Polar bears get protection
US lists animal as 'threatened' by warming
Once a symbol of Arctic wildlife's fierce resilience, the polar bear is now so vulnerable to the ravages of global warming that the US government placed the creature on the endangered species list yesterday.
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said the bears' habitat was literally melting below their feet. Bears depend almost exclusively on sea ice to hunt for ringed seals and other prey. Yet Arctic ice coverage fell to record low levels last year, and scientists predict it could decline another 30 percent by mid-century, he said.
"Because polar bears are vulnerable to this loss of habitat, they are, in my judgment, likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future - in this case 45 years," Kempthorne said at a news conference in Washington.
The government declared the bears as "threatened," the first time an animal has been placed on the endangered species list primarily because of global warming. The designation means the bear is at risk of eventually becoming extinct and requires the government to protect it. Still, Kempthorne made it clear that the Bush administration did not believe protection would come at the expense of oil and gas drilling in the Arctic, and said his decision included provisions to ensure that it wouldn't be used as a tool to regulate greenhouse gases.
Environmental groups, which had successfully sued to force the government to release the overdue decision, said they would fight to ensure the designation gives them exactly that power, even though it was peppered with caveats and loopholes. They hope to halt oil and gas drilling if it harms polar bears, and to push the Bush administration to start regulating heat-trapping emissions from power plants, cars, and factories, which they say are clearly hurting the bears.
"This is a profound acknowledgment of the threat not only to polar bears but to the entire Arctic ecosystem," said Andrew Wetzler, director of the endangered species project at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "It is going to provide important protection for polar bear populations."
Because of hunting restrictions, the polar bear has rebounded from a worldwide population of around 12,000 in the late 1960s to about 20,000 to 25,000 today. Two-thirds of the bears live in Canada, and several thousand are in Alaska, the only place they live in the United States.
Mounting evidence of the bears' vulnerability persuaded the federal government to declare the species threatened. Several years ago, scientists documented polar bear drownings, possibly because they were forced to swim farther between ice floes. In September, as part of the work to determine whether the bears should be federally protected, the US Geological Survey said two-thirds of the world's polar bears could disappear by 2050 because of the loss of Arctic ice due to global warming.
Kempthorne first announced he would investigate whether to list the polar bears about 15 months ago. A decision was legally required by earlier this year, but the Interior Department said it needed more time. Environmentalists filed a lawsuit and won a federal court ruling forcing officials to make a decision by today.
Kempthorne's remarks yesterday came with unusual "guidance" aimed at protecting oil and gas drilling. He said the polar bears are already protected under the even more stringent Marine Mammal Protection Act. Because there is no evidence bears are being killed in encounters with oil and gas operations under that act, oil and gas drilling would also be allowed under the Endangered Species Act. He also said he was working to prevent any group from using the designation as a "backdoor" way to create climate policy.
"It should not open the door . . . to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, power plants, and other sources," Kempthorne said. "That would be a wholly inappropriate use of the Endangered Species Act."
Judy Penniman, a spokeswoman for the American Petroleum Institute, said, "The Interior Department's guidance that the Endangered Species Act is not the right tool to set US policy makes sense."
But Kempthorne has little authority to decide how the act is interpreted, said Pat Parenteau, an endangered species specialist and professor at Vermont Law School. "He can say what he wants that this isn't a backdoor way to regulate [emissions]. But the courts are going to decide that, not him," Parenteau said.
The ruling is likely to escalate an already contentious battle in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, prime polar bear habitat where oil and gas drilling is proposed. Massachusetts Senator John F. Kerry sponsored legislation earlier this year to protect polar bear habitat there, and wrote Kempthorne earlier this week urging him to list the polar bear.
"Today's announcement is both a victory and a lifeline for our last remaining polar bears. The next step is to secure the long-term survival of the species by ensuring that the polar bear habitat in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas is protected from the threat of oil and gas drilling," Kerry said yesterday. "Even while the Interior Department was taking steps to give these bears ESA protection, the Bush administration opened almost 30 million acres of polar bear habitat to oil and gas exploration, which - by their own admission - may ultimately kill polar bears."
Beth Daley can be reached at bdaley@globe.com. 