Comments on: Go south, young polar bear

Go south, young polar bear

commonmedia — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:59:02 -0800

A new campaign plans to relocate polar bears to Antarctica to protect them from the effects of climate change. Based on the rates of ice melt in the North, scientists say most polar bears will be gone by 2050. The first bears will be moved on Earth Day, April 22. The relocation will be the initial step in a planned five-year program to migrate 3,000 polar bears from the Northern Arctic to the southern continent of Antarctica. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to rule soon on whether to list polar bears as endangered species; however, it has indicated that relocating polar bears would be much less expensive to taxpayers than listing them under the 1973 act.

By: chrisamiller

chrisamiller — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:02:58 -0800

I hate April Fools Day on the Internet. Sigh...

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:03:01 -0800

The lizards eat pigeons, snakes will be brought in to eat the lizards, and polar bears will be brought in to take care of the snakes. But how do they plan to get rid of the bears?

By: pombe

pombe — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:05:42 -0800

Meh, I like the xkcd April Fools joke better.

By: tiamat

tiamat — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:06:31 -0800

damn hippies.

By: Naberius

Naberius — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:09:25 -0800

I'm gullible. A good kind of gullible, I like to say. It leaves me open to new experiences. But yeah. They had me up to the McCain bit. Well, that and the fact that listing them as an endangered species under the 1973 act wouldn't actually accomplish anything.

By: Meatbomb

Meatbomb — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:09:46 -0800

April Fool's joking aside, this was actually seriously considered about a year ago. Here is a top scientist giving testimony at an EPA hearing, explaining why this would be a very bad idea.

By: Senor Cardgage

Senor Cardgage — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:10:30 -0800

Oh god dammit. I came on here with a perfectly good question about whether they would still be able to survive outside of their usual well-known and ingrained hunting routes, possible seasonal disorder and and all this other hoo hah. Also, something about Rick Astley. But I forgot. Screw you guys!!! ;)

By: commonmedia

commonmedia — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:41:22 -0800

I totally clicked on the Rick Astley link! That was awesome!

By: maryh

maryh — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:49:56 -0800

Whatever about those nobody polar bears, just be sure to 'relocate' Knut to Promises. His fans demand an intervention, followed by an unseemly photo shoot in a national magazine, followed by a half-hearted comeback that we can all rally behind. Dance, Polar Bear, dance!

By: fullerine

fullerine — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:58:54 -0800

I suppose that the one good thing about this April Fool's Day is that Rickrolling will officially be dead by the end of it.

By: Jimbob

Jimbob — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:27:56 -0800

Seriously, though, how would they know where to migrate to?

By: Jimbob

Jimbob — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:30:07 -0800

Oh man, Jimbob fail badly.

By: crapmatic

crapmatic — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:38:26 -0800

Oh great... now on all the continents I'll have to be worried about being eaten while hiking.

By: invitapriore

invitapriore — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:52:52 -0800

I was fooled! This is a clever prank. After I got hip to the fact that it was a joke, I started searching wikipedia to see if the notion of relocation was actually possible. After realizing that information on the polar bear's habits alone didn't tell me anything about how the weather in the two places stacked up and whether the bears' main source of food (seals) also spent time in the south pole when the bears were hungry. If this actually is impossible, you'd have to know a whole hell of a lot about polar bears, their prey and their environment to call bullshit.

By: flippant

flippant — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 02:47:11 -0800

Very clever. Just within the realm of feasibility.

By: Emperor SnooKloze

Emperor SnooKloze — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 03:11:18 -0800

<threadjack>I would just like to say that the xkcd-qwantz-QC gag was really confusing for a moment at 5am. I blame pombe</threadjack>

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 04:40:08 -0800

Wait wait wait. We just had Earth Hour. Now we have to do an Earth Day? Nuh-uh, you gotta pick one or the other.

By: TedW

TedW — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 05:36:35 -0800

So, how many penguins would it take to take down a polar bear?

By: craven_morhead

craven_morhead — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 05:56:36 -0800

TedW, enough to make the polar bear full.

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:12:34 -0800

you'd have to know a whole hell of a lot about polar bears, their prey and their environment to call bullshit. Not really. Just need to be aware that there is something called a food chain.

By: ROU_Xenophobe

ROU_Xenophobe — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:43:53 -0800

So, how many penguins would it take to take down a polar bear? One. Warning: hotlink to image on blog. May autoreset to goatse or worse. In the spirit of this post and the day, I'd like to announce that I'm not really a Rapid Offensive Unit. I'm a broom.

By: wilful

wilful — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:47:18 -0800

I don't think it's really at all improbable that polar bears couldn't relocate successfully to patagonia. Of course, you'd want to ask the locals. stbalbach, you know that introduced species manage pretty well on just about every continent?

By: fourcheesemac

fourcheesemac — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:02:53 -0800

I want to ride one south.

By: Jimbob

Jimbob — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:29:14 -0800

stbalbach, you know that introduced species manage pretty well on just about every continent? And one of the fundamental questions of ecology is what makes one species a successful invader, while others don't seem to even be able to survive on their own continent! One of the things that can help make a species invasive, is if it's able to escape from predation. That's why, for example, Australian eucalypts grow so well in America and New Zealand - in fact they look like a completely different tree, all green and bushy and healthy. That's because America and New Zealand lack creatures that can eat their leaves. Polar bears wouldn't fit into this category, being a top predator to begin with. Another important issue is whether the species is a generalist or a specialist. Foxes, rabbits, dogs, cats, rats - they all rely on a wide variety of fairly non-specific food sources, and so they all manage to survive almost anywhere. On the other hand, relocate a koala outside Australia and it doesn't stand a chance. Because they're stupid. I'm not sure where polar bears fit in the scheme of things here, they may tend more towards the "generalist" end, I'm not sure. However, the arctic regions are a bit of a special case, being devoid of many of the types of resources present elsewhere. There just aren't that many things up there for them to eat to begin with, so while they may be generalists within the context of their own ecosystem, put them in another ecosystem (that just happens to have the same climate) and I think they would find it hard to find enough to eat.