animals - Canada - climate change - wildlife

Canada puts off safeguarding polar bears

Friday 29 August 2008

The Canadian government has stopped short of safeguarding the country's polar bears, contrary to the advice of a scientific panel, saying more research was needed. However, it did announce the creation of a national round-table on the issue.

Canada's environment minister on Thursday deferred safeguarding this country's iconic polar bear, saying more study of its circumstances and how it could be protected is required.

The decision comes as a scientific panel in Canada delivered its final report on the polar bear, urging the government to act to safeguard it.

"Our government believes that the polar bear is an iconic symbol of Canada," Environment Minister John Baird said in a statement. "Clearly, we need to ensure that the polar bear does not become endangered or threatened in Canada."

"At the same time," he said, "we have a constitutional duty to work with a number of groups like the Inuit on protecting the polar bear, (and) we can also learn from traditional aboriginal and Inuit knowledge."

The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) in an interim report in April reassessed the polar bear as a "species of special concern," or as panel chairman Jeffrey Hutchings put it, "a species at risk ... (and) in trouble."

But, the panel added, it was not imminently threatened with extinction. Its final report reaffirmed its stated position.

After receiving it, Baird announced a national roundtable with Inuit, environmental groups, provincial and territorial governments, and experts "to consider the science of COSEWIC" and "to chart Canada's course on protecting this majestic animal."

The category for a species "of special concern" is among the lowest in COSEWIC's catalogue of risk assessments with "endangered" topping the list for animals facing imminent extinction.

In its assessment, COSEWIC noted that polar bear populations are declining in some areas, are stable in others, but are increasing in some parts. The total population in Canada, where two-thirds of the world's polar bears live, is estimated at 15,500.

The primary threats to the polar bear in Canada, said Hutchings, are over-harvesting, a decline in summer sea ice, and oil and gas development.

But the panel said it was unable to determine exactly how much of an impact these were having on the bear.

If Baird accepts COSEWIC's recommendation, the government must prepare a conservation plan addressing threats to the bear and its habitat.

Previous environment ministers rejected COSEWIC assessments in 1991, 1999 and 2002, citing concerns about insufficient or outdated data, and asked for more research.

The United States in May listed the polar bear as a threatened species.