Le Canada: Pas prêt d'interdire la chasse à l'ours polaire

[Animal 0]

Any U.S. Ban on Hunting Polar Bears Unlikely to be Adopted in Canada Climate
change poses bigger threat, say experts By Sharda Vaidyanath Epoch Times
Parliament Hill Reporter Sep 06, 2007

Scientist Dr. Ian Stirling in the Beaufort Sea region last spring. The two
polar bears have been immobilized with drugged darts fired from a helicopter
to facilitate tagging and collecting measurements and samples. (Courtesy of
Ian Stirling)


With climate change impacting some Polar bear populations in the Arctic, a
move to list the bears under the United States Endangered Species Act
(ESA) is gaining momentum.

However, the politics of polar bear conservation south of the border may not
be enough to melt Canadian resistance to banning the hunting of the bears.

The University of Alberta's Canadian Circumpolar Institute is playing a lead
international role in examining the pros and cons of hunting polar bears in
the Canadian Arctic, including management and conservation.
"It's not only a question of science, it's a question of politics as well,"
says senior research scholar at the institute, Milton Freeman.

Freeman says of the 200,000 written submissions to the U.S. government, only
37 per cent supported the U.S. government's proposal to list polar bears,
and of the thirteen submissions made by Canadians, only two supported the
U.S. proposed listing.

There are eight polar bear jurisdictions, and the provincial governments do
not want to be derelict in managing them, he says. But he doesn't believe
there will ever be a ban on hunting polar bears in Canada.

"Canada is generally acknowledged to have a very good system of management
because the quotas are all science-based and the precautionary principle is
applied."

Freeman says the Inuit are the first to tell the scientists if they have any
concerns regarding hunting the bears. "The Inuit have negotiated various
management processes throughout Canada, and under these processes they have
a right to hunt the polar bears under sustainable management practices,"
says Duane Smith, president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, Canada.

However, Smith notes that a U.S. ban would have repercussions in Canada and
result in an economic and cultural impact. He says some communities that are
partially dependent on American tourist sports hunting, such as Resolute Bay
and Pond Inlet, stand to lose $25,000 US per hunt. In addition, the cultural
aspects of using dog teams would also disappear.

Smith says the Inuit don't support a ban for the reasons the U.S. gives,
"and the U.S. consultation with the Inuit could be better."

Environment Canada's scientist emeritus, Ian Stirling, says there has been a
proposal to list polar bears as "threatened" under the ESA, adding that the
ESA is currently undertaking an extensive review of the scientific
information available on polar bears and on Arctic sea ice.

Author of the book Polar Bears, Stirling says there are nineteen distinct
polar bear populations in the circumpolar north with a total global
population of 20,000 to 25,000 bears.

Thirteen of those populations are either entirely within Canadian territory
or shared with other nations such as Greenland, with which Canada shares
three bear populations. A single bear population is shared with Alaska.
Sixty per cent of the global polar bear population belongs to Canada.

Climate Change Biggest Threat

However, experts agree that climate change concerns are more important when
it comes to the conservation of bears in the north.

While circumpolar nations race to establish their claims to the
resource-rich Arctic seabed, climate change and melting sea ice are
threatening the Nanuq, or polar bear. And as bear populations decline, the
Inuit, scientists and critics all agree that it's time the rapidly changing
north became a priority. For thousands of years the Inuit led a nomadic
life, and Nanuq was his "equal" as predator and hunter. They shared the same
habitat and competed for the same food that ranged from seals to bigger prey
like caribou, walrus and Beluga whales.

The Inuit from birth on was taught all about respecting this symbiotic
relationship with the prized polar bear and the harsh yet fragile
environment.

"We were told not to speak about polar bears too much because they're
listening to you, because they're clever and dangerous," says Gabriel
Nirlungayuk., a hunter, and director of Wildlife at Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.
in Rankin Inlet. But traditional folklore and beliefs and the Inuit way of
life began changing after western contact and continues to change
dramatically, more recently because of climate change and its impact.
Freely harvesting bears or other wildlife is no longer possible, as quotas
and other restrictions have been in place for at least three decades, says
Nirlungayuk.

The Inuit are not alone in observing changes in the North.

Over three hundred scientists from around the world contributed to the
ground-breaking 2004 Arctic Climate Assessment (ACIA), which stated that the
Arctic is now experiencing some of the most "rapid and severe"
climate change on earth, and the ongoing reduction in sea ice is "very
likely to have devastating consequence for polar bears, ice-dependent seals,
and local people for whom these animals are a primary source of food."

Since polar bears usually use ice as a platform to hunt seals from, the
situation looks grim. Stirling cites areas such as Western Hudson Bay and
the Southern Beaufort Sea as examples where long-term studies have observed
significant decline.

In Western Hudson Bay, the break-up of the sea-ice is happening three weeks
earlier than it was thirty years ago. Stirling says that between
1985 and 2000 there has been a 22 per cent decline in bear population.

"We are looking at a likelihood of a very large scale decline, 30 per cent
of the polar bear population in 40 to 50 years," he says.

National Policy Needed

On a visit to the Arctic last week, NDP leader Jack Layton said that Prime
Minster Stephen Harper's focus on military solutions for Arctic sovereignty
is "too narrow.I've seen first hand that we need to tackle social, economic
and environmental concerns."

Executive Director of the Canadian Polar Commission, Steven Bigras, says
that while our Canadian scientists are second to none, he laments the fact
that we still don't have a national policy to support polar science.

"It's not that it hasn't been tried. It's a very diverse and dispersed
community, and getting all the players together and developing the consensus
is a challenge," he says.

The status of polar bears is currently under review by COSEWIC, the
Committee on Status of Endangered Species of Wildlife in Canada.
Stirling says Canada needs to move quickly on over-harvesting, being mindful
to apply "the precautionary principle. If we're not certain of some details,
give the resource the benefit of the doubt, something that did not happen
with Arctic cod which became a victim of over estimation of existing
population."

Scientists and Inuit have a long history of working together, which is
facilitated through the Polar Bear Technical Committee, which meets once a
year, has direct Inuit participation, and all polar bear research is shared.

However, Stirling says differences of opinion may arise over
"interpretations of local ecological knowledge," such as interpreting
increasing sightings of bears in the community.

Canada is signatory to the 1973 Agreement of the Conservation of Polar Bears
and Their Habitat that provides a framework for working with other polar
nations, which is critical for conservation. However, many issues are
particular to Canada, such as funding for research, 60-80 per cent of which
comes from outside sources, says Stirling.

"Polar bear research done by the federal government has been under-funded
for almost twenty five years."

While the degree to which human beings can respond to climate change within
the next five or ten years is unknown, it will be the defining factor for
saving the polar bears, says Stirling.

"If we're going to conserve polar bears that means we're going to conserve
the habitat they're dependent on, and that's going to have huge numbers of
large scale benefits in many ways that we may not even appreciate."

http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-9-6/59471.html

______________________________________________________

Barry Kent MacKay
Canadian Representative
Animal Protection Institute
<www.api4animals.org>