Polar bear hunters say they'll seek new markets

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Polar bear hunters say they'll seek new markets after bears declared threatened

May 24, 2008

Inuit who lead American clients on polar bear hunts say they've already lost money as a result of Wednesday's decision in the United States to add the Arctic predators to a list of threatened species.
And although the Inuit hunters say they'll try to bring in customers from other countries, American outfitters who organize such trips don't hold out much hope.

"There's more Americans who want to shoot polar bears than any other nationality," Gregg Severinson, director of Cabela's Outdoor Adventures, a major U.S. outfitter and gear supplier, said Thursday.
Still, Nathaniel Kalluk, who has been a polar bear guide based in Resolute, Nunavut, for 10 years, is hoping to replace his American clients with hunters from other countries.
"We'll probably go overseas or something like that," he said.
"We've got one client from Austria already coming up in a couple days. Him and his wife are coming up to see what it's like and we'll take it from there."

On Wednesday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it is declaring the polar bear a threatened species. The decision is based on the reasoning that the bears' primary habitat - arctic sea ice - is shrinking as a result of climate change.
The listing means American hunters will no longer be able to bring bear hides into the United States.
Kalluk said he's already had one cancellation - a US$27,000 hit that affects not only him, but the local co-op that provides supplies and women who sew caribou parkas and pants the hunters use.
"He was going to come up on the 17th if (the hide) was importable," Kalluk said. "But when it's not importable any more he cancelled out."
The entire industry is worth about $2.5 million a year in Nunavut - big bucks in tiny, remote communities where working for the government is often the only other option.
Kalluk expects a few Americans to still come hunting. Some have friends or businesses in Canada where they can leave the trophy.
But don't look for very many, Severinson said. He looks back to the 1990s, another period when Americans weren't allowed to import their polar bear hides.
"We booked no Americans and maybe five foreign hunters a year."
Kalluk, who employs four guides, has 20 tags to sell. And he's got lots of bears to hunt.
"More than ever now," he said. "In fact, four times hunters got their bears the first day they (went) out."
Kalluk, a 53-year-old grandfather, also offers muskox and caribou hunts and also takes a few non-hunting tourists around in the summer. But muskox numbers are declining and nothing pays as well as the bears.
"It's disappointing, but life goes on."
Severinson scoffs at the decision to list the bears and suggests sport hunting is not why some bear populations are in decline.
"It's managing emotions, not wildlife," he said.
Kalluk agrees. "(It's a) game only."
And even though he's faced with scrambling to keep his livelihood, Kalluk's thoughts are with his clients and fellow hunters.
"I am very sorry for the hunters of the United States. I'm sorry for them. They want to get a polar bear. And when they get one they want to take the hide home and they cannot do that any more."

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5i9JgWmJNOEI_vyrROhIsxCVgQXsQ

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Alaska trying to get polar bears off U.S. threatened list

Last Updated: Wednesday, May 21, 2008
CBC News

The state of Alaska will sue to challenge the listing of polar bears as a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, Gov. Sarah Palin said Wednesday.

Palin said there's insufficient evidence to support the threatened status, which U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced on May 14.

Kempthorne said the best available science indicates that the bears' primary habitat — Arctic sea ice — was shrinking and likely to further recede.

But Palin maintained that polar bears are well managed and that their numbers have dramatically increased over the last three decades.

"The state maintains that there is insufficient evidence to support a listing of the polar bear as threatened for any reason at this time," stated a news release issued by Palin's office Wednesday.

"Polar bears are currently well-managed and have dramatically increased over 30 years as a result of conservation measures enacted through international agreements and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. A listing of the polar bear under the [Endangered Species Act] will not provide additional conservation measures."

Conservation groups say the increase in Alaska's polar bear numbers is due to measures that halted overhunting, but that populations are likely to diminish as summer sea ice shrinks.

Palin said her state's attorney general will file a complaint under the U.S. Administrative Procedure Act, arguing that Kempthorne's decision was so arbitrary that it violates the act.

The state will also draft a 60-day notice of intent to sue under the Endangered Species Act, Palin said.

Conservation groups also plan court battle

Meanwhile, American conservation groups also want to take the U.S. government to court over the polar bear's threatened status.

