Community Perspective
Can the Endangered Species Act save the polar bear?
Published Sunday, May 25, 2008
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Stumble It!Neither environmentalists nor the oil industry won when polar bears were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. One blogger referred to the decision as having “something to offend everyone.” However, much of the recent hoopla around the ESA listing process for polar bears ignores a key question: “Can the ESA help?”
The best available science tells us that polar bears will decline because: 1) summer sea ice is declining, 2) polar bears rely on sea ice, 3) their primary food source, ringed seals, are also at risk because of sea ice loss and 4) the ability of polar bears to adapt to land is predicted to be low because of the rapid rate of change.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service admits listing the polar bear won’t bring back sea ice. However, its frequently asked questions page lists these potential benefits from an ESA listing: convening a multi-stakeholder recovery process, increasing public awareness and listing requires federal agencies granting permits (e.g. for oil and gas development in Alaska) to consult with the Service on any actions which might directly or incidentally affect polar bears.
It’s fair to ask — will these actions save the polar bear?
Most scientific efforts involved in resource management under the ESA have been geared toward monitoring animal populations and land use. Fewer efforts aim to understand whether specific recovery strategies are successful. It’s unlikely that we will find a magic strategy for polar bear conservation; instead, it is likely that the global polar bear population will shrink over time, but perhaps persist in places like the Canadian Arctic islands where the ice retreat is less profound.
Climate change mitigation and any potential polar bear adaptation will take decades or longer to be realized, if they are possible at all. Addressing climate change will require diverse policy initiatives from many sources. In their daily decision-making, however, resource managers will be looking to maximize benefits to bears with the least economic footprint possible. This ESA listing will not change the ‘what’ of oil development in Alaska. It will likely change the ‘how,’ ‘when’ and maybe the ‘where.’
The ESA allows the Fish and Wildlife Service some room to work with companies, communities, and private land holders in coming up with collaborative plans for conserving bear habitat while allowing other uses. Rarely does an ESA listing shut down a project unless it directly harms a protected animal and there are no project alternatives to reduce negative impacts.
In 1992, the U.S. Government Accountability Office studied all ESA consultations for the years 1987 to 1991. It found that of 18,211 consultations, 89 percent were resolved with an informal evaluation. Of the remaining 181 projects requiring a formal consultation, only 23 were found to create unacceptable effects and could not move forward. Furthermore, President Bush’s Executive Order 13212 mandates expedited review of energy projects and other considerations for energy development, making resource development shutdowns highly unlikely. In any event, under the adopted rules, companies will only be constricted in the way they are already constricted — through the Marine Mammal Protection Act regulations.
The mixed message of this listing — protect the bear but don’t make any big rule changes — could be a good thing for Alaska if it creates breathing room for new incentives to update national, state and regional plans for competing uses of the coastal zone and offshore environment. But this will require more effort than exists at present in identifying, monitoring and mitigating negative impacts of offshore industrial activity on polar bears and other marine species in a transparent manner that allows for independent review. At the present time, it is difficult to get a sense of how many bears are affected in which ways by any particular level of activity in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas.
Testifying before Congress, University of Alaska professor Brendan Kelly made an analogy between the polar bear and the bison — “This loss of sea ice, we’re not just taking away the bison here, we’re rolling up the plains behind the bison.” Conservation in the Arctic environment should not just be about one animal, it should be about an entire system — both human and ecological. If we want a chance to make the right decisions, or at least fewer wrong ones, we need to go slowly, cautiously, and take notes.
Chanda Meek is a Ph.D. candidate researching marine policy in the Department of Resources Management at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Community Discussion
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lawyers will benefit immensely from this legislation. money that could be used for developing alternative energy or winterizing homes? the greenies will have a tool to bang everyone over the head with forever now. suppose the ice makes a full recovery, how many decades will this stupid listing stay on the books?
I've yet to read population figures for polar bears. Is the population diminished? Is it in a normal fluctuation? Enough with the conjecture, the "this might happen", "scientists believe", "this could lead to that". What are the facts?
The only possible way to save the polar bear and /or walrus is to completly ban all use of petroleum products. Makes life look pretty tough at that point. All that the endangered species designation achieved was limiting exploring and drilling in the north but does nothing to curb use or importation of oil. Alaska will ultimitly pay the price for America's unwillingness to get it together. We have saved all our wilderness only to clear cut Brazil and Canada for timber and sugar .
Yeh, yeh, yeh, America is evil, blah, blah, blah. Keep preaching the latest gospel while you sip your Triple Super Save the Latest Creature $4 latte.
Polar bears are overated. Feeding and keeping my family warm, thats whats important.
OH yeh, it is possible to log, and not clear cut. To pull oil from the ground, and not destroy the "pristine" wilderness, thus keeping it pretty for humans to look at.
