Threat Laid Bear

Polar bears threatened, but drilling in their habitat still OK, says Interior

Posted at 11:47 AM on 14 May 2008

Polar bears are a threatened species, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced Wednesday -- but that doesn't mean we can't drill in their habitat! The "threatened" designation means the bear could become endangered if conservation steps aren't taken; it puts polar bears on the endangered-species list but in effect allows Interior to pick and choose which protections to impose. And those protections will, says the very subhead of the departmental press release, "allow continuation of vital energy production in Alaska." While the polar bear is being listed specifically because climate change is melting its habitat, Interior took pains to point out that the listing "should not open the door to use of the [Endangered Species Act] to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from automobiles, power plants, and other sources." In fact, the department plans to propose modifying the regulatory language in the ESA to "prevent abuse of this listing to erect a back-door climate policy."

source: Department of the Interior
see also, in Gristmill: Bush admin to list polar bears as threatened; advocates pledge to continue the fight

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Comments: (13 comments)

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- About time!

I am glad for this decision. Now lets just hope that the admin honors this decision! Versus do a u-turn and claim that they tried their best!

"energy-development decisions" - oil sluts!

I only have this one life, so I am going to try my very best to make a positive change. --- The Happy & Healthy Vegan ---

by javaearth at 12:36 PM on 14 May 2008

confusion time

Frankly, as much as I wish all the world's bears, including polar bears, to flourish and be happy for a long long time, I remain cynical, and cannot work up much joy that listing the polar bears is going to change much of anything.

It would indeed be nice, if listing them means that human beings and their big nasty machines are prohibited from intruding into polar bear habitat (in northern Alaska and the adjacent seas, at least).

But in fact, the disappearance of Arctic ice is what is threatening polar bears, and other Arctic animals; and that is not the result of drilling activities in the Arctic. It is the result of the GHG emissions caused by the activity of us guys down here in the Lower 48.

So, in principle, listing the polar bear ought to mean imposing a cap on GHG emissions everywhere in the US. And yet, plainly, that is not going to happen any time soon, is it.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 1:14 PM on 14 May 2008

linked

But the drilling for oil in the acrtic is linked to the global warming... they just want to continue the same ol' same ol'energy game, rather then start seriously switching to alternatives. If they stopped all the dumb drilling, maybe our polar bears would stop being "threatened".

by redambrosia99 at 3:07 PM on 14 May 2008

Endangered Species Act

"[T]he department plans to propose modifying the regulatory language in the ESA to 'prevent abuse of this listing to erect a back-door climate policy.'"

Actually, these guys have it dead wrong, legally speaking. The Endangered Species Act does not delineate REASONS for species being endangered or threatened, so human-caused global warming must certainly be reduced or eliminated if that's the reason for an impending extinction.

The Act merely says that the no one can "take" a listed species, and that a federak agency wishing to take any action that "may effect" a listed species, such as drilling in the arctic for oil that will be burned and add to global warming, must consult with the Fish & Wildlife Service and/or NOAA Fisheries (formerly NMFS) before doing so in order to ensure that the action will not have a significant effect. So there!

by Wolverine at 5:03 PM on 14 May 2008

Polar bears endangered

Are Canadians worried?
What are they doing?
Don't they have large numbers there?

by Black Wallaby at 11:47 PM on 16 May 2008

"Large Numbers ..."

only apply to humans. Just about every other species of wild animals has been greatly reduced by humans, with a few rare exceptions such as deer that don't seem too affected by human ecological disturbances.

by Wolverine at 10:59 AM on 18 May 2008

polar bears in Canada

Here is the WWF in Canada on the subject, from earlier this year:

http://www.wwf.ca/NewsAndFacts/NewsRoom/factsheet_polarbe ....

Note the link to the position sheet at the bottom.

Note also the comment on the South Hudson Bay population. The bears are eating the garbage of the people in settlements thereabouts, so naturally their health is declining.

Note also the important observation made in the position sheet, about trophy hunting in Nunavut and the Northwest Territory. The Inuit, an impoverished group of people, have made some income through conducting hunting expeditions; so naturally their spokespersons will want to deny that polar bear populations near them are declining, and will want to decry the US DOI's listing of them as threatened. (As a follow-up question, what is the penalty at this point for trying to import body parts of polar bears in to the US?) It may indeed be possible that the Inuit have been seeing more polar bears, but that might again be the effect of polar bears wandering into their districts in order to scavenge from garbage.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 12:06 PM on 18 May 2008

WWF Not A Good Source

The World Wildlife Fund is a right wing conservative group. "WWF respects the traditions and rights
of the Inuit to harvest polar bears ..."

Any group that says this is already on the wrong side. Humans have no business killing anything they don't naturally eat, and humans don't naturally eat predators. Whether it's tradition or making money, there is no legitimate reason for killing bears or any other predators.

