problem of booming populations of grey seals around Cape Cod (NE US, Massachusetts), the increasing numbers of great white sharks that are moving in to hunt them (see trailers here and here), and the thousands of relatively blasé humans that play and surf in the shallows nearby. UPDATE: entire episode now on Youtube, see below:

What could possibly go wrong?

I’ve already imagined what could go wrong – just read my polar bear attack thriller, EATEN. The parallels of EATEN with this developing shark situation are more than a little unnerving and makes it clear that my piece of speculative fiction may apply to more than polar bears.

See the details on the great white shark/seal conundrum below and decide for yourself.
Continue reading

Permalink

Colleague says EATEN possibly a real service to polar bear conservation

Posted by susanjcrockford on June 7, 2016 in Polar bear attacks, Review

Today I’d like to highlight a wonderfully unbiased review of my novel written by a prominent Canadian polar bear researcher who is utterly convinced that future sea ice loss is the biggest threat to the species (and a former student of the grand-daddy of all polar bear researchers, Ian Stirling).

June summer reading sale image3

Here is what polar bear-human interaction specialist Douglas Clark had to say about my novel in his Amazon review (note I did not send Doug a review copy because he did not request one – he bought it himself – so I had no idea this was coming):

Tags: conservation, Doug Clark, Ian Stirling, polar bear, Review, science-based fiction, sea ice, warming world Permalink

Polar bear comes ashore on Fogo Island near artist studio

Posted by susanjcrockford on May 2, 2016 in Polar bear attacks

Fogo polar bear shot_CTV May 2 2016

This is the usual time for polar bear visits to northern Newfoundland but this one had a sad ending. The bear that came ashore at Deep Cove (where some of the action in EATEN takes place, near the artist studio pictured in the CTV report shown above) on Fogo Island (map below) had to be shot by RCMP due to fears for public safety.

Maps and quotes from the CTV report below: Continue reading

Tags: attractants, Deep Bay, Fogo Island, Newfoundland, problem bears, RCMP, sea ice, sightings Permalink

Polar bears onshore in winter – historic records of winter attacks

Posted by susanjcrockford on March 22, 2016 in Historical records, Polar bear attacks

This post has been reblogged from PolarBearScience.

Incidents of polar bears causing problems onshore this winter (January & February) – including one that killed a horse in Greenland and another that threatened a resident in western Hudson Bay (only weeks after several incidents in southern Labrador) may be the tip of a very scary iceberg. I’ve taken a look at what records exist of this phenomenon, which in the past often involved deadly attacks. The large number of reports this winter appears to be a real increase, which is a rather terrifying prospect indeed.
Doug Clark photo polar bears onshore in Feb 2013 Wapusk NP

In winter, all polar bears except females in dens nursing newborn cubs are presumed by biologists to be on the sea ice hunting but it turns out that is not quite true. Although relatively rare over the last twenty years or so, it appears that in some areas, bears are now coming ashore in winter.

The photo above shows a polar bear photographed by a remote camera installed at Broad River Camp, Wapusk National Park, western Hudson Bay on 7 February 2013. It was visible to the camera for 40 minutes but apparently caused no trouble (camera installed and maintained by associate professor Doug Clark from the University of Saskatchewan and colleagues).

Given the fact that there are now many more polar bears than there were in the 1970s as well as more people living in many coastal Arctic communities, problems with bears in winter are likely to increase, as this winter’s events show. More bears out on the ice in winter (January-March) will almost certainly create more competition for the little bit of food that’s available (seals are hard to catch in winter), which means some bears might increasingly be looking for alternate sources of food onshore.