Environmentalists Vow Legal Action To Save Polar Bears

Environmentalists Vow Legal Action
To Save Polar Bears

Polar bears depend on sea ice as a platform for hunting seals, and without it, the bears could be forced onto land, where they are inefficient hunters.

The United States delayed a decision on whether global warming threatens polar bears, saying new data and public comment required more time.
Environmentalists vowed to sue for quicker action.The deadline for deciding whether to list the big white bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act was last Wednesday (Jan. 2) but Dale Hall, head of the Fish and Wildlife Service, told reporters it would take as much as a month more to analyze all the information, said AP.
This is the first time global warming has been a factor in proposing threatened status for any US species, Hall said, and that has added to the complexity of the decision.
Polar bears depend on sea ice as a platform for hunting seals, and without it, the bears could be forced onto land, where they are inefficient hunters.
As sea ice melts, the bears are forced to swim long distances and footage of polar bears drowning has fueled the debate over their fate.
The act indicates the one allowable reason for a delay in adding a species to the list is “substantial scientific uncertainty“ but Hall denied in a telephone news conference that this was the reason.
“I’m not saying that there is scientific uncertainty under the act and it’s unfortunately one of those times ... we’ll have to miss the deadline in order to provide the quality product that needs to be provided,“ he said.
While all the other 1,300 or so species on the list were clearly threatened by deforestation or vanishing wetlands, Hall said the climate connection to the polar bear case required help from government scientists to understand the various impacts of global warming.