Scientists urge Nunavut to rethink polar bear hunt quotas

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Scientists urge Nunavut to rethink polar bear hunt quotas


Last updated Jul 3 2005 10:18 PM MDT
CBC News

Scientists from five circumpolar countries have boosted the status of polar
bears to vulnerable on an international list signalling species at risk.

Researchers with the Polar Bear Specialist Group say the Arctic is shrinking
and the world's largest terrestrial carnivore is at risk.

The group, created after countries such as Canada, Norway and the United
States signed an international agreement to conserve polar bears in the
1970s, say changing ice conditions and pollution making its way to the
Arctic are taking their toll on polar bears.

They say the threat is so grave that in the next 50 years the world's polar
bear population will likely drop by more than 30 per cent.

"We're seeing some fairly significant reductions in the actual area that
pack ice occupies in the Arctic and we're seeing some thinning in the
thickness of the ice," said Scott Schliebe, a member of the Polar Bear
Specialist group who is based in Anchorage, Alaska.

The scientists say polar bears are vulnerable because of their changing
world and the circumpolar countries should exercise caution before boosting
their hunting quotas.

They say any decisions should be based on both traditional knowledge and
scientific studies.

The group wants Nunavut to rethink its recent increase in polar bear quotas.

Most notably, it's calling for a decrease this year in the hunt in western
Hudson Bay.

"We would like those levels to be adjusted to the current population
abundance estimate, 950 animals, and we would like the adjustment to be
calculated as sustainable over time," said Schliebe.

The group also says too many polar bears are being killed in Chukotka,
Russia and in Greenland.

They say both regions should get their hunts under control.

[Animal 0]

Melting ice will wreck polar bear populations, experts say

WARMING: The seal eaters will be driven ashore or onto shrinking ice

floes.

By DOUG O'HARRA

Anchorage Daily News

Published: July 5th, 2005

Last Modified: July 5th, 2005 at 01:33 AM


Polar bears are facing slow elimination over the next century as their

vast frozen habitat melts away, according to a report by a panel of the

world's top experts on the subject.

If warming Arctic climate continues to erode sea ice, as predicted by

many climate scientists, the expert panel says, the iconic white

carnivores will be driven ashore or onto increasingly smaller floes in

their endless feast-or-famine hunt for seals to eat.

Many animals will then sicken and starve. Populations will die out.

The 40 members of the polar bear specialist group of the World

Conservation Union warned last week that the population of the Arctic's

top predator could crash by 30 percent over the next 35 to 50 years and

should now be rated as vulnerable on an international "Red List" of

threatened species.

"This is the first time that we've evaluated the plight of polar bears

(with) respect to climate change, and we found that they were vulnerable

to extinction," said the group's outgoing chairman, biologist Scott

Schliebe, who oversees management of polar bears in Alaska for the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service. "Polar bears don't have a place to go if they

lose the ice."

"I'm impressed to have a detailed, thoughtful evaluation," said Rosa

Meehan, chief of marine mammal management for the agency in Alaska. "The

outcome makes my heart sink."

Over the past decades, sea ice has lost thickness, melted faster in

spring and re-formed later in fall, according to the international

Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. Vast stretches near Alaska have become

ice-free during the last three summers, setting a record in 2003 and a

near-record in 2004 for least coverage ever measured. The thick

multiyear ice essential to polar bears has been shrinking 8 to 10

percent per decade.

Some climate models predict summer ice could disappear from the Arctic

Ocean by the end of the century.

"It's now abundantly clear that we're looking at a retraction of the sea

ice environment," Schliebe said. "The projection from the climatologists

is very grim."

Politicians who could do something about reducing the greenhouse gas

emissions that are at least partly responsible for heating the earth

have been reluctant to act. While the U.S. Senate passed a nonbinding

resolution last week acknowledging the role of human-generated

greenhouse gases in causing the climate to warm and suggesting that U.S.

emissions should be cut back, Alaska Sens. Ted Stevens and Lisa

Murkowski voted against a measure that would have imposed limits on

those emissions.

Murkowski told the Daily News earlier that she wanted to see more

conclusive evidence tying climate change to man-made releases before

taking actions that could hurt the U.S. economy.

"We don't know for sure yet," she said. "And if we don't know for sure

yet, then we ought to be very cautious."

The polar bear experts say the loss of ice will devastate the

seal-loving carnivores, thought to number up to 25,000 in 19 separate

populations, including two off the coast of Arctic Alaska: the Chukchi

Sea bears shared with Russia and the Beaufort Sea bears shared with

Canada.

