Polar Bears and Sensorial Frogs versus the Know-It-All State of Mind

Life is easy for polar bear living in the Anchorage Alaska Zoo.

Ocean Literacy for the Love of Polar Bears

The Nature Fakers that President Theodore Roosevelt silenced in 1907 are back in 2007.  Polar bears and frogs are being attacked by ridiculous exaggerations and falsehoods to advance organizational and political agendas.  Our knowledge of wildlife suffers by what Richard Louv calls “the know-it-all state of mind.”  It’s time to fight back, fight smart with personal natural history experiences and ocean literacy.  Armed with wildlife observations and common sense knowledge discover how, with ocean literacy, we may vanquish fear mongering and restore honor to wildlife.  One must never forget that fauna and flora really do have much resource and sagacity deserving of much wonder.

Polar bears are marine mammals, supremely adapted to life in water with large paddle paws and enormous rear-engine musculature.  Polar bears are more pear-shaped than any other bear, more than any other mammal--all the better for swimming in cold water. Polar bears do not dog-paddle with head held high; that takes too much effort. Instead, chin parts the water with nostrils above.  Polar bears do not sit icebergs as bergs tend to be cold, pointy, foodless affairs.  Excellent swimmers go where they want to go, often in pursuit of a good meal.

Once, two-thirds of Alaska’s polar bear population denned on ice flows.  Today, two-thirds den on the land.  Polar bears will not set out to swim to ice flows that are too distant.  Instead they will search the land for food.  Come winter, the ice-flows will be on shore once again.

Become more ocean literate. Speak truth to nature fakers. Knowing natural history is good for the bears and good for the planet Earth.