Groups like the Center for Biological Diversity argue that the government had no right to insert a special regulation exempting greenhouse gas emissions and oil and gas industry activities from the rules protecting the now-threatened polar bear species.

"We have filed a court challenge to that special regulation, asserting that it violated the law," Kassie Siegel, a lawyer with the Center for Biological Diversity, told CBC News on Tuesday.

"We hope that it will be overturned in short order and that we will be left with the good parts of the decision while overcoming the bad parts."

The Endangered Species Act was designed to identify threats to a species, then put measures in place to reduce those threats, Siegel said. The exemptions are contradictory and break the law, she argued.

U.S. hunters are also challenging the threatened status in court, as the decision has banned them from bringing home polar bear trophies from hunting trips to places like Canada's North.

With files from the Associated Press


http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/05/21/alaska-bears.html

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Some hope remains on Canadian polar bear trophies: U.S. official

Last Updated: Friday, May 16, 2008
CBC News

A high-ranking U.S. official says there may be hope that American sport hunters can bring home the polar bears they hunted in Canada's North, while American hunters scramble to deal with a ban placed this week on importing polar bear trophies.

The ban came into effect when the U.S. government listed the polar bear as a threatened species Wednesday under its Endangered Species Act.

The threatened status automatically makes the polar bear a "depleted" species under the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act, meaning it cannot be hunted and imported into the U.S.

But Lyle Laverty, the U.S. assistant secretary of the interior for fish, wildlife and parks, told CBC News that there is some hope that an exception could be made for polar bear trophies, even though polar bears are now a threatened species.

"What we're going to have to do is work with the Congress," Laverty said Thursday.

"I don't want to say it's simple, but with just a little amendment to the Marine Mammal Protection Act, [Congress] can make a provision that would permit the importation of a trophy from Canada."

Laverty said he cannot say how likely this could happen, as U.S. officials will have to meet to discuss the matter.

Import ban being challenged in court

He noted that it's a plus that Canada manages its polar bear populations and sport hunts well — something that may help in lifting the ban on polar bear trophy imports.

Meanwhile, the import ban is being challenged in court by American hunters.

Polar bears remain a species "of special concern" in Canada, which is a less serious classification than "threatened" and "endangered."

The U.S. government's move to list polar bears as a threatened species was based on findings that bears' Arctic sea ice habitat, vital to their survival, has dramatically melted in recent decades.

The decision means all U.S. federal agencies now have to ensure nothing they do jeopardizes the bears' survival or the sea ice on which the bears live.

However, polar bear sport hunts bring in about $3 million a year to Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. They form a significant source of income for many Inuit guides, as hunters pay around $30,000 to $40,000 to hunt a polar bear.

American hunters in Nunavut this week began scrambling to find a way to get their polar bear trophies across the border in light of the new threatened status.
'A risk that we were willing to take'

While some had delayed their travel plans as they waited for the U.S. government's decision, others, like Tim Walters of Cornell, Wash., embarked on their northern hunts anyway.

"Yes, it was a concern, very much so, and a risk that we were willing to take," said Walters, who was on a stopover at the Iqaluit airport Thursday after hunting a polar bear in Resolute Bay.

Walters said he came north to experience being in the Arctic, not just to kill a polar bear. At the same time, he said he believes a lot fewer U.S. hunters will want to hunt polar bears in northern Canada because of the import ban.

"I certainly would hope that our government would make some type of exclusion to allow those bears who have been killed up to this point. You cannot put them back on the ice and I see no sense in leaving them somewhere in storage indefinitely."

Ethel Leedy, a 79-year-old hunter from Delta Junction, Alaska, said people must recognize that Inuit have hunting quotas and will still hunt polar bears whether there is a sport hunt or not.

"I think they should let us take them across because the natives are going to take them anyhow," said Leedy. "They get the permits and that's how they have their income, it gives them extra income."

Both Leedy and Walters said their polar bear trophies will stay with Canadian taxidermists until they find a way to get them across the Canada-U.S. border.


http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2008/05/16/bear-ban.html

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Citation :

The state of Alaska will sue to challenge the listing of polar bears as a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, Gov. Sarah Palin said Wednesday.

Palin said there's insufficient evidence to support the threatened status, which U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced on May 14.

J'espère qu'ils n'auront pas gain de cause !