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The United States has listed the polar bear as a threatened species, concluding that the rapid melting of the sea-ice habitat that the large marine carnivores depend on is undermining their future.
Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced the decision Wednesday in Washington, marking the first time a U.S. species has been given legal protection because of the effects of global warming.
U.S. scientists believe the ice on which polar bears hunt their main prey – seals – is disappearing so quickly that within 45 years the species is likely to dwindle so much it will be at risk of extinction.
The classification will have ramifications in Canada by blocking the import into the U.S. of bear skins and other body parts from animals killed by U.S. trophy hunters.
American sporthunters, Mark Beeler, 49, and Allyn Ladd, 33, pose with a freshly killed polar bear taken by a local Inuk hunter. (Patrick Kane for The Globe and Mail)
By the numbers
22,000-25,000: Approximate number of the world’s polar bears
16,000: Approximate number of polar bears in Canada
13: Polar bear populations in Canada, 12 of which are in Nunavut
468: Number of polar bears allowed to be killed in Nunavut in 2007-08
120: Number of bears killed in Nunavut by sports hunters in 2006-07
330: Number killed by subsistence hunters in 2006-07
Sources: Nunavut government, Northwest Territories government, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Canadian government
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It will also put pressure on Ottawa to offer similar protection. Canada currently gives polar bears its lowest level of protection – a designation of being of “special concern,” which requires no practical actions to safeguard populations.
Environment Minister John Baird told reporters Wednesday that he'll consider tougher action, if a scientific review to be finished by August recommends it.
“We're obviously tremendously concerned about the polar bear. It's a great iconic Canadian beast. Its survival, its ability to thrive is something that's tremendously important to us,” he said.
Although the U.S. government now views the species as threatened, the future of the polar bear is likely to be determined in Canada, where about two-thirds of the estimated global population of between 20,000 and 25,000 live, in areas stretching across most of the country's Far North. There are two subpopulations centred in Alaska, numbering about 3,500, but some of these animals also wander into nearby parts of Canada or Russia.
The trophy hunting of polar bears is an important industry in Nunavut, which lobbied against listing the animals to protect the livelihoods of Inuit guides. Although Americans will still be able to kill the bears, for which they can pay up to $40,000, the ban on taking the animal parts home will undermine much of the allure. Sports hunting of polar bears is against the law in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world.
Nunavut Premier Paul Okalik lashed out at the closing of the U.S. market, saying it won't affect the number of hunting permits issued each year, but will cause economic hardship in Inuit communities. He contended that bears aren't really at risk because their numbers are rising. Wildlife biologists believe the population is double the 1960s levels because of reduced hunting pressure.
“Our scientists in the field as well as Inuit elders have observed an overall increase in the polar bear population,” Mr. Okalik said in a statement. “The truth is that polar bear populations are at near record levels.”
But Paul Todd, spokesman for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, an animal-rights group, praised the move against trophy hunters as “an incredibly positive first step.”
The listing decision has been highly controversial in the United States, where it had been opposed by oil and gas interests and big-game hunters. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Wednesday sought to reassure the oil industry, saying in a statement that the designation “will allow continuation of vital energy production in Alaska.”
But environmentalists had been using the photogenic bear as a symbol of the need to combat global warming, and had been urging the Bush administration to take the even more aggressive step of having the carnivore declared “endangered,” the most restrictive designation allowed. They also wanted the listing to be accompanied by action to limit carbon dioxide emissions, a step the government refused to take.
Even the listing announcement was enveloped in some of this controversy. The Department of the Interior was supposed to issue its decision by January, but had been dragging its feet. It was forced by a lawsuit filed by environmental groups to issue its ruling this week.
Government officials denied Wednesday that the reason for the delay was to allow the administration, in March, to initiate lease sales to drill for oil in the Chukchi Sea area of Alaska.
Mr. Kempthorne was almost apologetic in announcing the listing at a news conference.
He decried the Endangered Species Act, calling it an “inflexible law” that forced the listing without allowing the government to consider in its decision “the well-being and the economy and the energy resources of this nation.”
Under the threatened designation, the government will have to take actions to protect some bear habitat, including land females use as dens. It will also have to take other steps, such as setting up programs to minimize the number of bears shot because they become a nuisance in communities.
