dimwittedness that we do NOT want to put in the White House for four years.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

I don't think there currently are any medium to large sized land predators in Antarctica.  Introducing a large predator into an environment such as that would drastically alter the food chain in the area and could put other species at risk.  Nesting penguins would be particularly vulnerable to large, mobile predators, which would probably gather to focus on them when they are nesting because they would be so much easier to catch than seals.

This group's web site says Antarctica has abundant food supplies.  But the dodo was once abundant in its environment too, before large predators showed up.

3,000 bears might cause problems for the seals too, from direct predation and from reductions in the penguin population, on which seals sometimes feed.

I'm not convinced this is a good idea.  I wonder where they got approval to move that many bears.

Having read the promo on their web site, I'd be very interested to know which corporations and private donors are funding this.  It sounds almost like someone is trying to avoid dealing with GHG emissions by moving the high-profile "victims", with little regard for the consequences.  If they can say the bears are "saved", media images showing polar bears may cease to motivate people to reduce emissions.

Hoping to be nice.

Excellent observation, MisterNiceGuy.  Presumably the brilliant person who came up with this ship-the-bears-south idea had seals in mind, as what the polar bears are supposed to eat (and not penguins).  But Antarctic seals have a different relationship with ice and ocean than have the Arctic seals that polar bears are used to.

And anyway, just because there are a lot of biomassive seals in a place does not mean it is a simple thing to introduce a big predator into the neighborhood.

Your cynical final paragraph makes sense, on top of Naught101's opinion: it is all about "trying to avoid dealing with GHG emissions," with a pleasant-looking technology-is-the-solution PR device.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

So the idea is, first they'll gorge on the helpless eggs and chicks of penguins and other birds (who are absolutely unadapted to any sort of land predator), and once this massacre is complete then they'll go back to eating seals? But Antarctic seals, I believe, don't rely on airholes in the ice the was Arctic seals do. And that's the way polar bears are adapted to hunting them. So I imagine the end result would be the bears starving anyway, unless these people are planning to feed them.

The above comment was correct: this is a cynical attempt to convince the public that the charismatic polar bear has been "saved", so that's one icon of global warming you don't need to worry about.
How did McCain latch onto this? Obviously through prior coordination. Just follow the Conservancy link in the post - they have Grover Norquist's endorsement as well.

They (the polar bears) would probably like anything from McDonalds', including the ketchup, but that does not mean we want them hanging around fast-food restaurants.

<<
Antarctica offers more than 5.4 million square miles of glacial habitat and a variety of food sources for the polar bear: emperor, adelie, rockhopper, chinstrap and gentoo penguins; leopard, fur, weddell and elephant seals; and humpback, minke, blue and orca whales.
>>

Right.  So why in the world is it just. and right, to think of those animals as no more than polar-bear-food?!  Antarctic animals want to spend some time on Earth in peace, after all, without being bit into.

<<
In partnership with the Polar Bear Conservancy, Iceland's Reykjavik Zoo has been test-feeding samples of various Antarctic species to their polar bears. "They really like the minke and blue whale meat supplied by our government research expeditions," said chief zoo biologist Katrin Jonsdottir.
>>

Yum yum.  No doubt the minke and blue whales are thrilled.  "Ain't science great!," they are quoted as saying.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

I really, truly hope that the bears find a way to make themselves at home in the food chain without destroying it. (For their sake!)

However, there's a reason that there are no polar bears down there, and it's probably a good one. 5 years from now, when they've eaten up all the penguins, people will be shouting 'WTF!? This was a B-A-D idea from the getgo, and now look what's happened.'

Just go talk to all those critters over in Australia that are being wiped out by the stoat, or any other number of examples.

This is not the solution, it's putting a band-aid on a ruptured artery. (And the band-aid may just have salt in it.) People are going to say 'Look! The bleeding stopped!', turn their back, and it's going to start bleeding again. This time it might sting a little more, too.

We don't need a band-aid, we need well aimed direct pressure!

You mut be the change you wish to see in the world. -Mahatma Gandhi

4/01/08  Duh

Keep the polar bears where they belong; send the energy dinosaurs to the moon - better still to Mars!

Its obviously an April Fool's Joke.

Oh man, don't read emails before breakfast. I've been had. XD

You mut be the change you wish to see in the world. -Mahatma Gandhi

They'll have to swap names of course...since "Ant" (anti) "Arctic" (bear) means the absence of bears...

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." -- Galileo

The Arctic is getting real busy; the energy companies want the polar bears out of the way because they're bad news for business! Fatal PR errors for any multinational to have the cuddly creatures seen walking around their construction machinery, backhoes, excavators, dozers, drilling platforms ... or run over by trucks and hauling equipment.

Tried and tested solution? Send them to "reservations!"

...for one thing, under international treaty, Antartica is a scientific and natural preserve.  To relocate polar bears to the Antartic mainland would require approval of the "host" nations, who would never allow such a thing.

Second, to actually transport, track, and sustain a viable population would require mucho dinero.  And nobody who is rich enough to fund it is stupid enough to do it, or face the horrible publicity from it.

Guess what?  Al Gore isn't running for president either.  I had a good time reading the comments though.  

Yurgh!  The jokes can start earlier to the east, which means we get some of them, like this one, the evening before.  Now where did I put that eastern-time-zone dunce cap?

It's interesting that industrialists have so thoroughly tarnished their reputations that some of us have no trouble believing they would carry out such an unwise relocation plan.  This "joke" plan seems to fit right in with mountain top removal, CAFO, subsidies for buying giant SUVs, and dozens of other jokes which, sadly, don't seem to be very funny.

Perhaps the fact that this plan only made it to "joke" status is a hopeful sign for them.

:-)

Hoping to be nice.

After April Fool's, this may seem like a good idea to the righties to eliminate the damn PR mess of drowning polar bearies trying to escape death by climbing up the walls of oil platforms...

If there is a hell, Inhofe belongs there.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry that people are really serious about relocating the Polar Bears to Antartic.  Has any one done studies on how it will impact the ecosystem in the Antartic, and the fact the the seasons are opposites in the north & south poles.  Why not spend all that money to fight oil drilling,or back politicians that are pro-life, the life of the earth.    

Boy I was had on this one, I hope!

When I first read this (sent to me by a relative who received it from a friend), I took it seriously.  It almost seemed like a good idea.  Forgive me, but I'm new to Grist, so I wasn't prepared for the joke, but then I realized that it was April 1st....OK, now I get it.  Thanks for the neat introduction to Grist.

Well, the IPCC Bali boondoggle is over, but there will be another one at some other posh resort destination.

My suggestion:

Select a northern European location (not too far north, but at least in a cooler climate).

Cordon off the resort hotel where the climate researchers are discussing the horrible consequences of and possible solutions to the imminent AGW threat.

Introduce approximately 100 polar bears into the conference center for a friendly encounter with the IPCC scientists, politicians and bureaucrats.

Hey folks, this is also just a (belated) April Fool's joke, so no offense intended.

Max