Self-Interest Key to Denial

Take the Canadian Arctic region of Nunavat for example. Like Kaktovik in Alaska they're for anything that makes them money and have paid for spokesman like Mitchell Taylor to back them up. They fear the polar bear hunt by rich Texans will be shut down. End of story.

"For example, the Polar Bear Specialist Group, made up of polar bear scientists and wildlife managers from around the circumpolar world, claim the Baffin Bay and western Hudson Bay populations are each in decline.

As for Davis Strait, they say there’s not enough information about that population to make an informed estimate.

So in January of 2005, when Nunavut increased annual polar bear hunting quotas from 398 to 507 bears, the decision provoked an immediate backlash from a majority of polar bear scientists.

The minutes of the Polar Bear Specialist Group, who met in Seattle in 2005, say many scientists had “a definite high level of uneasiness” with GN population estimates based on traditional Inuit knowledge, as well as with Nunavut’s big increase in hunting quotas."

Looks like selectively cooked data to support hunting revenue to me, and to the consensus of polar bear scientists worldwide. Self-interest is easy to spot.