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Tracking the changing world of polar bears

Reviewed by: Mary Benbow

Posted: 02/6/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

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On Thin Ice

The Changing World of the Polar Bear

By Richard Ellis

Knopf, 400 pages, $35

THE latest natural science title from the pen of prolific American marine biologist Richard Ellis provides an extensive portrayal of impressions, interactions and impacts of humans upon the polar bear.

As his title makes clear, Ellis's main focus is the threats to polar bear survival, what with hunting having reduced the animals' numbers and now climate change potentially delivering the fatal blow.

The New York-based writer backs up his research with impressive and extensive references, and he does not shirk from the complexities of climate science.

Ellis covers the earliest meetings of Europeans with the bears, which predictably resulted in the bears' deaths or capture. He includes numerous quotes from primary sources, including many first-hand accounts of explorers, whalers and hunters.

On occasion these stories can be somewhat repetitive. Ellis also refers continually to the toxic nature of the polar bear liver -- interesting but memorable enough to not require such repetition.

Unfortunately, he gives short shrift to the Inuit. He allocates just a few pages to their cultural relationship with the polar bear and their legends.

Ellis also avoids a careful but necessary explanation of the different peoples of the Arctic and instead employs the universal term Eskimo (which is still used in Alaska but offensive in Canada).

His descriptions of the biology and life of polar bears provide fascinating insights into their behaviour.

However, Ellis's lengthy discussion of whether or not the polar bear should be regarded as a marine mammal seems unnecessary.

Mind you, this is science writer who has specialized in books on whales, dolphins, squids and other marine animals. He is also a respected painter of whales.

Nonetheless, in Thin Ice he also systematically covers each nation where polar bears are found. Churchill, you'll be happy to know, gets included here.

A reference map would have been a useful addition to locate the many places he discusses.

Ellis obviously enjoys his role as storyteller. He conveys dramatic and even gruesome details with great enthusiasm. He portrays the harsh environment of the Arctic and the often-hopeless struggle of early Europeans to survive, in stark contrast to the adaptations and survival mechanisms of the bear.

Ellis tracks polar bears through both history and culture, finding them stuffed in museums, portrayed in fiction and enclosed in zoos.

Winnipeggers will be interested in the chapter concerning polar bears in zoos, not only because it mentions Debby, the famous resident of the Assiniboine Park Zoo who died in 2008 and was the longest-lived polar bear on record.

But as our zoo undergoes rejuvenation and continues with its plans for an International Polar Bear Conservation Centre, readers here will be curious about the ways in which zoos continue to develop their role in conservation.

Although his affection for polar bears is obvious (he collects models of them and other artifacts), Ellis does not over-simplify the competing and often confusing views of scientists, politicians and the public regarding climate change.

On Thin Ice, therefore, does provide many useful insights into this animal and especially the evidence and debate regarding its future in a warmer world.

Mary Benbow is associate dean (academic) at the University of Manitoba's faculty of environment, earth and resources.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 6, 2010 H8

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