A new federal plan for polar bear conservation management bluntly states the obvious: their future is at risk without the collective willingness of humans to address factors contributing to climate change.
The sea ice habitat they roam in the Arctic is shrinking due to Arctic warming and global action is necessary to improve their chances for survival in sufficient numbers and places where they roam today.
The Polar Bear Conservation Management Plan, prepared by region 7 of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Anchorage, “outlines the necessary actions and concrete commitments by the Service and our state, tribal, federal and international partners to protect polar bears in the near term,” said Greg Siekaniec, Alaska regional director for USFWS. “But make no mistake; without decisive action to address Arctic warming, the long-term fate of this species in uncertain.”
The plan is not regulatory in any way, acknowledged Jenifer Kohout, co-chair of the recovery team and policy work group, with the USFWS in Anchorage. “It’s all the kind of things we would like to see, but we can’t force it,” Kohout said in an interview on Jan. 9, the day the plan was released.
On the bright side, said Kohout, is the attention the report is getting from news media spreading the word about the report, and the cooperative efforts of oil industry firms working on Alaska’s North Slope, who have helped identify polar bear dens and rerouted traffic to avoid disturbing female polar bears and their cubs.
“Oil and gas operators up there are certainly our partners and they have supported polar bear conservation through support for research” with money and logistical support, said Craig Perham, a USFWS polar bear biologist. These multiple partners “have led to a lot of information that we now know about polar bears.”
Female polar bears den from about November through April and oil and gas firms working on the North Slope have cooperated in helping to identify dens and modify their activities, including limiting traffic to den areas, to avoid disturbing the bears.
In one case, several years ago, an Italian firm evacuated a production island for several days after spotting a polar bear in April emerging from the snow, Perham said. Even before he got the call regarding the presence of the polar bear, the company had voluntarily evacuated, and only after the polar bears had abandoned the den did they return, he said.
The plan is getting mixed reactions from the state of Alaska, which remains opposed to listing the polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and the Center for Biological Diversity, which calls the plan “toothless.”
Two criteria are identified in the plan for management actions under the Marine Mammals Protection Act. The first calls for maintenance of the health and stability of the marine ecosystem, while the second would allow for massive reductions in polar bear populations.
The state agrees with many aspects of the plan, including recognition that the primary threat to polar bears is the loss of sea ice habitat brought on by climate change, said Bruce Dale, director of the state Division of Wildlife Conservation.
The state also supports the plan’s goals to maintain sustainable subsistence harvest, appropriately manage human-bear interactions, and minimize restrictions to economic development and other activities, Dale said in a prepared statement.
But, Dale added, the state remains broadly opposed to the bears’ 2008 worldwide listing by the USFWS as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.
A federal appeals court affirmed the threatened listing after the state and others challenged that listing in federal court as unwarranted and overly restrictive.
The Center for Biological Diversity meanwhile criticized the plan for failure to require the large-scale reductions in greenhouse gases needed to save the species.
“Polar bears are starving and drowning as their sea ice melts away, but this toothless plan shrugs off the one solution that will save them- carbon pollution cuts,” said Shaye Wolf, climate science director for the Center.
The plan confirms that staying on our current carbon-polluting pathway will not leave enough sea ice for polar bears to survive, she said.
The plan also allows for massive reductions in polar bear populations.
Under the plan polar bears can be considered recovered even if the population drops by 85 percent from current levels, she said. The plan also fails to require reductions in other important threats to the polar bear oil and gas drilling, increasing Arctic shipping and contaminants, she said.
The plan is online at
https://www.fws.gov/alaska/fisheries/mmm/polarbear/pbmain.htm
Photo courtesy of Bob Waldrop-RedPoint Images.
