SAVING THE POLAR BEAR

The great white polar bear is the youngest and largest of the world’s bear species — a mighty hunter and fierce defender of its young that is among the world’s most vulnerable animals. Polar bears could be extinct by 2050 if greenhouse gas-fueled global warming keeps melting their Arctic sea-ice habitat.

The Center has led the charge to save polar bears from extinction. We wrote the 2005 scientific petition calling for the bear’s protection under the Endangered Species Act, and we filed suit with our partners to force the administration to take action on that petition. Three years after the petition, in March 2008, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service still hadn’t finalized its decision, so we filed suit again. On April 28, a judge ruled in our favor and ordered the Service to issue a final listing decision by May 15.

Just a day before the new deadline, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced that the polar bear would be listed as threatened — a conservation victory with far-reaching consequences. But Kempthorne vowed that the listing wouldn’t be permitted to affect U.S. climate policy; he would implement a new rule allowing the United States to “continue to develop our natural resources in the arctic region” — that is, exploit polar bear habitat. We immediately filed new court papers, which have so far made the administration promise to designate critical habitat for the species,  and we continue to fight for the bear on multiple fronts, working to defend its listing from all challenges — including attempts to remove the bear’s protection from interests such as a trophy-hunting group and the state of Alaska.

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