Packing heat on polar bears

Pressure from the Canadian Inuit and trophy hunters has complicated a stormy battle over winning the polar bear official protection. With some bears already drowning and starving, environmentalists and Congress members have blamed the listing delay on the Bush-Cheney administration's close ties to oil and gas industries.

This February, with the polar bear protections stalled, the Minerals Management Service, a part of the Department of the Interior, leased prime polar bear habitat, 29 million acres in the Chukchi Sea, for oil and gas drilling to the tune of $2.6 billion. Protection under the Endangered Species Act could prevent the federal government from taking actions, such as authorizing mineral extraction, that would harm the habitat of protected species.

The Interior Department's inspector general has begun an investigation into why the polar bear listing has been delayed while oil and gas leases were handed out. The Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace, filed suit on March 10 over the Bush administration's months-long foot-dragging over announcing whether the polar bear will be listed as "threatened" because of global warming.

"Our lawsuit has forced the Bush administration's hand on the issue of global warming like no other," says Kert Davies, research director at Greenpeace USA. "If the federal government is really serious about protecting the polar bear, then its next steps will be to cancel lease sales in the Chukchi Sea and immediately implement a plan for deep cuts in U.S. global warming pollution."

Indeed, scientists say time is running out for the polar bear, due to warmer Arctic temperatures melting the sea ice where the bears hunt for seals. By 2050, scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey predict, two-thirds of the world's polar bears will have vanished as a result of global warming melting their icy habitat, and there will likely be no more polar bears living in the United States at all.

The Polar Bear Specialist Group listed polar bears as vulnerable in 2006, due largely to the impacts of global warming, the effects of which are already being documented in the West Hudson Bay population. In 2007, the Nunavut government cut the polar bear hunting quota by about one-third in West Hudson Bay.

For their part, Inuit groups in Canada argue that shooting polar bears is not all about cold hard cash but about culture too. When the bears are killed for sport by Americans, their meat is used locally in accordance with local customs. "Even with the sport hunts, we use dog teams, a portion of tags also go toward subsistence harvesting, and we ensure that all the meat and other parts of the polar bear are fully utilized," says Duane Smith, president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council. "Our hunters and guides benefit economically, and we are able to continue with our culture, enjoy the benefits of what we use, and ensure that this is done in a responsible and sustainable manner."

In the United States, it's illegal to shoot a polar bear for sport. But Inuit living in Alaska have the right to hunt a limited number of them for subsistence. They've taken a different position on the polar bear listing issue than their brethren in Canada: The Alaska Nanuuq Commission supports the listing of polar bears under the Endangered Species Act as long as it allows subsistence hunting by the Inuit.

If polar bears are listed as threatened, sports hunters want an exemption under the law to import their heads and hides, just as they now have under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. That would disappoint the Humane Society of the United States. "We believe that since American law prohibits the killing of these creatures within our own borders, the spirit of the law should prevent Americans from causing harm to these creatures in other countries," Markarian says.

Hunters contend that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which oversees the Endangered Species Act, can't use the impacts that global warming may have on the polar bears in the future to justify listing the bear now. "Predicting the nature and extent of any future climate change and its impact on the Arctic and polar bears is an incredibly complex and speculative endeavor," Ralph Cunningham, president of Safari Club International, a lobbying group for hunters, has said. "The science is full of uncertainties. The Service cannot make the affirmative finding of future endangerment necessary to list a species as threatened under the ESA."

Sports hunters have also argued that their fees grant the native groups an incentive to preserve the bears. "Sport hunting, especially by U.S. hunters, brings significant dollars to remote native communities in Canada," Doug Burdin, an attorney for Safari Club International, has said. "To go along with the intrinsic value these people place on the polar bear, this economic benefit makes the polar bear valuable to these people, encouraging them to better conserve and manage the bear."

That may be, says Kassie Siegel, director of the climate, air and energy program for the Center for Biological Diversity. But in long run, without major steps to curb global warming and preserve the polar bears' Arctic homes, "you're not going to have any sport hunting anyway."