Canadian university blocks polar bear researcher’s ‘academic freedom’

Polar bears are much more “adaptable and flexible” at surviving through summer sea ice levels than anyone had expected, zoologist and author Susan Crockford has told Sky News. To reach her conclusions, Dr Crockford said she compared research from 2007 to observations of the bears since to find summer sea ice declined decades sooner than experts predicted. “Instead of declining by two thirds, the bears actually increased slightly in population size,” she said. “The bears had actually survived the massive decline in sea ice that had been predicted to almost wipe them out.” Dr Crockford’s view that polar bears are thriving with populations reaching levels not seen for decades has put her in conflict with environmentalists and political allies who have been promoting the idea the mammals are in imminent danger of extinction. She lost her job at Canada’s University of Victoria over her work, an institution she said “prevented” her from exerting “academic freedom”. Image: Getty

from National | Daily Telegraph https://ift.tt/2MRuzaE