U.S. ordered to make polar bear call in 16 days

A report by the U.S. Geological Survey said two-thirds of the world’s polar bears — some 16,000 — could be gone by 2050 if predictions about melting sea ice hold true.

A decision on the proposed listing was due Jan. 9, but Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall said in January that a delay was needed to make sure it came in a form easily understood. He promised a decision within a month, but that deadline also passed and the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace sued in March.

This is the first time global warming has been a factor in proposing a threatened status for any U.S. species.

Drilling battle
Until the U.S. government issues its decision on polar bears’ status under the Endangered Species Act, there should be no more oil and gas development in the Arctic bear’s habitat, according to the environmental law group Earthjustice.

Earthjustice, which was not involved in the current polar bear lawsuit, is proceeding with a separate suit challenging the Bush administration’s sale of oil and gas development rights in the Chukchi Sea off the Alaskan coast, a prime polar bear area.

During the first delay in issuing the polar bear decision, the Interior Department sold oil and gas rights on February 6 across some 29.7 million acres in the Chukchi Sea for a record $2.66 billion — about four times what the government expected to get.

“Only after deciding what level of protection polar bears warrant can informed decisions be made about how, where and when oil and gas development might go forward in polar bear habitat,” the group’s Erik Grafe said in a statement.

Interior Department officials have acknowledged that the science on the polar bear’s future is not in doubt but have said that any plan to remove the threat to the animals’ existence would be complicated, since climate change is a global phenomenon rather than a particular limited area with a specific problem.

In Canada, where two-thirds of the world’s polar bears live, an advisory panel — the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife — said last Friday that the polar bear is of “special concern” but is not endangered or threatened with extinction.

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