tau- Glad to provide the info. One of my pet peeves is the amount of deliberate "scientific" disinformation that is put out in order to further political or financial agendas with no regard for scientific accuracy or truth. I've seen that bit about the polar bear population increasing mentioned in a number of sources, so I'm not surprised that you had seen it too.

One study mentioned that there is some perception that the polar bear population is growing simply because the shorter hunting season forces more of them to go into populated areas and rummage through garbage dumps looking for food. That might also explain what seems to be pretty high numbers being shot. Too bad- they really are magnificent creatures.