VARIOUS: Conservation groups call for the polar bear to be listed as an endangered species

Three conservation groups are taking began legal action on Wednesday (October 12) to have polar bears listed as 'threatened' under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Greenpeace, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Natural Resources Defense Council claim there is extensive scientific evidence to show that the polar meltdown is a direct result of global warming, and that polar bears need to be preserved along with their natural habitat. Greenpeace Research Director, Kert Davies, said "The worst thing about melting ice is that it exposes the water, the water is darker and it absorbs more heat. The polar bear needs solid ice to go hunting on and as the ice melts back, the polar bear has less room to hunt." Polar bears, the largest of all bears, live only in the Arctic and are totally reliant on the sea ice. They feed mainly on ringed seals, which live in the But a growing body of evidence is proving that the ice is vanishing much faster than previously documented. In late September, NASA and the University of Colorado released a report revealing that the Arctic ice cap has shrunk twenty percent since 1979, losing an area the size of Colorado in just the past year. Last year, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report, involving 300 scientists from the U.S. and seven other nations, also found that Arctic sea ice is melting at an alarming rate, and identified global warming as the cause. Even under conservative estimates, the scientists said Arctic winter temperatures could rise as much as 18 degrees Fahrenheit, eliminating year-round ice completely by the end of the century. In Canada's Western Hudson Bay, where the sea ice season has shortened by three weeks in recent decades, polar bears are already in decline. Fewer cubs are surviving, and the total bear population declined almost 14 percent from 1995 to 2004. Global warming is caused by heat-trapping pollution such as carbon dioxide emissions from cars and trucks, power plants, and other sources that accumulates in the atmosphere and prevents the sun's heat from escaping. The United States is the largest world contributor of those emissions. Dan Lashof, Natural Resources Defense Council Climate Center believes that "Spells huge trouble for the polar bears because they depend on arctic ice for hunting and mating, so we need to act now to curb the pollution that causes global warming to prevent the extinction of ploar bears .. or the only place we'll see them in the future is at a zoo." Legal expert Jonathan Turley told Reuters that the case will be a long journey, and not necessarily a successful one. "This is a very difficult course to take. The Endangered Species Act is very unpopular with the administration and Congress, in fact congress is moving to gut the Endangered Species Act so the irony is that the polar bear could be listed if they succeeded just in time to see the act itself gutted by this congress." The groups first petitioned to have the polar bear listed as threatened last February. The Endangered Species Act requires that the Secretary of the Interior respond within 90 days of receiving such notice, but the Secretary has yet to comply. Wednesday's announcement is a legally-required notice of intent to sue the agency for action.

ITN Source | October 15, 2005

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