I want stats.
There is a population of 20-25,000 polar bears in the world. There is 19 subpopulations of the same species: Ursus marimatus, where 5 populations are stable, 5 are declining, 2 are increasing, and for the 7 left, there is insufficient scientific data to determine how well their population is doing and how vulnerable they are to endangerment.
AK science center – US Geological Survey, http://alaska.usgs.gov/
They will be ok, natural selection has already begun for them. They are coming back onto land (a story of a polar bear found inland comes to mind). They evolved from Brown bears and using taxonomic rules (meaning they can mate safely) an offspring would be fertile. They are genetically close due to the fact that they actually evolved from a brown bear to a polar bear.
They snack on land animals and being carnivorous animals, they are capable of surviving on land with terrestrial beings. Adaptation and natural selection is life as they have done so during the Ice Age.
The ESA would be the ones hurting the polar bear if they force upon the polar bears, their human rules. Again, out of 17 populations, 5 of those are declining. The rest are stable, increasing or we don't have enough scientific data to determine their standing.
Killem all and drill in ANWR.....
Last I heard the polar bear population is the largest it's ever been since we started keeping records and the ice shelf is the largest it's ever been (since we started keeping records). The whole "Global Warming" thing is a big scam. Putting the polar bears on the endangered list was just a fast one by the greenies, so, that they can restrict what people want to do up there. Even if what people want to do will effect the environment very little or not at all. There may not be specific restrictions now, but they have their foot in the door and you can put money on the fact that there will be in the future. I am tired of the stupididy of our poloticians.
More regulation, that is what we need. Got to keep the lawyers busy. BTW, aren't Obama and Hillary lawyers, maybe they can fix things? If all polar bears died yesterday, it would have NO effect on my comings and goings.
Polar Bear endangered....BUNK....
Let's save the human race...liquidate the EPA, TREE HUGERS, AL GORE Lovers and the LAWYERS who will make millions......................
In this season of spring/summer, I would like to take the time to remind everyone about civility and compassion for their fellow human beings.
BBQ, my house, tonight. I am serving up Polar Bear Ka-bobs, ... BYOB.
Hhehehehe
E-mail adds fuel to polar bear debate
by Megan Baldino / KTUU-TV
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
http://www.ktuu.com/global/story.asp?s=8...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The debate over Alaska's polar bears continues.
An e-mail has surfaced indicating that the state's top marine mammal scientist agreed with the federal science used in the listing of polar bears a as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act. This opinion flies in the face of the Palin administration's assertion that the listing goes too far.
Biologist Rich Steiner has be a vocal advocate for the threatened listing. He's convinced shrinking sea ice is putting polar bears in peril.
Now Steiner is pointing to new evidence that the state's own scientist agreed with the federal government's conclusion that polar bears are threatened --even though the Palin administration argues they are not.
"I'm sure they just overlooked that one e-mail that proves the state scientific review agreed with the federal science that polar bears are in desperate trouble," he said.
The message was sent to several officials at the Department of Fish and Game from three state biologists.
"It was an e-mail from them saying they had reviewed the federal science and agreed with the conclusion that polar bears are in desperate trouble and they should be listed as threatened," Steiner said.
What the biologist said was they reviewed nine reports from the United States Geological Survey and "overall...we believe the methods and analytical approaches used to examine the currently available information supports the primary conclusion and inferences made in these nine reports".
Deputy Fish and Game Commissioner Ken Taylor, also received the e-mail.
"I can't recall an issue where everybody agreed frankly," he said.
Taylor says on issues like this the state receives input from dozens of sources and then compiles one opinion.
"Some of our biologist may disagree with the state position but we had information from the other departments, we contracted with some people at the University (of Alaska) and other places to put together our final comments on the USGS reports," he said. "There are always in these issues a lot of disparate ideas and opinions as to what the position ought to be."
A spokesperson in Gov. Palin's office said the back and forth is all part of a healthy debate.
Contact Megan Baldino at mbaldino@ktuu.com
If you're taking the word of Megan Baldino (former Fairbanks TV reporter), ... then I'm sorry to say, your argument is lost.
Nutty...I hate to burst your bubble (and correct such obvious errors as the fact the polar bear is not the species "marimatus" but "maritimus") but the idea that this is a natural occurrence to which they will adapt is sheer nonsense. First, it is not natural. There is no evidence for the rapidity of climate change we have seen documented in the past 35 years occurring throughout history with the exception of volanic eruptions such as Krakatoa...and their effects only lasted a year or so. What has been happening can be attributed to one well-established source and that is human activity. Second, the idea polar bears will somehow magically adapt within the next decade flies in the face of what we see happening all around us. If that were the case then all the species going extinct each year due to habitat destruction, overhunting, etc, are just cases of "not adapting fast enough" I guess? Nothing...not even humans...adapts that quickly to changing environments save microbes and they manage to do so only by virtue of reproducing in the billions and so being able to take advantage of the necessary chance mutations that will allow them to survive the new conditions.