A much better source for this type of information is the Center for Biological Diversity. http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/ CBD has a much better attitude toward the Earth in general and other species specifically than does the WWF, which is mainly a bunch of rich people who think animals are cute. (Not that they're not cute.)

by Wolverine at 12:54 PM on 19 May 2008

"right wing and conservative"?

Well, that might very well be true, Wolverine, about the WWF. They indeed try hard not to alienate interests with power and money too often -- as do other environmentalist groups.

In this case, if they are "conservative," that makes their position background paper all the more powerful, for conservatively assessing the health of polar bears, and still coming out on balance against hunting.

As for how "traditional" the killing of polar bears is among the Inuit, I am with you that that kind of killing would not seem to make sense. But the Inuit have equipped their entire culture pretty much with the body parts of animals, and in the course of time they may have discovered something useful to do with a dead bear.

On "cuteness": Yes, the panda logo is cloying, and I never liked it. But the contributions of the rich people might just possibly fund some worthwhile science.

Thank you for the reference to the Center for Biological Diversity.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 2:22 PM on 19 May 2008

Polar Bears spotlighted at Burke

A rather timely exhibit is coming to the Burke Museum: The Last Polar Bear: Facing the Truth of a Warming World. Forty photos by Steven Kazlowski document the polar bear in its natural Arctic habitat.

Exhibit opens on June 28 and it's a great time to come learn a bit more about the largest land carnivore on the planet.

http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/exhibits/details.ph ...

by burkemuseum at 9:19 AM on 20 May 2008

traditional hunting

As a white man I cannot tell you what it's like to grow up Inuit, or in a race of marginalized people continually pushed to the edge by people who "know better." I can tell you that having spoken with some native peoples, and knowing some of the deep-rooted traditions, hunting of certain animals cannot easily be ceased.

It's easy for some of us to ask: "Why don't they stop hunting polar bears if they're endangered?" Many native cultures are centered around hunting large mammals, where the life is respected and the death is a sacrifice in the greater circle of life. Just like how certain native peoples were "given" by white folks the rights to whale in certain spots through treaties, because of their tradition and culture, and now due to commercial whaling and excess by other folks, the native culture of sustainable whaling is being attacked. If native peoples are hunting polar bears in sustainable ways, the rest of us need to look elsewhere and start regulating our actions that are destroying habitat, through climate change and drilling.

Vegetarianism/veganism hasn't really been mentioned in this conversation, but I feel like it might be the underlying voice of some, so I just wanted to say, in this case, as with others, it should not be the driving force for getting native peoples to stop hunting. The choice to not eat non-human animals is a privilege of people that are mostly: white, middle/upper-class and living in westernized regions. The majority of the world does not have that option of privilege. Life demands too much more.

We are all animals, and animals eating other animals is natural life at its most basic. When it's done ceremonious and with respect, like by sustainable native practices, it's because of the human conscious. It does still exist.

Here's an interesting link I found on the original issue:
http://www.arcticpeoples.org/2008/01/17/polar-bears-are-t ...

"More and more there is this animal, looking out through my eyes..." -Ani DiFranco

by mksenyak at 11:11 AM on 26 May 2008

"We are all animals"

That is true, MKSenyak, so far as it goes. But it is utterly false, if it is supposed to end the examination of the ethics of meat-eating. We are animals with a difference:

we can make choices;
often we feel we ought to choose Option E., in preference to Options A. through D.

That is the unique kind of animal that we are.

As for the issue of "privilege": The diet of traditional peasant societies in the Old World has probably never been "vegan," by the vegans' strict definition. But it is not true that meat, including seafood, has always been an important part of that diet. If our contemporaries, descendants of those earlier societies, are eating more meat than their ancestors ever did, that is because they are more affluent, and more imitative of Western ways.

Arctic peoples are of course a different case.

By the way, I am only a para-vegan, and have never made any demands on anyone to change his or her diet. I am indeed a promoter of animal rights, but am sadly aware that the term has been horribly abused by some who turn it into a cause justifying violence both verbal and, often, more than just verbal. That is a development that I deplore.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 1:42 PM on 26 May 2008

The loneliness of polar bears!

"NDISC: May 5, 2008, Overview of conditions of Arctic sea-ice
For the month of April, Arctic sea ice extent stood at 14.49 million square kilometers (5.59 million square miles), which is 0.61 million square kilometers (0.24 million square miles) greater than April 2007, but is still 0.51 million square kilometers (0.20 million square miles) less than the 1979 to 2000 average for April."

Those poor polar bears! At ~500 square kilometres range per bear in April, (ignoring ice-shelves and a lot of land), how can they ever find any humpy? I bet they can't wait for August to come with a more sensible range of a mere 200 square kilometres or so!

by Black Wallaby at 12:18 AM on 31 May 2008

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