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February 8, 2006

Plight of the Polar Bear

Keeping with our discussion on changing weather trends and the melting ice of the poles, there's been a bit of good news this week about polar bears.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has announced it will look into whether or not the polar bear should be listed as a threatened species on the Endangered Species List, given the considerable warming going on in their native environment has had a negative impact on the bears.

This move is definately a step in the right direction. With polar bears at the top of the Arctic food chain, they are a natural litmus test of the health of the ecosystem.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said protection “may be warranted” under the Endangered Species Act, and began a review process to consider if the bears should be listed.

The agency will seek information about population distribution, habitat, effects of climate change on the bears and their prey, potential threats from development, contaminants and poaching during the next 60 days before making a decision on whether to list the bears.

The decision comes after the Center for Biological Diversity filed a petition last year that said polar bears could become extinct by the end of the century because their sea ice habitat is melting.

The wildlife service said that the petition “presents substantial scientific and commercial information indicating that listing the polar bear may be warranted.”

The group, joined by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace, also filed a federal lawsuit in December to seek federal protections for the polar bear.

More At: MSNBC: U.S. eyes protecting polar bears from warming

If you think about it, the warming of the ice can have all sorts of effects on the bears. With the Arctic's warmer winters, some regions never form ice bridges, leaving populations isolated from other bears and their prey, like seals.

Also, one of the ways that polar bears hunt is to stake out a seal air hole in the ice and wait for a seal to come up for breath. Warmer weather would also make for a less solid ice layer, making this kind of hunting less successful as more holes would be there.

Lastly, there's also the fact that the warming of the Arctic has effected many other native species, like the Gray seal, sometimes with disasterous results. If the polar bear's natural prey is threatened, then so is the polar bear.

Posted by sorsha at February 8, 2006 6:03 PM