The administration of President George W. Bush was correct in 2008 to label the polar bear as ‘threatened’, but not ‘endangered’, under the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) – and it should stay that way, said the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) yesterday.
The FWS was responding in a lawsuit challenging the ‘threatened’ listing, brought by environmental campaigners including the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), based in Tucson, Arizona.
A change of listing status could have wide implications: environmental groups hope that an ‘endangered’ listing means that the ESA can be used to protect the bears’ sea-ice habitats by enforcing the regulation of greenhouse-gas emissions. (As the New York Times explains, that can’t happen if the bear is listed as threatened, thanks to a Bush-era regulation that says a threatened ESA listing can’t be used as grounds for reducing greenhouse gas emissions).
An endangered species is one “in danger of extinction”, said the FWS, which had been required to explain in more detail its 2008 decision to a District of Columbia judge. While the polar bear is facing ‘serious threats in the foreseeable future’ thanks to loss of sea ice, that only amounts to it being threatened. “We are confident it was and is the appropriate status,” said Acting Service Director Rowan Gould (press release).
“Once again President Obama’s Interior Department has sacrificed sound science for political expediency, and the polar bear will suffer as a result,” said Kassie Siegel, director of the CBD’s Climate Law institute.
In November, the Obama administration had set aside a critical habitat for polar bears, mostly covering sea ice off the northern coast of Alaska. Last week, scientists suggested that some summer sea ice is likely to persist in the Arctic into the next century, providing a last refuge for polar bears, seals and other animals.
Now that the FWS has set out its position, a hearing on the proper status for polar bears will be held on 23 February 2011 in Washington DC.
Image: Susanne Miller, US FWS