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Threatened.

It's just a 10-letter adjective, but Washington may decide to apply it to the polar bear, which could have a significant impact on Canadian wildlife policy.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to announce within days whether, in light of the animal's shrinking habitat, it will classify the polar bear as a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

The designation is one step below endangered status, but similar in that it offers legislated protection for the animal and the ecosystems on which it depends.

Driving the American proposal are declines in some polar bear populations, notably in the western Hudson Bay area, where Environment Canada researcher Nick Lunn and others have documented a 22-per-cent drop in numbers since the 1980s because of the ever-earlier breakup of Arctic ice on which the bears hunt for seals.

"I feel sort of like a polar bear historian, that I'm sort of documenting a decline of a particular population, and that sort of makes me sad," Mr. Lunn said. "Back in the 1980s, bears would come ashore in really good condition. They had lots of fat on them, big bears, lots of cubs being produced."

Today, the bears are in poorer condition and litter sizes have decreased, and he said the population he studies has dropped to 935 animals from 1,200.

The U.S. listing decision, expected no later than Jan. 9, follows a year of research, public comment and the input of 14 experts in the fields of polar bears, climatology and sea ice.

Only one of the experts opposed the proposal; none contested the assertion that global warming was causing the bear's habitat to disappear. The majority of the 600,000 public responses the agency received also supported the listing.

CANADIANS OBJECT

In fact, the most vociferous objections, apart from those of the burgeoning oil and gas industry, came from Canadians, including the government of Nunavut, the Inuvialuit Game Council, the president of an Ontario-based Arctic travel company and several other aboriginal agencies.

Their chief concern was the impact the listing will have on the sport hunt of polar bears by American tourists, who can pay up to $25,000 for a guided hunt. (Sport hunting of polar bears is not permitted in U.S. territory.)

If the polar bear is classified as threatened, American hunters won't be allowed to import polar-bear skins and parts as trophies, barring any amendment to that country's Marine Mammal Protection Act.

"We oppose the listing of polar bears because it is currently unwarranted, highly speculative and will hurt Inuit and our economy," Nunavut Environment Minister Patterk Netser said when his government tabled its unanimous opposition.

"Polar bears have become a political tool for environmental groups trying to force a change in U.S. climate change policy."

DECIDED BY SCIENCE

U.S. officials stress that their decision will be driven solely by science, but the ruling is politically charged and highly symbolic, especially at a time when the Bush administration's climate policy is under intense scrutiny and polar bears share magazine covers with celebrities.

"I'm sure the whole world wants to know what we're going to do," said Hugh Vickery, a spokesman for the Interior Department, which oversees the Endangered Species Act. "I guarantee you that, if we don't list the thing, people are going to scream, 'Well, it was politics, it was Bush.' The irony here is that this is being done by biologists. I don't even know what the heck the decision is."

Politics can cut both ways, he added. Environmentalists probably will exploit any designation of the polar bear as a species threatened by climate change.

"I imagine someone's going to try to test the water [by] trying to say that opening a power plant in Louisiana is jeopardizing the species in the Arctic because it's contributing to global warming."

But it's in Canada, with about 15,000 of the world's estimated 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears, where the American decision will truly resonate.

That's because Ottawa is reviewing its own designation of the polar bear under the federal Species at Risk Act. Early in the new year, a committee will recommend to Environment Minister John Baird whether the bear, last assessed in 2002, should be upgraded from its current status as a species of "special concern."

In a report released last month, nov. the David Suzuki Foundation said five of Canada's 13 polar bear populations are in decline, but none is listed under federal, provincial or territorial endangered-species legislation and there are no plans in place to help them recover.

Moreover, the report notes, with the Arctic ice melting, "the future of all polar bears in Canada is uncertain."

Brodie Fenlon is a Globe and Mail writer. This article was prepared with reports from Globe photographer Deborah Baic and Canadian Press.