Do you think the polar bear should be added to the Endangered Species List?

Question

At the moment, the world’s polar bear population appears to be stable. However, we know that polar bears rely on arctic sea ice to hunt, and that this sea ice has been melting at faster and faster rates in the summer.

"The US Geological Survey predicts that it will fall by two-thirds by 2050 if the Arctic ice where the animals live continues to shrink."

"There are “reservations” to be digested, he said, including questions raised by Alaska’s Republican governor, Sarah Palin.

Palin, 42, favours expanding the oil business. She says polar bears could be protected under existing laws without undermining the Alaskan economy."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3382278.ece

Basically nobody is disputing that global warming will soon cause polar bear populations to decline, but some groups don't want to put it on the Endangered Species List because we don't know what actions would result. For example, it could justify regulating CO2 emissions nationwide.

Answer 1

No sooner than the Golden Trout, the Mountain Yellow-Legged Frog, and hundreds of other threatened species that the Fish and Wildlife Service no longer has adequate funding to monitor or list as endangered.  I met with one FWS manager last year who has seen her staff of biologists reduced from 6 to 1.

As of September 25, 2006, there were 279 candidate species.  Just because polar bears make cuddly stuffed animals doesn't mean they should be listed first.  

Listing is also pointless while recovery programs remain seriously underfunded:

“The Endangered Species Act has been tremendously successful at protecting species from extinction and setting them on the path to recovery once they are added to the endangered list,” said Melissa Waage with the Center for Biological Diversity. “However, the Bush administration’s consistent underfunding of key Fish and Wildlife Service endangered species programs is a roadblock to further progress on endangered species’ recovery.”

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd...

The Bush adminstration has had the lowest listing rate and the highest delisting rate of any presidential administration in the past 40 years:

http://www.stopextinction.org/site/c.epI...

The Bush administration is the only presidency in the history of the ESA to have not listed a single species except in response to petitions and/or lawsuits by scientists and citizen groups.

The Bush administration is the only presidency in the history of the ESA to have declared that a species is going extinct, but should not be listed because it is Ainsignificant.@  It has done so three times (Puget Sound orcas, Lower Kootenai River burbot, and Western gray squirrel (WA population).

The Bush administration has issued 49 negative listing decisions (including seven “Warranted But Precluded” findings) and listed only 40 species.  This ratio is unmatched by any other administration.  Seventeen (35%) of the 49 positive 90-day and 12-month findings were to delist or downlist species.

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So if we don't need orcas, why do we need polar bears?

What's the point of listing any species if the funds and staff are insufficient to implement a recovery plan?  What would the FWS plan be to restore Arctic ice sheets (on a budget of a couple of million dollars)?  It's just money down the drain.  Talk of listing them looks like speculation and seems to be driven by public opinion, not science (including immediacy of the threat and the odds of recovery success).

No, if we're going to keep the Endangered Species Act at all, the Fish and Wildlife Service needs to be adequately funded and needs to make rational, not political or popular, decisions.  

Unfortunately the current adminstration has seriously undermined and corrupted the listing and recovery process.  Anyone remotely resembling the current administration needs to be kicked as far out of office as we can boot them.  

Fortunately the level of support for environmentally conscious Republicans such as Schwarzenegger and McCain has shown that there are a lot of moderate Republicans who value the environment, and it's not a case of having to choose one political party or the other simply to have reasonable and sane environmental policy.

Answer 2

They should be put in the list because they are already endangered...

Answer 3

The polar bear has existed for thousands of years. It survived glaciers and warmer temps than now.

And, in case you want to know, they have nothing to worry about. The sea ice has come back with a roar.

http://antigreen.blogspot.com/

Yes I know this "is a blog". The typical arguement of the AGW fanatics. They happen to do a nice job of summary and provide NASA graphs.

Answer 4

I agree with eric. i care for the polar bears, the environment, and everything that comes with it. but the endangered species list is for endangered species, not species that might become endangered.

Answer 5

Absolutely not ! polar bears evolved from the brown bear some 200,000 years ago, they have managed to survive

without man's aid until today, in all that time, the only threat to them was being almost wiped out by hunting in the recent past. They survived the Inter-glacial period which saw no Arctic ice cap, and which was about 5.5 deg C warmer than it is today.

Answer 6

I think we should put polarbears ont the Endangered Species List because they need some help living with these ice killers. It is wrong if we don't! We have to make a stand for the polarbears!!!!

Answer 7

It would be rediculous to put polar bears on the endangered species list without knowing they are endangered.  I am sure that someone like you who has lived in the big city all their life (I would be shocked if that were not true), may not realize that animals all struggle to survive.  Most polar bears die in their first year of life.  Most don't live very many years.  They often starve if the winters are too severe or if they can't find enough food.  That is how it is, always has been, and always will be.  You may pretend that global warming is going to be a struggle for polar bears and it is certainly possible, but you seem to be ignorant of the struggle for survival that is the real life for practically every wild animal, particularly the polar bear.  They survived through previous warming periods.  They are doing fine now.  Any predictions of doom and gloom are just that, predictions.  In my opinion, they are predictions with very little merit.

