Countdown to extinction for polar bears?

CC photo: Just Being Myself

The United States wants to officially upgrade the threat to polar bears to that of “threatened with extinction.” If the proposition is upheld, commercial trade in polar bears and derivative products would be banned worldwide. The proposal will be considered by a global assembly on endangered species to be held in Quatar in March.

Polar bears and their environment have been a major source of concern to nature-protection organizations and climatologists for many years, and this situation led the United States to demand on Thursday that the CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) moves them from Appendix II status, which allows limited commercial trade of species, to Appendix I, which forbids all trade and culling except for research purposes. The proposal is expected to be challenged by various interested parties and maybe even by some countries.

The current polar bear population is estimated to be around 20,000 to 25,000, and they are mostly to be found in the circumpolar Arctic sea ice environment and near land masses such as Canada, Denmark (Greenland), Norway, the Russian Federation, and the United States. Population decreases are not thought to be uniform, with some areas maintaining –- or even increasing –- their numbers, and others witnessing a decline. The overall impression however, is that of a slow decline.

Their natural habitat is sea ice, which they use for hunting, reproduction and migration, and it is now generally accepted that the annual sea ice area of the Arctic is decreasing, both during winter and in summer. The extent of the polar bear habitat is limited to the southern limit of the ice.

As the size of their habitat decreases along with the length of time the ice remains intact, they are increasingly forced to forage on land, and for longer periods of time. Food resources on land are scarcer and harder to catch and this results in polar bears using up the stored fat reserves they accumulated whilst on the ice, upon which they would normally feed all year round. It is this phenomena which is said to represent the biggest single threat to their existence.

However, the presence of polar bears on, or near, land masses also exposes them to other risks, many of which are related to human activities. They include trade, hunting for food, contaminants, disease and ecotourism.

The principal users of polar bears and their derivative products are the United States, Greenland, and, in particular, Canada. Some other countries, such as Norway and Russia, impose stricter limits on their hunting and commercialization.

The majority of polar bears are killed by indigenous people, some of whom have always done so for cultural as well as subsistence and commercial reasons. But the increase in the presence of polar bears on land has led to an increase in their trade, and the commercialisation of clothing articles such as boots, mittens and fur pants, as well as handicraft items.

The United States's demand to CITES is based on the following assumptions among others: sea ice changes are likely to result in a negative impact on polar bear populations; population redistribution will increase, along with polar bears’ vulnerability, due notably to hunting and scarcer food resources; and polar bears are already suffering from reduced physical conditions, increased nutritional and other stresses, increasing mortality rates and reduced reproduction success rates.

The CITES proposal also states: “As changes in habitat become more severe and seasonal rates of change more rapid, catastrophic mortality events that have yet to be realized on a large scale are expected to occur. The decrease in polar bear habitat –- sea ice -- exacerbates all other potential threats to polar bears….Therefore, a precautionary approach, which includes polar bears in CITES Appendix I, is necessary to ensure that primarily commercial trade does not compound the threats posed to the species by loss of habitat.”

The proposal will be considered at a CITES General Assembly meeting in Doha, Quatar, from March 13 to 25, and is expected to be contested by the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), both of which argue that the biggest threat is polar ice melting and that it is not necessary to ban all trade and use of polar bears. The success or failure of the proposal will also be heavily influenced by the opinions and policies of other countries.