As Polar Bear Summit Convenes, W. Hudson Bay Population Down 22% In 20 Years, Beaufort #s Down 17%

[hatrack]

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But a series of recent studies and international policy decisions may force the hand of Environment Minister Jim Prentice. Somewhere around 25,000 polar bears tread the Arctic - two-thirds of those in Canada. But over the past 20 years, two of the best-studied polar bear populations - in the western Hudson Bay and the southern Beaufort Sea - have declined by 22 per cent and 17 per cent, respectively.

According to a 2007 U.S. Geologic Survey report, two-thirds of the world's polar bears will be gone by 2050. Within 100 years, they could be extinct altogether, says University of Alberta biologist Andrew Derocher, a renowned polar bear expert. The numbers are so grim that last spring the U.S. government designated the polar bear a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The reason, said Interior Secretary Dick Kempthorne, was global climate change.

Studies show that polar ice cover - prime bear habitat - is shrinking 10 per cent every decade. So far, the Canadian government has not taken the problem seriously, Dr. Derocher says. By way of example, he says 80 per cent of funding for his largest polar bear project - a population study in the southern Beaufort Sea - comes from the U.S. government. "You'd think Canada, with two-thirds of the world's polar bears, would have a pretty major ongoing program," he said. "It doesn't. Alaska alone has three to four times the staff working on this."

Whatever Mr. Prentice decides to do on behalf of the bears will be controversial. When the U.S. government designated the bears a threatened species, many of Canada's Inuit groups protested, saying the move would dry up millions of dollars from American sport hunters.

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090114.POLARBEARS14//TPStory/Environment

[polly7]

1. Thank you for this. K & R. n/t