Inuit angry over U.S. proposal to eliminate all trade in polar bears

By Bob Weber (CP)

Canadian Inuit are outraged over a U.S. plan to use an international treaty to eliminate all trade in polar bears anywhere in the world.
They say it would cripple one of their few industries and they're calling on the federal government to step in.
"We're fighting with Goliath here," said Gabriel Nirlungyak, director of wildlife with Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., which oversees the Nunavut land claim.
"We want our government to defend us."
On Friday, Tom Strickland, the United States assistant secretary of the interior, released a proposal to the 175 countries which have signed the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. It says polar bears should be moved to a classification that would outlaw all commercial trade in the animals.
"The proposals submitted this week will improve protections for dozens of declining species, while improving enforcement and implementation of (the convention) for many others," Strickland said in a release.
The bears are threatened by habitat loss due to melting sea ice caused by climate change, he said.
Previous moves by the American government have already killed most of the market for U.S. sport hunters by preventing them from bringing hides back with them. If the current proposal is accepted at the convention's next meeting in March, it will wipe out all other markets, said Nirlungyak.
"If this goes ahead, it will stop all sport hunts. It will be quite devastating."
Sport hunters pay up to $30,000 for the opportunity of bagging one of the world's largest land predators and Inuit hunters can get up to $150 a foot for a bear hide.
Nirlungyak said there's no evidence the animals are currently endangered and added that Canadian populations are well-managed. Canada has about two-thirds of the world's 25,000 bears.
Nunavut issues a total of 518 tags yearly for both subsistence and sport hunts, although not all the tags are used. The territorial government is seeking to reduce some of those quotas, although Inuit hunters are resisting those moves.
The latest data suggests eight of the world's 19 subpopulations of bears are decreasing, three are stable and one is increasing. Not enough is known about the other seven to assign a trend.
Nirlungyak points out that trade in no other species has been banned under the convention on the basis of forecasts.
"There's no justification. There's no need when you look at the science. It's a political move.
"We want the Canadian government to defend us and oppose this listing."
An Environment Canada spokeswoman said in an email that Canada does not support the U.S. request to change the polar bear's status. She said Canadian representatives would lobby other countries to reject the proposal, which requires a two-thirds majority to pass.
The American proposal even surprised some environmentalists.
"Our initial analysis indicated that hunting was not the primary threat," said Geoff York, the World Wildlife Fund's director of polar bear conservation. "We were not expecting any country to advocate a proposal for polar bears on this."
York said any new protection for polar bears must have the support of the people who live with them.
"We have concerns about the impact ... on northern people," he said. "The people on the ground have to be involved with the solution."
However, Andrew Wetzler of the Natural Resources Defence Council, which lobbied for the proposal, said that any extra stress on bear populations should be eliminated as they struggle to adapt to their new climate.
"As populations start to decline, it becomes much more important to keep other factors affecting (them) to a minimum," said Wetzler. "We think that trophy hunting is inappropriate."
This year's summer sea ice reached its third-lowest level in 30 years of record-keeping.
Wetzler said the Canadian government should provide transition funding to Inuit communities to wean them off the hunting industry.
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http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/291_cites_to_eye_international_ban_on_polar_bear_trade/

NEWS: Around the Arctic October 16, 2009 - 3:42 pm

CITES to eye international ban on polar bear trade
Environment Canada report could be crucialNUNATSIAQ NEWS

