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It has only been a fortnight or so since the polar bear was finally listed as an endangered species under the US Endangered Species Act, and already conservationists have supplied some more names for the ESA; ringed, bearded and spotted seals.
The Center for Biological Conservation was the group who filed a petition on February 17, 2005, asking that the polar bear be listed under the ESA. They have followed the landmark decision approving this petition by adding the three seals for consideration as species under threat. The “landmark” aspect of these decisions is that the polar bear was the first animal to be recognized as threatened as a direct result of climate change.
“While the polar bear may be the first Arctic species listed under the Endangered Species Act due to global warming, it will, unfortunately, not be the last,” says Shaye Wolf, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity.
For a long time now we’ve spoken about the continuing effort by US and other environmental and animal rights groups to get the polar bear listed on the United States Endangered Species Act.
Polar bear populations have been declining over the past few years, attributable, some claim, to man-made global warming. Al Gore helped the plight of the polar bear by including in his award winning An Inconvenient Truth a cartoon of a polar bear swimming, unable to find land. The cartoon was inspired by evidence that some polar bears had drowned – a hitherto unforeseen occurrence.
So it is good news that on Wednesday the Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced that the polar bear has finally been listed as “threatened” under the ESA. However he was certain to ensure in his announcement that the decision should not be “misused” to regulate global climate change.
By Gavin Hudson •
April 13, 2008
Meet Flocke, a new polar bear cub at the Nuremberg Zoo in Germany.
Her name means “snowflake.” Since her birth in December, photos and videos from the zoo have been overloading the public with cuteness, stirring up “Flocke fever.”
Still, no one outside the zoo staff had ever seen Flocke in person. This week, she made her first live public appearance.
By Joshua S Hill •
February 13, 2008
It has been awhile since I’ve touched on the Arctic sea-ice dilemma plaguing us at the moment, and this recent story seemed worthy of bringing it back to the surface. Though we are only coming up on the Northern Hemisphere’s Fall/Autumn, experts do not like what they have seen so far.
Speaking at the Alaska Forum on the Environment, Ignatius Rigo, a University of Washington climatologist, believes that this [...]
By Joshua S Hill •
September 9, 2007
Native solely to the Arctic, and the land’s largest carnivore, the polar bear has long been a favorite of children and scientists alike. But, give it a hundred years, and we may very well be seeing the end of the polar bear for good, if something isn’t done soon.
According to a report conducted by the US Geological Survey, released this past Friday, two-thirds of the world’s population of polar bears could simply
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By Gavin Hudson •
August 21, 2007
Arctic Tale brings us to a frigid world of snow dunes and sloshing sea ice. It follows the lives of a young female polar bear, “Nanu,” and a young female walrus, “Seela.” Like all children today, Nanu and Seela are growing up in a rapidly changing world. For Nanu and her family, a 20% decrease of sea ice and warmer, earlier summers bring a severe food scarcity. Meanwhile,
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It has only been a fortnight or so since the polar bear was finally listed as an endangered species under the US Endangered Species Act, and already conservationists have supplied some more names for the ESA; ringed, bearded and spotted seals. 