Answer 8

Won't the alarmists be amazed when the mighty polar bear adapts its hunting style instead of rolling over and dying.  These things hunt EVERYTHING.

Edit:  (Do you trust SeaWorld?)

http://www.seaworld.org/animal-info/info...

"When other food is unavailable, polar bears eat reindeer, small rodents, seabirds, waterfowl, fish, eggs, vegetation (including kelp), berries, and human garbage."

http://www.nhptv.org/natureworks/polar.h...

"The primary food source for the polar bear is seals. It also eats fish, seabirds and sometimes reindeer. In the summer, the polar bear may also eat berries and other plants."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...

"Found throughout Arctic regions, the polar bear can swim miles from land or ice packs. Seal constitutes the majority of the polar bear's diet, but the bears aren't picky eaters: They will also eat fish, seaweed, caribou, grass, birds, and even stranded whales."

Edit:  Do I REALLY have to stipulate the bears don't eat dirt, rocks, or their own poo (normally)?  Would you have preferred opportunistic omnivores?  Does your degree cover biology, zoology, and ecology, too?  You honestly believe these alternative food sources are only found on the ice flows?  Thanks for answering MY question, though....you obviously WILL be amazed when they keep on thriving without the ice.

Answer 9

You do not put on species that might hypothetically be endangered.  You put on species that are endangered.

Answer 10

Polar bears should go on go on the list because (as you said) the polar icecaps are melting and it is getting harder for them to get to land. Usually they swim from pieces of ice in the ocean but with less ice out there, they have to swim longer and some are dying trying.

Answer 11

I thought they were on the list.

Yes.

Answer 12

"The US Geological Survey predicts that it will fall by two-thirds by 2050 if the Arctic ice where the animals live continues to shrink"

Absolutely not, in 2050 Arctic Ice will be well past record levels of accumulation, and the last thing human beings will be worried about is polar bears. The US Geological Survey should be preparing the country for a long term global cooling episode, instead of adding to the prophesies of a handful of poorly written computer simulations.

Answer 13

They have survived warmer periods.  They'll survive this one.  You say their population is stable but the sea ice has been shrinking all this time?  

Are you sure it's not speculation that disappearing ice will hurt them?  They can still hunt from the coasts, and besides, the sea ice is making a comeback.

Dana says...

"I suggest watching the Planet Earth series (available on DVD). They had one segment on polar bears, and actually showed one struggling to hunt on thin ice. Another (or possibly the same one) became desperate and was forced to try and attack sea lions, failed, and ended up dying."

That is so ridiculous.  A stable population means animals are dying and new ones are being born.  That's called nature.  Nature is not kind in its treatment of animals.  Only the fittest survive--thus improving the health of the population.  When a polar bear dies naturally it is usually because of starvation.  It's been this way for all time.  This leaves room for healthier bears to replace it.  If those bears DID die it wasn't because of thin ice.  There is ALWAYS thin ice.  They died because they were weak.  This happens in stable populations.  That's why they're stable.

As usual, you blame EVERYTHING bad on global warming (even when it hasn't happened).  You've got that religion and you've got it bad.

Jim, you're right about the city-boy peg.

Answer 14

yes i think they should be added to the endagered list.

Answer 15

Until the numbers really start going down than yes something should be done.

Not just because someone has a theory about what may or may not happen.

Answer 16

I think all life on earth should be on the endangered species list.  All of life in endangered in one form or another.

Answer 17

Based off of the latest reasearch, I would vote yes.

Excerpt from US Geological Survey (released 9/7/2007)...

"Future reduction of sea ice in the Arctic could result in a loss of 2/3 of the world's polar bear population within 50 years according to a series of studies released today by the U.S. Geological Survey. "

Answer 18

The truth is some of us would like to gain what ever leverage we can to say enough is enough. The last undisturbed places are down to less than 5% of what has already been claimed by humans for developement and profit.

Let the Polar Bears become a symbol of the out come of this issue one way or the other.

I would choose to stand for the benefit of the Polar Bears based on the precautionary princle...

Answer 19

That would depend upon the standard for determining whether a species is "endangered."    Is the standard based upon the size of the population or based upon recent changes in the size of the population?

For example, the polar bear population has increased five-fold since the 1960s, but is still between 25,000 and 30,000.

As for the predictions about what will happen in the next fifty years, think that is all conjecture - especially considering that the prediction you cite is the opposite of what has happened over the last fifty years, during half of which we've already experienced the phenomenon that you say will cause the trend to reverse.

Answer 20

NO I DO NOT.

Answer 21

Sure, but just let me have a chance for a seasonal raffle.The ones in the wild are doing so much better then those in captivity.Why the EMO approach...?

Edit:(JS),get over it, everyone knows hunters and fishermen contribute more to the well being of conservation then any government agency....your not going to fool anybody with that.