Bush administration faces scrutiny over polar bears’ protection

The US government is currently under intense scrutiny from environmental groups who are ready to sue the US government in federal court in California with claims that the Bush administration has failed to protect the polar bear.

The US government agency that faces the legal challenge is responsible for including the Arctic predator on its list of endangered species. Yet environmental groups are claiming that the Fish and Wildlife Service is in breach of its own mandate as a decision has still not been made over the classification of the polar bear as threatened due to climate change, despite it being due by January 9th of this year.

This would have been a year after consultations began concerning the issue. The service maintains that it is still reviewing over 670,000 comments and technical data on the issue. However the inspector general for the service has stated that there is to be a preliminary investigation into the holdup to first clarify whether a full investigation is necessary.

In addition environmental campaigners believe that the investigation is being purposefully delayed by the administration in order to complete valuable sales of oil and gas leases in coastal waters in Alaska that are considered to be the main polar bear habitat.

Kassie Siegel, the climate programme director of the Centre for Biological Diversity, held the opinion that the Bush administration seems intent to not grasp opportunities to save polar bears. Alongside Greenpeace and the National Resource Defence Centre, the Centre for Biological Diversity is involved in protest action.

The inclusion of the polar bear on the US endangered list is significant to groups aiming to force the Bush government to hold an awareness of the fact that climate change is a result of manmade atmospheric pollution; the polar bear is a leading emblem of the world’s deepening environmental crisis.

An endangered species listing decision must be made solely based on scientific information concerning the anticipated future according to US law. Yet green groups attribute the administration’s motivation to recent sales of oil and gas leases in the Chukchi Sea combined with anticipation of an energy and mining boom over the entire Arctic region.

Siegel spoke of the fact that the Bush administration has listed fewer species than any other under the Endangered Species Act, stating that time and time again the administration lets politics come above scientific evidence.

Yet there is a disagreement over polar bear population numbers resulting from a difficulty in counting wild bears. A contemporary US Geological Survey report claimed that unless greenhouse gas emissions were considerably restricted two-thirds of the world’s polar bears would be gone by 2050. This is in contrast to Alaskan political figures that claim the steady population of the bears.

Announcing the polar bear’s threatened state could potentially affect planning and policymaking over the US.