U.S. Proposes Plan to Protect Critical Polar Bear Habitat in Alaska
The Obama administration today announced a new plan to designate more than 200,000 square miles of Alaskan territory as "critical habitat" for polar bears, a threatened species that has become to global warming what canaries once were to coal mines: the visible early warning of pending disaster.
Melting sea ice due to global warming is the biggest threat to polar bears' survival as a species--the bears breed, rest, hunt and spend much of their lives on the shifting ice floes of the Far North--and was the primary reason that the Bush administration decided in 2008 to list polar bears as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.
While protecting polar bear habitat would do nothing to reduce global warming or stop sea ice from melting--that's a problem that members of Congress and other world leaders will have to tackle--both government officials and environmentalists are calling the proposal a good first step toward saving the bears from extinction.
"There is no question that polar bears are in trouble," said Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope in a statement. "Studies have documented plunging survival rates for polar bear cubs and diminishing body weights for adults as a result of melting sea ice. Bears that are accustomed to hunting on ice have been stranded on land, and in some cases have drowned. Scientists warn that without protection, polar bears could disappear by 2050."
The proposal by the U.S. Interior Department would set aside 200,541 square miles in the coastal regions of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, an area that would encompass the range of two polar bear populations comprising about 3,500 bears. About 93 percent of the area proposed for protection as polar bear habitat is sea ice, with barrier islands and some land-based dens making up the other 7 percent. The agency will gather public comments for the next 60 days, and is expected to issue a final rule sometime in the first half of 2010.
One result of the "critical habitat" designation is that oil and gas companies would have to prove that their offshore drilling operations would not harm the polar bears or damage their habitat.
"We need to do everything possible to help polar bears survive, including eliminating the threat of offshore drilling," Pope said. "There is no environmentally sound way to drill for oil in polar bear habitat. Pipelines, boat traffic, drilling platforms, and ice-breaking vessels are just a few of the risks that come with offshore oil development.
"Where there is drilling, there are oil spills," he continued. "There is no proven method for cleaning up oil in the Arctic's broken sea ice, and once a bear makes contact with even a small amount of oil, it loses its ability to insulate and can die of hypothermia and ingestion."
Ironically, in the same week the Interior Department announced its intent to protect polar bear habitat, it also approved a plan by a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell to drill offshore wells on two leases in the area the agency is proposing as critical habitat. While the "critical habitat" designation is not intended to stop oil and gas exploration and development, striking a sustainable balance between allowing some energy development without further endangering a threatened species is a goal that may prove difficult to achieve.
"We don't need to sacrifice polar bears and other wildlife just so oil companies can break their billion-dollar profit records," Pope said. "America already has the technology and the will to embrace a clean energy economy that will end our dependence on oil and leave pristine places like the Arctic and its wildlife intact."
Photo courtesy of Scott Schliebe, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
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Comments
The protection of these species is vital for an Ecosystem to survive. We have to understand that factors in the environment affect each other in their own unique way. That is why we must always be aware of what we do and what it does to the environment.
While Richard’s comment is true in general, Alaska’s polar bear population is stable, not declining: http://alaska.usgs.gov/science/biology/polar_bears/size.html
The remoteness of its habitat, its migratory habits and large expense of study makes estimates of its population little more than fantasy. We have no data to show how its population varies naturally with time or natural weather cycles.
This subject subject depends more on political agenda than science.
Forgot to add: I always like to see natural areas set aside on permanent reserve because loss of habitat to human encroachment is the biggest problem facing the environment.