Inuit organizations finally woke up to speak out against a proposal from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that could kill the polar bear sports hunt in Nunavut.
The proposal, announced Oct. 16, which would lead to a ban on trade in polar bear trophies, ignores “the demonstrated ability of Inuit to manage their own resources wisely and sustainably,” said Duane Smith, president of Inuit Circumpolar Council Canada.
The U.S. agency plans to submit its proposal to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species when the group meets in Qatar next March.
“Limiting commercial trade in this species will address a source of non-climate stress to polar bear populations, and contribute to long-term recovery,” said a news release from the wildlife agency.
Its proposal would see the polar bear moved up from CITES’s appendix II to appendix I.
Species on Appendix I are considered threatened by extinction, and CITES prohibits international trade in specimens of these species.
“Canadian Inuit are successfully managing their polar bear populations without interference from the USA government or special interest groups,” Smith said in an Oct. 16 news release.
“Canadian polar bear populations are currently healthy. If, in the future, they are threatened, the management bodies would review their processes and adjust accordingly. We should let them do their job,” Smith said.
Tourists and sport hunters who sometimes accompany Inuit in regulated polar bear sports hunts provide important income for entire communities and have no effect on the quotas set to maintain healthy bear populations, Smith said.
“The USA proposal challenges our right as Inuit to sustainably exercise our traditional rights and practices to harvest polar bears. We are becoming an endangered species ourselves.”
Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. also sent out a news release on Oct. 16, noting its opposition to the U.S. proposal to up-list the polar bear’s status.
“If the proposal is passed, it will have a devastating effect on our communities. Inuit understand the importance of conservation of the polar bear because the animal is so important to our society, culture and economy, the same was the automobile is to the American society and economy,” said NTII vice-president Raymond Nincheocheak.
“We do not want to be further restricted beyond the quota systems that we have been participating in now for a number of decades,” said Mary Simon, the president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, in an ITK news release, also issued Oct. 16.
But none of these groups acknowledge that an upcoming report from Environment Canada will also play into CITES’s eventual decision whether or not to support the U.S. proposal that would stop international trade in all polar bear trophies.
Under CITES, Environment Canada is responsible for evaluating whether the export of a species from Canada will be detrimental or not to its survival in the wild.
Its report, referred to as a “non-detriment finding,” is not supposed to be affected by socio-economic considerations — even if the value of the sports polar bear hunt to Nunavut has been estimated at about $2.9 million each year.
The department may decide make a negative “non-detriment finding” to CITES on the export of polar bear trophies from some polar bear populations in Nunavut — such as the Baffin Bay, where environment minister Jim Prentice wanted the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board to recommend a lower quota.
Canada would be in a much stronger position to argue against the proposal if it looks as if Canada is “managing issues of conservation concern such as overharvest,” Prentice wrote the NWMB.
Environment Canada has to make a positive recommendation on the impact of the polar bear hunt in certain areas of Nunavut for Canada to legally issue an export permit for polar bear products, including skin, fur, claws, skulls and stuffed animals, from those areas.
A negative “non-detriment finding” would mean that the trade in these hides and trophies may harm the species’ survival.
CITES rulings already restrict the trade of 800 species close to extinction, such as tigers, great apes, certain parrots, certain species of orchids and cacti, and some timber species.

___________
http://www.hsus.org/press_and_publications/press_releases/wildlife_groups_commend_interior_halt_polar_bear_trade_101609.html





Wildlife Groups Commend the Interior Department for Seeking to Halt Polar Bear Trade




