“Endangered Species Act listing decisions must be based only on
science, and the scientists have finished their work on the polar
bear listing. There is no reason for political appointees to
interfere,” said Kassie Siegel, climate program director at the
Center for Biological Diversity and lead author of the 2005
petition. “Time and again, delays like this one have been used by
bureaucrats in Washington to illegally overrule and rewrite the
conclusions of agency scientists. This delay is illegal and
unjustified.”
The Endangered Species Act requires a listing process of no
longer than two years, but in this case almost three years have
passed since the scientific petition was submitted in February
2005, calling on the government to list the polar bear. The groups
first sued the Bush administration in December 2005, when it missed
its first deadline. Responding to the suit in February 2006, the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found that protection of polar bears
“may be warranted,” and commenced a full status review of the
species. On January 9, 2007, the Service published its proposal to
list the species as “threatened” and had one year to make a final
listing decision. The legal deadline for listing was today.
“At the same time the administration is illegally delaying a
decision on the polar bear listing, it is also racing to sell some
of the polar bear’s most important habitat in the Chukchi Sea for
oil and gas development,” said Andrew Wetzler, director of the
Endangered Species Project at NRDC. “These
oil and gas sales must be placed on hold at least until the
polar bear listing is finalized.”
Polar bears live only in the Arctic and are dependent on sea
ice for all their essential needs. Their future in a rapidly
warming Arctic is dim. In September 2007, scientists reported that
the Arctic cap had lost 1 million square miles – an area six times
the size of California – shattering records from the past several
decades and beating predictions of ice loss that were not expected
until mid-century. The U.S. Geological Service also predicted that
two-thirds of the world’s polar bear population would likely be
extinct by 2050, including all polar bears within the United
States. In an article published yesterday, leading sea ice
researchers predict that the Arctic could be entirely ice-free in
the summer by 2030.
Shrinking sea ice also drastically restricts polar bears’
ability to hunt their main prey, ice seals. In the spring of 2006,
scientists located the bodies of several bears that had starved to
death. Reduced food availability due to global warming has also
caused polar bears to resort to cannibalism off the north coast of
Alaska and Canada.
“The science confirms that the polar bear is endangered, but the
Bush administration continues to downplay the danger of global
warming and delay any action to address the issue,” said Kert
Davies, research director at Greenpeace USA. “We took this
administration to court over two years ago to protect the polar
bear, and we will continue this fight until they get it right.”
To date, the government has received more than 670,000 comments
in support of protecting the polar bear under the Endangered
Species Act, including letters from eminent polar bear experts,
climate scientists, and more than 60 members of Congress. This is a
record number of public comments in support of an Endangered
Species Act listing.
# # #
Greenpeace is an independent campaigning organization with 2.7
million members worldwide that uses peaceful protest and creative
communication to expose global environmental problems and promote
solutions for the future.
www.greenpeace.org
VVPR info: Jane Kochersperger, Media Officer, (202) 319-2493; (202) 680-3798 cell
