Canada’s Polar Bears Beset on All Sides
VANCOUVER - Melting sea ice caused by climate change and government inaction is putting polar bears at extreme risk in Canada as a species over the next 50 years, according to local environmental groups.
In northern Canada and Alaska, drilling for potential oil and gas is also drawing criticism from civil society organisations.
Rachel Plotkin, a biodiversity policy analyst with the David Suzuki Foundation, told IPS, “The main threat is the melting of sea ice which affects the hunting and mating of polar bears. The sea ice is melting faster than it was ever imagined. In the long term, the viability of the species is uncertain.”
Two-thirds of the world’s polar bears are in Canada, she noted.
“They are also suffering from bio-accumulation of toxins. Canada needs to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. [However], there are also greater threats on the horizon such as the impact of increased shipping traffic, which will be made possible by the melting sea ice. There will be pressure from oil and gas production. Canada hasn’t recognised polar bears as a species at risk. If it did that, the government would then be forced to have a management plan,” Plotkin said.
Diminishing ice pack affects polar bears directly as the sea ice is the platform they use to hunt seals. A delay in freezing causes polar bears to lose critical fat reserves during fasting periods. This, in turn, affects reproduction and the ability to produce milk for their cubs. There has already been a 15 percent drop in birth rates.
The U.N. Environment Programme administers the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and was adopted as international law in 1975.
The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, a government committee, has called the polar bear a species of “special concern”. Under the federal Species at Risk Act, the committee will prepare a report, which will be assessed against the listed criteria in April 2008 and which will determine the level of danger to the species based on status, trends, threats and projections for later this century.
Plotkin warns that the current federal government review could delay the implementation of a protection plan until 2012.
Canada has 13 of the 19 world polar bear populations in Nunavut, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Labrador, Northwest Territories and the Yukon. The polar bear can also be found in Alaska, Greenland, Norway and Russia. In 1973, the countries signed the International Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears. This landmark agreement was reached after major increases in hunting during the 1960s and 1970s.
Canada and Denmark allow trophy hunting by tourists, and all countries except Norway allow traditional hunting by Inuit.
U.S. scientists predict that the polar bear population will decrease by two-thirds by mid-century due to the impact of the melting sea ice.
The polar bear’s position at the top of the food pyramid exposes the species to artificial halocarbons such as PCBs and pesticides. Halocarbons can mimic hormone chemistry and PCBs have been associated with birth defects and immune system deficiency. The current population is estimated to be between 20,000 and 25,000. According to Polar Bear International, Canada’s Western Hudson Bay population has decreased by 22 percent since the early 1980s.
Polar bears spend half their time on ice floes and can swim out to sea, close to 100 kms.
WWF-Canada cites global warming, contamination of the food supply, marine oil pollution and other marine traffic activities in Arctic water, disturbances to key habitats and over-hunting as the main threats to the continued survival of the polar bear population. There continues to be hunting tourism associated with polar bears in northern Canada as well.
“I think we’re entering interesting times that will either help or hinder polar bears as a species,” Dr. Peter Ewins, director of species conservation at WWF-Canada, told IPS. “What government decides to do is pivotal on whether it will get better or worse, particularly in the Hudson Bay and Beaufort Sea region.”
Even though the recommendation regarding polar bears will come in April this year, Canada has also set a date of Jun. 2 to sell oil and gas drilling rights in areas that directly affect polar bears, he said.
“There was a sale of 600 million dollars to Exxon and Mobil Oil in late August 2007 for oil and gas exploration rights, one of the largest ever in Canada. This next one could be in the 2.0-billion-dollar range. It’s a sneaky way of getting around the substantive issues,” Ewins said. “There’s no long-range plan and governments are continuing to use the colonial, frontier development paradigms to rush ahead without understanding the consequences.”
In Alaska, the auction of licenses to drill for oil and gas are recording bids as high as 2.66 billion dollars from multinational companies such as Shell and ConocoPhillips, according to Britain’s Guardian newspaper. The U.S. government’s Mineral Management Service estimates that there are 15 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 77 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves below the Chukchi Sea.
The WWF is opposing oil and gas development on the basis that the technology to clean up oil spills has not yet been well developed and that polar bears and walruses could be put at risk.
© 2008 Inter Press Service
Let’s get polar bears on the endangered species list first.
Going a bit further,
… … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … & … ML King … … Inspiration … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed »
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — MLK
So many incredibly important issues bombarding us- crying out for solutions- the war, the US presidental, misery in Africa. Sometimes it almost seems as if big oil means to take advantage of this perfect bloody storm of distractions to seize these ultra fragile wild spaces for it’s own greedy agenda. The polar bear is the apex species for so many endangered species in this area bowhead whales and their calves, beluga whales and their calves, endangered species birdlife such as Steller’s and spectacled elders- not to mention all of the Artic Indeigenous Peoples of Canada, US, and Russia who’s way of life are supposed to be protected by international treaty- so do not wring your hands or cry in your beer- call/ email/ write your congressperson to support Ed Markey’s H.R. 5058 and John Kerry’s S. 2568 which can put a halt to these dangerous boondoggles- they are actually picking up very powerful support in the House and Senate but these folks can only act if they know there’s a strong consensus in the country- let’s do it
Find out how one incredible ex-government scientist is dealing with bureaucratic malefience, bungling, and probable corruption in this noprofit news release from an excellent government whistle blower web site:
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=992
The good news for the polar bears and for us is that the earth has been been as warm in the past as the worst preditictions (without man’s help), and we’re all still here. For those who may remember, back in the 70’s there was serious concern that the earth was getting colder…
geo522,
You haven’t seen the worst predictions.
A Perfect Solution: The marine mammals along the NorthWest Coast are taking salmon away from our good fisher people. Why not load all those moocher pennipeds onto an air freighter and drop them off for the polar bears, and then every thing will be back in balance again….There is always a technical way out of these minor problems in our march to an ever greater world economy. Ain’t it wonderful. And in the worst case, we could put the polar bears on welfare and let them just hang out at our local zoos–anyway, why would they want to be thrashing around up there where we are busy doing man’s work, let them come in out the cold……by the way, energy stocks are a very good buy these days….Don’t let those doomers and gloomers get you down, it is all going to be great when we get finished.
JOHN F. BUTTERFIELD & GEO522 — The worse case situation or scenario is far FAR worse than can be easily imagined.
It is a scientific fact that ~ 75,000 years ago approximately 99.99% of the entire human genetic pool perished.
This “big die-off” reduced humankind to having become nearly extinct, dwindling from millions to merely a few thousands or so.
We are ALL the direct descendants of these survivors, which persevered through the humongous TOBA eruption. The super-volcano TOBA caldera erupted in Sumatra, spewing 3000 cubic km of erupted material into the atmosphere, causing temperatures to plummet into ice-age conditions for several hundred years. Toba was 5-10 fold larger than Yellowstone has ever blasted (which directly spewed over 60% of USA), and one thousand times larger than Mt St Helens’ measly 3 cu km (0.7 cu miles).
Beyond even this level of Earth climate adjustment, consider that the entire globe has at least twice frozen solid, with temperatures of -50 or so degrees F, until volcanic activity and soot reversed this stagnant situation some millions of years later.
See another recent post about the inherently dangerous Solar “Wind” Devastation that hangs scant miles above our heads.
… … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … & … ML King … … Inspiration … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed »
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — MLK