Unbearable

“I can’t imagine a world without polar bears,” the woman said.

She was standing at a microphone in an auditorium at the Department of the Interior Monday night, delivering a comment on the Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposal to list the polar bear as a threatened or endangered species. The Bush FWS was not being proactive on the proposed listing; it only took action after being sued by the Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The proposal lists five factors to be considered in the listing decision – habitat loss, over hunting, disease and predation, inadequacy of existing regulations and other factors. Of these, the FWS employees admitted that the overwhelming factor is loss of habitat.

The word “arctic” is from the Greek and means “place of the bears,” specifically polar bears. Polar bears live on near shore pack ice. They eat seals; the seals eat fish found in near-shore waters. Because of global warming, arctic pack ice is receding further out to sea every year and because of that, the bears have a harder time finding seals. Polar bear cannibalism has been documented for the first time in recent years. The early break-up of pack ice means that pregnant and nursing females are losing their dens, leading to increased cub mortality. Bears are forced to swim further and further to get from one ice floe to another. After a storm a few years ago, scientists conducting an aerial survey saw four bear carcasses floating in open water. They were presumed to have drowned because they couldn’t reach ice.

Most of the folks who attended Monday’s hearing spoke in favor of listing the polar bear as threatened or endangered, but there were several in the crowd who spoke against the listing and they represented powerful constituencies.

A woman representing the Alaska oil and gas industry warned the committee against listing the polar bear because “if the polar bear is listed as endangered because of global warming, then your agency is going to be inundated with species endangered because of global warming.” Interesting point of view from the oil industry. Should we also apply that to the survivors of Hurricane Katrina? If we help one of them rebuild, we’ll have to help them all. The Bush administration seems to be following oil company logic on that issue.

A couple of people representing trophy-hunting interests spoke against the rule. (There is no sport hunting of polar bears in the U.S., but if polar bears are listed as threatened or endangered, hunters who kill bears in Canada, where it is legal, cannot bring their trophies home.) The trophy interests noted that the average hunter spends $40,000 to bag his trophy. I haven’t yet found any sympathy for rich guys who might not be able to bring home their $40,000 bearskin rug. George W. Bush has already given them massive tax breaks; what more do they want?

Richard Krause of the Farm Bureau spoke against the proposed ruling. He didn’t explain how not saving polar bears might benefit farmers, but he did challenge the notion that polar pack ice is receding. “We don’t know if the ice is receding or merely shifting,” he said. Shifting? Shifting to where? The Bahamas?

It’s clear why the trophy people oppose the listing. The oil industry opposes the listing because it wants to drill more oil wells in polar bear habitat. The Farm Bureau remains a mystery.

The members of the committee, during the Q-and-A session admitted the irony that the one factor that seems to be driving the polar bears’ demise is one that an endangered species listing cannot do anything to alleviate. The Fish and Wildlife Service cannot order an increase in fuel efficiency, it’s can’t stop American power plants (much less anyone else’s) from spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

An eight-year-old girl in a polar bear hat asked the committee to please save the bears, so she and other children her age might someday have the chance to see one. Like the other woman, she can’t imagine a world without polar bears. Unfortunately for the woman, the girl and us all, we won’t have to imagine it. We may be seeing it all too soon.

© Mark Floegel, 2007

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