October 16, 2009




Trade in Polar Bear Skin Rugs and Other Parts Threatens the Species
WASHINGTON — The Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society International, International Fund for Animal Welfare and Defenders of Wildlife applaud the United States Department of the Interior for submitting a proposal to next year's meeting of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to stop the international trade in polar bears. The meeting is set for March 13-25 in Doha, Qatar.
"By submitting this proposal, the United States is, once again, leading the way to save this magnificent species from extinction. International trade in polar bear parts and products is exacerbating the devastating impact that climate change is already having on the polar bear. We should not be making rugs out of polar bears at a time when they are threatened with extinction," said Teresa M. Telecky, Ph.D., director of wildlife for Humane Society International, the global affiliate of The Humane Society of the United States.
There are presently between 20,000 and 25,000 polar bears and the number is decreasing.
"On May 8, 2009, Secretary Salazar said that he and President Obama were fully committed to protecting polar bears, and that we must do everything we can to eliminate all threats to the species. With this laudable action, they are making good on that commitment. By uplisting the species at the next CITES conference, the U.S. will help prevent the deaths of hundreds of polar bears killed needlessly for the commercial market," said Jeff Flocken, D.C. office director, International Fund for Animal Welfare.
Polar bears are completely dependent on sea ice, which they use for hunting prey, reproduction and movement. Ongoing atmospheric pollution is causing oceanic and atmospheric warming, leading to reductions in sea ice. Some scientists have concluded that polar bears will not survive past the end of this century due to the complete loss of summer sea ice.
In addition to hunting trophies, polar bear parts — skin, fur, claws, skulls and even stuffed bears — enter international commercial trade. More than 500 polar bear skins are traded annually; most come from Canada and most go to Japan.
In 2008, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. This ended the importation to the United States of trophies of polar bears killed by American sport hunters. Although hunters from other countries can still import trophies, the United States was by far the largest importer and American trophy hunters had driven this large-scale commercial killing.
"While we cannot stop the impacts of global warming on polar bears immediately, one thing we can do is quickly address other threats which are heightening the bear's problems, such as the commercial trade. By increasing protections for polar bears under CITES, we can start to give the polar bear some more protections while we take the necessary steps to address global warming," said Rodger Schlickeisen, president, Defenders of Wildlife.
The proposal would transfer the polar bear from CITES Appendix II, which allows regulated international commercial trade, to Appendix I, which prohibits all international commercial trade in the listed species. The purpose of CITES is to prevent over-exploitation of species through international trade.
The Appendix I designation would mean that countries agree to prohibit international trade for primarily commercial purposes and thus ensure that international trade will not contribute to the ongoing decrease in polar bear numbers. Appendix I listing will not affect native subsistence hunting or use of polar bears.

-30-The Humane Society of the United States is the nation's largest animal protection organization — backed by 11 million Americans, or one of every 28. For more than a half-century, The HSUS has been fighting for the protection of all animals through advocacy, education, and hands-on programs. Celebrating animals and confronting cruelty — On the web at humanesociety.org.
Humane Society International and its partner organizations together constitute one of the world's largest animal protection organizations — backed by 11 million people. For nearly 20 years, HSI has been fighting for the protection of all animals through advocacy, education, and hands-on programs. Celebrating animals and confronting cruelty worldwide — On the web at hsi.org.

U.S. Interior Department proposes international ban on the trade in polar bears

Animal rights groups today praised the U.S. Department of the Interior
for submitting a proposal to ban the international trade in polar
bears.

If approved by the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora at its meeting next March
in Qatar, the proposal would make commercial trade in polar bears
illegal. Currently, international commercial trade is regulated.

The ban would not apply to native subsistence hunting of polar bears.

"International trade in polar bear parts and products is exacerbating
the devastating impact that climate change is already having on the
polar bear," said Teresa M. Telecky, director of wildlife for Humane
Society International.

--
full story:
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2009/10/us_interior_department_propose.html

SAVE POLAR BEARS!PETITION TO SIGN! ACTION ALERT!

Polar bears are dying. As global warming accelerates, the sea ice they depend on for survival is literally melting away. Bears are starving and drowning as they have to swim farther and farther to reach solid ice. Some are even turning to cannibalism in a desperate search for food. Those trapped on land hundreds of miles from the nearest ice often wander near villages in search of food and are shot.

As if that weren’t enough, oil and gas drilling is destroying and polluting their fast-dwindling Arctic habitat.

A third of all polar bears — including all bears in Alaska — will be extinct by 2050 if current trends continue. The rest of the species will be gone by the end of the century.

But it’s not too late to save the polar bear if we join together and take immediate action. The science is clear. We know what needs to be done — we just need to build the political support to do it.

Please sign the petition below to encourage President Barack Obama to rein in global warming and save the polar bear now.