Believed to have evolved at least 250,000 years ago from brown bears,

polar bears spend their lives stalking seals and an occasional beluga

whale or walrus in a frozen wilderness of grinding floes. One or two

pounds at birth, male bears can grow to more than a half-ton by

maturity. The much smaller female hibernates when pregnant, digging out

winter dens to tend cubs.

They are curious and relentless hunters, with sharp teeth and short

claws totally adapted to marine life. Despite a mythic reputation for

ferociousness, they often act cautiously around other bears, especially

barren-ground grizzlies, and appear reluctant to fight over food.

The bears cannot simply evolve back to living on land over a generation

or two, Schliebe said, and will begin disappearing as ice cover shrinks.

Although the group named climate warming and the destruction of the ice

habitat as the main threat to the species, it also cited poaching in

Russia and threats by contaminants as other problems.

The group, which advises the United States and other Arctic nations on

polar bear biology and treaty obligations, last rated the animals in a

category of "least concern" in 2001 but had not yet considered the

impact of climate change, Schliebe said. Some 40 biologists, Native

representatives and others from Alaska, Canada, Russia, Norway,

Greenland and Denmark met June 20-24 in Seattle to reconsider new data.

The vulnerable designation will help spur action to help protect the

bears, said Charles Johnson, executive director of the Nome-based Alaska

Nanuuq Commission, which represents hunters and communities that kill

polar bears for subsistence.

"It draws attention to the fact that polar bears will be in jeopardy if

we continue to lose the ice," Johnson said. The bears are "a very

valuable subsistence resource to Native people."

The most dramatic impact seen so far may be in western Hudson Bay, where

sea ice has been breaking up three weeks earlier than it did decades

ago. Bears must spend an extra month on shore fasting, waiting for ice

to re-form in the fall. As a result, the population has plunged 13

percent in 10 years, from 1,100 in 1995 to fewer than 950 in 2004. Bears

have also been killed by people in harvests and defense. The group urged

Canada to take immediate action to reduce bear deaths.

Off northeastern Alaska, the Beaufort Sea population appears to be

stable, with an estimated 1,800 bears living on the ice off Alaska and

Canada, Schliebe said. Federal biologists have spent five years

conducting a new population study and expect to release revised figures

within a year or so. About 40 bears per year are killed by Alaska and

Canadian Natives in well-managed subsistence hunts, Schliebe said.

But there's anecdotal evidence of changes. More individual bears have

been seen foraging along the Beaufort shore or barrier islands in recent

years, including large congregations gathering at whale-carcass dump

sites from Native hunts. This increases the chance that bears will

become stressed or come into conflict with people.

"What we're seeing in the Beaufort Sea may be a warning sign of changes"

similar to those seen in Hudson Bay, Schliebe said.

In the Chukchi Sea, scientists estimate that at least 2,000 bears roam

between Alaska and Russia's Chukotka Peninsula, though Schliebe said the

population figure is not considered sound by scientists. Russian Natives

may be illegally killing more than 200 bears per year, often for meat,

Schliebe said.

"The population can't sustain that," he said.

Alaska Natives harvest about 40 Chukchi bears per year in subsistence

hunts authorized by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, Schliebe said.

A treaty signed in 2000 between the United States and Russia was

supposed to solve the problem by creating an international commission to

study the Chukchi Sea bears, obtain an accurate population count and

oversee a sustainable subsistence hunt for Natives on both sides of the

Bering Strait.

The Russians have prepared their end, with commissioners and new laws,

Schliebe said. But legislation that would set things rolling on the

Alaska side has not been introduced yet in the U.S. Senate.

"We really need that treaty put into play so we can control that

poaching in Chukotka," Johnson said. "It's the U.S. side that is causing

the delay."

Stevens has been an ally, but there was opposition to some aspects of

the treaty by the Bush administration, Johnson said. Competition for

attention against other measures in the Senate may also explain the

delay, Schliebe and Meehan said.

"Sen. Stevens is really interested in the polar bear treaty, but as of

now, no implementing language has been introduced," his spokeswoman,

Courtney Boone, said Thursday. "It's being worked on."

In its report last week, the polar bear group made six recommendations

to governments and managers, including one urging the United States and

Russia to put the treaty into force immediately.

Alaskans can also act to reduce U.S. energy consumption and releases of

the greenhouse gases that contribute to Arctic warming, Schliebe said.

And they can educate themselves on polar bear issues.

"We're seriously concerned about the plight of the polar bear," he said.

"We believe the future is bleak, and we want the public to wake up and

help us."

Daily News reporter Doug O'Harra can be reached at do'harra@...

<mailto:do%27harra@...>.