It is clearly known and seen by those that work with polar bears that they will be going extinct in the next 50 years if we don't do something about climate change.  When the sea ice disappears, so does the food chain of the polar bear and its ability to get its food.  The polar bear typically gets all of its food for the year on 2 or 3 months of roaming the sea ice. 

     "Since the last stock assessments, large areas of the Arctic sea-ice habitat of the walrus and polar bear have melted away. Yet the Department of the Interior continues to hand out permits to the oil industry as if it were living in the past," said Miyoko Sakashita, Center for Biological Diversity staff attorney. "This lawsuit seeks to bring Interior into the 21st century."

     In the press release of the Centre for Biological Diversity, they state that since 2002, the year of the last stock assessment, the species has been proposed for listing as threatened under the Endangered Species Act due to global warming, and a study by government scientists concluded that polar bears will be extinct in Alaska by mid-century absent significant greenhouse gas reductions.

     Meanwhile, the official stock assessment for polar bears in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska, which is being used as the basis for critical management decisions, states that the population is "stable" and estimated at over 2,000 animals - well over the current best estimate of 1,500 bears and falling. Based on its outdated stock assessment, now egregiously inaccurate, the Department of the Interior has recently issued a blanket authorization under the Marine Mammal Protection Act to the oil industry in the Beaufort Sea to harass polar bears.

     With the recent announcements about the real cuts to the Canadian Wildlife Service, how does this impact the work on the polar bears in Canada?  The Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Network has lost 80% of its budget.  The budget for the National Wildlife Areas, a program that protects nationally significant habitats for wildlife and birds, has been slashed from $1.9 million to zero.

     About 2/3 of all of the 20-25,000 polar bears in the circumpolar population are in Canada.  Predictions around the demise of the sea ice, see the sea ice disappearing from all of our internal waters thereby imperiling the entire population.  All bears leave the sea ice every year for more than half of their year.  The Western Hudson Bay populations have already dropped 22% since the 1980's.  Weights are also going down.

     Barry Commoner says that we should think of the polar bear as the early warning system of humanity.  If polar bears are poisoned with global movement of chemicals, overhunted or pressured by interactions with humans, impacted by climate change or disturbed by oil & gas exploration, then we may be next on the global extinction path if we don't clean up our act and make significant changes.  But as we know about climate change, even if we make a 180 degree change, there will still be impacts that we cannot turn around.

     I will be going up to Churchill with 19 others in early November to look at the polar bears up close and personal.  We will have opportunities to talk and listen to those researchers helping to learn more about what we are doing to the habitat of this majestic predator.  Pictures to come later.  If you wish to go, the next trip is in June 2008 (See http://ccde.usask.ca/ExtensionDivision/noncredit/EST/clubsee/polarbearecology.htm)

For more information on polar bears, check out  - http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/bear-facts/polar-bears-and-conservation/page1/

For more information about the budget cuts, check out - http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/09/18/enviro-canada-cuts.html#skip300x250

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