U. S. moves to protect polar bear
Thursday, May 15th, 2008Citing dramatic declines in sea ice due to global warming, the United States yesterday declared the polar bear a “threatened” species under the Endangered Species Act.
The decision was immediately condemned by the territorial government of Nunavut as “based on misinformed public opinion which disregarded sound science and Inuit traditional knowledge.”
The announcement by the U. S. Department of Interior came within hours of a court-ordered deadline to make a decision.
Environmental groups had sought that order through a lawsuit they brought after the Department missed its own deadline in January.
“Although the population of bears has grown from a low of about 12,000 in the late 1960s to approximately 25,000 today, our scientists advise me that computer modelling projects a significant population decline by the year 2050,” Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne told a news conference yesterday. “This, in my judgment, makes the polar bear a threatened species — one likely to become in danger of extinction in the foreseeable future.”
