Despite their seeming cuteness and cuddliness, polar bears are neither toys nor icons for soft-drink advertisements. They are wild animals, animals dependent on their environment for what they need to sustain existence. And no matter how you take the command given by the Creator in that old story, Genesis, whether you interpret it as "dominion" or "stewardship," either way we two-leggeds have done a totally lousy job at maintaining an environment for this majestic animal.
Last week the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that they are beginning a status review of the polar bear to determine if the species should be proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act. The government has acted on this issue only after being threatened with a lawsuit by several environmental groups which have been petitioning for this action for a year, to no avail.
On February 16, 2005 the Service was petitioned to list the polar bear as threatened and to designate critical habitat. The petition contained detailed information on the natural history and biology of the polar bear and on the current status and distribution of and perceived threats to the species. The petitioner submitted additional information in a letter received in December 2005, to be considered along with the information in the initial petition. The new information was included in the original petition and considered as a new petition, thus restarting the statutory deadline for making a 12-month finding. (from the Fish and Wildlife news release, Service Finds Listing of Polar Bears Under ESA May Be Warranted )
It is global warming which has endangered this beast, and which will continue to endanger it during the lengthy period of eighteen months for status review (6 months) plus "12 month finding" that may or may not end in actual listing under the ESA. This undertaking is being widely lauded as the first action acknowledging the depradations of climate change to be taken by the Bush administration. In fact, it most likely comes in under the heading of "too little, too late." The bears are already in deep trouble, the polar ice they depend upon shrinking away every minute that we dither with bureaucratic processes:
The bears are vulnerable to climate change because they depend entirely on the polar ice to catch seals, their main prey. The seals swim too fast in open water, and so bears have to lie in wait for them to surface for air through holes and cracks in the ice. The seals congregate in the shallow waters of the continental shelves, and the bears can reach them only when the sea is frozen. But the ice now recedes far out to sea every summer
A new report by the United Nations Environment Programme concludes that the extent of summer ice in the Arctic has shrunk by more than a quarter in the past half-century. The US government's official National Snow and Ice Data Center adds that a "stunning" reduction in sea ice has taken place in the past four years. Last summer an area twice the size of Texas disappeared. (Emphasis added)
The centre believes that the rate of retreat is accelerating. Worse still for the bears, the melting is starting earlier, depriving them of seals in the spring, when they have always stocked up on food to see them through the summer. (Independent article from Feb. 12, Starving Polar Bears Shame Bush to Act)
If last summer alone an area twice the size of Texas vanished, what will happen in the next eighteen months, a time period including another summer of the sort of extremes we experienced last summer? In their desperate attempts to journey from ice sheet to ice sheet, more and more bears are drowning as the distances grow. These animals are also literally starving, a fact that has driven them to behavior extremes hitherto unknown in the areas they inhabit:
In desperation, more and more polar bears are swimming to land, and marauding through towns and villages. Made fearless by hunger, the half-ton animals have even broken into houses in search of food. One killed a 15-year-old girl in the far western Russian Arctic, while children in the northern Canadian town of Churchill are being taken to school under guard. There is even evidence from north-east Russia that polar bears have taken to eating their own species. (op cit)
Not stuffed toys, not cuddly characters in children's stories, not cartoon figures, these bears are still today majectic beasts roaming the Arctic. However, given the threatened nature of the Endangered Species Act itself, the lengthy process to get a species listed, and the unlikelihood that climate change is going to slow down; they may, in a not-too-distant future, become as unicorns and dragons are now - mythical creatures from a fantastical past.
Despite their seeming cuteness and cuddliness, polar bears are neither toys nor icons for soft-drink advertisements. They are wild animals, animals dependent on their environment for what they need to sustain existence. And no matter how you take the command given by the Creator in that old story, Genesis, whether you interpret it as "dominion" or "stewardship," either way we two-leggeds have done a totally lousy job at maintaining an environment for this majestic animal.