Third, while polar bears diverged from brown bears the idea that therefore polar bears will suddenly learn how to feed on land like their relative grizzlies has no support whatsoever. The hunting techniques for seals, their main food, is vastly different from that of hunting land animals. For one thing...and this should be painfully obvious...a WHITE bear is going to be pretty easy to spot against the colors of the tundra, just as a brown grizzly would stand out like a sore thumb on ice. Hunting with that sort of massive disadvantage just doesn't cut it. Polar bears lie in wait near seal breathing holes, kill the seals when they surface to get some air. Grizzlies either scavenge carcasses or, if they can get close enough, run prey down and kill them. Aside from the scavenging, which is not a reliable source of food, they have nothing in common in hunting techniques.
Finally, folks might want to read the last posting wherein we see even Palin's biologists say the polar bear is in decline. Of course, that runs counter to sweet, little Sarah's version so we didn't get to hear that fact, now did we?
I predict ice melting all summer,
and that will be followed by freezing all winter.
The weather fluctuates.
Thats why we have weathermen.
half the time they are wrong.
What makes all these enviro nazis think they are any better at telling the future?
Alaska used to be a lush tropical paradise, whose fault was that?
Mistyping a word isn't cause for bursting a bubble. He he.
Show me the fact that they can't adapt and I will accept your sheer nonsense response. They have adapted before from land to sea and I should say, adapted very well since their species haven't strayed to other species but their own for thousands of years. Biologically, a species will move forward, and go back when need be. Fact. Adaptation.
The mere fact that they are closely related to the Brown bear, (ursidae: Ursidae includes three genera and 8 species of extant bears.) Studies from the Stony Brook University have concluded that Polar bears, although their main diet is the ringed seal have been observed to eat reindeer, fish, vegetation and berries. In the northern hemisphere, the polar bear is on top of it's food chain, so the fact that they will die off from becoming prey becuase of their color isn't a stable debate. http://www.digimorph.org/specimens/Ursus...
Also, they feed off of dead walruses on shore if need be.
The rapidity of climate change was taken from a model from 1975 and 1978 where the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (a pacific current change) switched from its negative phase to a positive phase. Not Emissions. Since then, Alaska average temperature change has been nearly flat. (Paul Wescott, Auke Bay) - Ak Journal of Commerce. The models these are based on are just scenarios.. not predictions. And take into consideration the margin of error... it is so wide, that if the pacific freezes over, the change in that wouldn't even be noticed. (NASA has found that the PDO has gone back to its negative phase.. back to what it was before the change, and if that is true, the next few years will confirm that warming here is primarily an ocean effect.)
Other people to check out, Pielkes, Seve McIntyre (statistician and dendro-climatology) and Anthony Watts (meteorologist.)
Another species that have adapted pretty quickly was a butterfly where it's habitat was near factories. From a fair colored butterfly to blend with the (untainted by factory) trees, to a splotchy butterfly, to match the color of the trees that were now gray and splotchy. This trend observed by entomologists in 10 yrs. But the butterfly is so far from the Marimatus.. I mean, the Maritimus species.
As I have mentioned before, 5 populations are in decline.. out of 14 other populations. (I made another typing error where it was 17, it was supposed to be 19 populations.) There are 2 populations that are increasing, 5 that are stable and 7 that we don't have enough scientific information to determine their status. I'm not saying we shouldn't protect the animals, i'm just saying, they have the capability to survive with the changes the world inevitably dishes out.
Amen Nutty! The idea that these animals won't adapt to what the climate brings is just as preposterous as placing them on the Endangered Species List!
And what was the fate of the polar bear that was found inland? Anyone? Anyone? ...shot...because it wasn't where it was supposed to be.
If nobody thinks they should be protected...well, whatever. Maybe they CAN adapt, but will we LET them?
Very good question... time ultimately will tell whether or not we will leave them alone.. I for one say.. let them do what they need to do until their species are really in danger.. all of the populations.
Pretty soon, the greenies will banish the Iditarod for torturing the dogs with this quest, and banish moose droppings.
No, something written on a sheet of paper in Washington and Juneau will not save an animal thousands of miles away in an environment most people on this planet will never be in.
What we should be doing is teaching speech to the polar bears as well as fitting them with armor then have them defend the northern coastline from invaders, we'll give them beer and raw meat in payment.
I myself would love to have an armored bear fitted with a war saddle so I could ride him in the Golden Days parade!
Ohhh our own little Narnian culture.
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