Pick Up A Pen For Polar Bears

Photo by: Stephen Kazlowski

On October 22, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced a proposal to designate more than 128 million acres of Alaskan coastline and waters as critical habitat for the polar bear. In May 2008 the Department of the Interior listed the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, but it failed to designate critical habitat then, as conservation groups insisted the law mandated.

This would be the largest single designation of protected habitat for any species, encompassing the full range of the two American polar bear populations-the Chukchi Sea and the Southern Beaufort Sea groups. Together they are estimated to have roughly 3,500 bears.

Unfortunately, the Administration may be sending out some mixed messages: The FWS announcement, required by the Endangered Species Act, follows on a decision earlier the same week by the Minerals Management Service (MMS) to approve offshore oil drilling in key polar bear habitat in Alaska's Beaufort Sea. MMS is also considering drilling plans for polar bear habitat in the Chukchi Sea; they have just given the Shell Oil Company permission to drill in the proposed habitat area.

These recent decisions come after several years of legal wrangling and Bush administration foot dragging. When former Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne finally announced in 2008 that the polar bear would be listed as threatened, he simultaneously exempted greenhouse gas emissions and oil development-by far the two leading threats to the bear-from regulation under the Endangered Species Act. The new Obama Administration had a chance to lift this exemption in March 2009. But the day before his deadline to do so, Interior Secretary Salazar Ken announced he would leave in place the 4(d) rule that exempted greenhouse gas emissions and oil development from regulation under the Act , ignoring more than a hundred thousand citizen petitions to save the bear- as well as requests from more than 1,300 scientists, more than 50 prominent legal experts, dozens of lawmakers, and more than 130 conservation organizations. The science looks gloomy for polar bears. By most estimates nearly a third of all polar bears -including all bears in Alaska-will be extinct by 2050 if current warming trends continue. The rest of the species will be most likely be gone by the end of the century. And, the mere designation of critical habitat will do little to actually help bears - unless the carbon-emissions whose increase is warming the polar seas are sharply reduced. And, the Interior Department's drilling plans at the same time could neutralize any beneficial effect the listing could have.

The Interior Department has announced a 60-day comment period on its proposed critical habitat designation. Please send comments to:

Public Comments Processing, Attn: FWS-R7-ES-2009-2042, Division of Policy and Directives Management, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, 4401 N. Fairfax Dr., Ste. 222, Arlington, VA 22203.

Online: Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov (follow the instructions for submitting comments.)