The Chinese astrological calendar may call this the Year of the Rat but for many, 2008 is the Year of the Polar Bear. These “lords of the Artic” are animals which know no boundaries, roaming across the ice from Russia to Alaska, from Canada to Greenland to Norway. They are also an endangered species.
Biologists estimate that between 20 000 and 25 000 polar bears exist, with about 60 percent of them living in Canada. Climate change is the main threat to polar bears today. Diminishing ice directly affects polar bears, as sea ice is the platform from which they hunt seals. Although the Arctic has experienced warm periods before, the present shrinking of the Arctic’s sea ice, due to global warming, is rapid and unprecedented. A study issued last fall by the US Geological Survey found that two-thirds of the world’s polar bears could disappear by 2050 due to increased sea ice melt caused by rising temperatures.
Due to shrinking sea ice, bear populations are showing signs of stress, with the Canadian Hudson Bay’s population dropping 22 percent since the early 1980s. A long-term study of the Southern Beaufort Sea population (the Northern coast of Alaska and Western Canada) shows that cub survival rates are declining and that the weight and skull size of adult males is decreasing. The IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group reports that at least five of the nineteen populations of polar bears are in decline, classifying them as a vulnerable species. Canada and Russia both list polar bears as a “species of concern.”
Meanwhile, US officials are defending plans to drill for oil in the Chukchi Sea off northwestern Alaska, claiming the activity won’t harm the polar bears. Randall Luthi, director of the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, which sells oil drilling rights, told US Congress last week that the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act provides adequate safeguards to polar bears from oil exploration accidents such as oil spills. Representative Edward Markey demands that polar bears be declared a Threatened Species under the Endangered Species Act, before the oil drilling rights in the Chukchi Sea are sold on February 6. The US government, which estimates crude oil reserves under the Chukchi Sea at 15 billion barrels, continues to stall on the decision.
The Chukchi Sea is one of the most threatened polar bear habitats. Making up about half of the US polar bear population, aproximately 2000 bears live there.
This article was published Tuesday, January 22, 2008.
