Alaska Wilderness activists dressed as polar bears high-five as they attend Wednesday's news conference announcing that polar bears were listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)
US lists polar bears as threatened
Wednesday’s designation is the first to list a species due to global warming threats.
By Amanda Paulson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor/ May 14, 2008 edition
It’s official: The polar bear is threatened and is likely to become endangered if actions aren’t taken to stem the loss of its habitat. That was the decision of the Interior Department, which on Wednesday issued a long-awaited decision to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act.
It is the first time a species has been listed due to a threat from global warming, and raises it questions about the scope and ability of the act to address such a complex global concern.
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne sought to answer some of those questions in announcing the listing, which comes one day before the deadline imposed for the decision by a federal district court.
“The Endangered Species Act is not the means, nor the method, nor the vehicle by which you can deal with global climate change,” he said in a press briefing, noting that the listing will not hold individual sources of carbon emissions responsible for contributing to the decline of the polar bear.
In addition, the department is seeking to clarify the scope of the act by invoking a special “4-D rule” which will essentially allow any activities already permissible under the current Marine Mammals Protection Act (MMPA) – which makes it likely that decisions on oil and gas permits, for instance, are not likely to change.
While Secretary Kempthorne claimed that the MMPA is more stringent than the Endangered Species Act in many of its requirements, environmentalists note that it deals primarily with harm to individual animals, not habitat, which is the biggest threat to polar bears.
Last February, for instance, oil and gas companies were granted leases in 29 million acres in the Chukchi Sea, off Alaska’s Northwest coast, home to one of two US polar bear populations. While the leases were allowed under the MMPA, environmentalists question whether the they would have conformed with the Environmental Species Act provision that prohibits actions that would jeopardize listed species.
“If the law is properly applied, we don’t see how they could do the Chuckchi lease sale as they did,” says Brendan Cummings, oceans program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of three groups that sued the government over the delayed listing.
Still, many groups hailed the listing decision, even with its limited parameters.
“It recognizes the importance of sea ice for the polar bear, and it does protect the integrity of the Endangered Species Act,” says Margaret Williams, managing director of the World Wildlife Fund’s Alaska office. The science leading to the decision was so conclusive that a decision not to list would have raised serious questions about the political pressures at work, she says.
Ms. Williams hopes that some of the limitations of the listing will be reconsidered, but notes, that ultimately, this is a signal of the importance of broader steps to stem global warming.
“The ESA is an important step,” she says. “It is not going to be the panacea or the ultimate way to help the polar bear survive. The ultimate tool is reducing CO2 emissions.”
Some groups critical of the listing have noted that polar bear populations are actually in recovery at the moment; their population is estimated at 20,000 or 25,000, up from about 12,000 in the 1960s, when they’d been overhunted.
But in announcing the decision, Kempthorne stated that he had very little flexibility under the strict guidelines of the Endangered Species Act. The science – including nine peer-reviewed studies conducted by the US Geological Service – was clear: Sea ice, necessary to the polar bear’s survival, is melting dramatically and is likely to further recede in the future. Within the next 45 years, all the models predicted that the bears are likely to be endangered.
“It was a difficult decision, but in light of the scientific record and the constraints of the law that binds me, I believe it was the only decision I could make,” said Kempthorne. But, he added, “I want to make it clear that this listing won’t stop global climate change or prevent sea ice from melting.”
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2. Jamie | 09.10.08
The Facts:
Of the 20 distinct subpopulations of polar bears, one or possible two are declining in Baffin Bay; more than half are known to be stable; and 2 subpopulations are actually increasing around the Beaufort Sea. Global polar bear populations have increased dramatically over the past several decades, from about 5000 in the 60’s to 25000 today. The 2 populations in decline come from areas where it has actually been getting colder over the past fifty years, whereas the two increasing populations reside in areas where it is getting warmer. The best studied polar bear population lives on the western coast of Hudson Bay. That its population has declined 17 percent, from 1200 in 1987 to 950 in 2004 has gotten much press. Not mentioned in the press, however, is that since 1981 the population has soared from just 500, thus eradicating any claim of a decline. Moreover, nowhere in the news coverage is it mentioned that 300 to 500 bears are shot each year, with 49 shot on average on the west coast of Hudson Bay. Even if we take the story of decline at face value, it means we have lost about 15 bears to global warming each year, whereas we have lost 49 each year to hunting.
The polar bear story teaches us 3 things. First, we hear vastly exaggerated and emotional claims that are simply not supported by data. Second, polar bears are not the only story. While we hear only about the troubled species, it is also a fact the many species will do better with climate change. In general, the Artic Climate Impact Assessment { http://www.acia.uaf.edu/ } projects that the Arctic will experience increasing species richness and higher ecosystem productivity. It will have less polar desert and more forest. The assessment actually finds that higher temperatures mean more nesting birds and more butterflies. This does not make up for the polar bears but it is important that we hear both sides of the story. The 3rd point is that our hysteria makes us focus on the wrong solutions. We are being told that the plight of the polar bear shows “the need for stricter curbs on greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming.” Even of we accept the flawed idea of using the 1987 population of polar bears around Hudson Bay as a baseline, so that we lose 15 bears each year, what can we do? If we try helping them by cutting greenhouse gases, in theory we can at the very best avoid 15 bears dying. In actuality the number is about 0.06 bear deaths avoided. But 49 bears from the same population are being shot each year, and this we can easily do something about. Therefore, if we really want a stable population of polar bears, dealing first with the 49 shot ones might be a much better strategy. Yet it is not the one we hear about. In the climate debate we mostly Don’t hear the proposals that will do the most good but only the ones that involve cutting green house gases.
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1. rgw | 08.12.08
Lets see….Polar bear population doubled in last 30 years. All populations are increasing and thriving except where Canada has a controlled hunt to reduce numbers in an overpopulated group. Did anyone see the article on the volcanic activity under the Arctic ice in 1999 that has reduced the thickness of Arctic ice? When will we learn that man is a bit player in the cooling and warming of our planet. CO2 is not the culprit. It accounts for a very small % of the greenhouse gases (Water vapor is the main player). We need lawmakers that don’t have an agenda so meaningful laws can be written.