Tomorrow sees polar bear habitat in the Chukchi Sea go up for sale in the United States. Oil exploration rights are being auctioned by one branch of the Department of Interior before another branch can rule on whether the polar bear deserves protection as an endangered species.

Nature’s Rachel Courtland blogged about this last month but as the decision nears the US media is getting ever more excited…

The LA Times says the ruling on the bear’s endangered status could come as soon as this week, perhaps making it the “first species to be listed as threatened with extinction primarily because of global warming. It also says that groups representing oil and gas industry parties are threatening their own legal actions should the bear actually be listed.

This could backfire badly as the polar bear is loved more than perhaps any other animal thus far adopted by the green movement. As activist Kassie Siegel notes: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. And then there is the polar bear.”

The Anchorage Daily News reckons Siegel isn’t messing around. “It’s no idle threat. Her group, based in Tucson, Ariz., has filed more than 500 petitions and lawsuits over endangered species since it was founded in 1989,” says the paper.

The Christian Science Monitor has more on those potential legal battles. It says the conservative public-interest law firm the Pacific Legal Foundation is set to challenge “any arbitrary, unjustified ESA listing”. According to the SourceWatch website the PLF is “the key right-wing, litigation-happy, public interest law firm in a network of similar organisations funded initially by Scaife Foundation money across the USA in support of un-restrained capitalism, and opposed to environmental and health activism and government agency regulations.”

Brandon Frazier, of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, told AFP that the bear must be listed as endangered and not merely threatened. “An endangered listing can affect the sell-off of the oil drilling rights. The authorities would have to get approval through the Fish and Wildlife Service to conduct drilling if there is an endangered species that inhabits the area. … A ‘threatened’ listing leaves open the possibility for exemptions and doesn’t shut loopholes, such as the one that allows Americans to trophy-hunt for polar bears in Canada and bring their heads and hides back to the US.”

Image: Polar bear tracks / NOAA Climate Program Office, NABOS 2006 Expedition