GERMAN ZOOS BATTLE OVER KNUT-THE 6- MILLION -DOLLAR POLAR BEAR

A court battle began in the German capital Berlin today for the rightsto the most famous polar bear in the world.
Two German zoos are embroiled in a bitter custody battle overhand-reared bear Knut and the some £6million in revenue he has earnedsince 2007.
Neumuenster Zoo let the Berlin Zoo borrow Knut’s father Lars in 1999on the condition that the first-born cub from his union with motherTosca would belong to Neumuenster.
--full story:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1184479/German-zoos-battle-Knut-6m-polar-bear.html

SAVE POLAR BEARS!TAKE ACTION NOW!

Urge the Obama administration to grant endangered species protection for the polar bear, whose arctic habitat is threatened by global warming pollution and oil development.
http://www.nrdconline.org/campaign/biogems_polar_0109
Secretary Ken Salazar, Department of the Interior
Subject:
Dear Secretary Salazar,
(Edit Letter Below)You have inherited a failed Bush administration policy on polar bears that I strongly oppose. It is riddled with loopholes that would allow global warming pollution and Arctic oil exploration to continue unabated while the polar bear is in mortal danger. This policy cannot ensure the bear's survival. It must be changed now.
The scientific evidence is overwhelming that rising temperatures could cause two-thirds of the world's polar bear populations, including all of Alaska's polar bears, to go extinct by 2050. Polar bears are already drowning and starving. In the face of this unfolding disaster, it is too late for half-measures and polluter exemptions.
Please act now to close the polluter loopholes and give the polar bear full-fledged protection as an endangered species. I also call on you to devise a recovery plan that will protect polar bear habitat against global warming pollution, oil and gas development, and other threats.
The plight of the polar bear is urgent. We can still save this magnificent species, but the window for action is closing rapidly. Please act immediately to pull polar bears back from the brink of extinction.

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION WON'T SAVE POLAR BEAR FROM BUSH'S RULE CHANGE!

Written by Jeff Pecaro
The Obama administration’s Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, announced today that he won’t be changing George W. Bush’s rule that global factors, such as climate change, cannot be considered in analyzing the polar bear’s survival.

The rule, instituted in the last months of Bush’s presidency, prohibit the U.S. Fish and Wildlife and National Marine Fisheries services from considering whether practices outside the polar bear’s territory are affecting its chances for survival.
» See also: No New Coal: Help List All Proposed Coal Mines in the US

This severely limits the environmental agencies’ ability to regulate how the effects of climate change are impacting the polar bear and its habitat. Congress passed legislation on March 10th that specifically allowed Salazar to rescind this rule-change by the Bush administration, but he has decided today to allow the deadline for that rule change to pass.
The inclusion of climate change in the protections of the Endangered Species Act presents a nightmare scenario for many of the major players in American industry, who could be forced by federal law to undergo costly and expansive changes if science could provide a causal link between their projects or proposals and the impending extinction of such a popular and charismatic species.
The Endangered Species Act was intended to protect animals at risk of extinction, and their habitats, from danger as a “consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation.” Bush’s rule, limiting the protections available to a species to actions taken in that animal’s home-range, legally removes the EPA’s ability to hold American industry responsible for how their actions are affecting the arctic.
One of the ESA’s most powerful tools is its effect on the approval of new projects, such as power plants, factories, and housing developments. Environmental groups have successfully brought suit to stop or alter a number of projects that threatened habitats critical to a species’ survival, using the Act for legal justification.
While it may protect American industry from making costly changes, at least for the time being, it seems to indicate that Salazar’s agency and Obama’s government are not ready to accept responsibility for how climate change that is threatening the polar bear.
Photo Credit: Just Being Myself on Flickr under Creative Commons license.
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JAPAN WON'T BUDGE ON WHALE KILL!

Japan won't budge on whale kill
Sydney Morning Herald
Andrew Darby in Hobart
May 4, 2009
JAPAN has refused to drop its Antarctic kill below 650 whales at a confidential meeting involving Australia, leaving whaling peace talks at a stand-off. The meeting of six key International Whaling Commission countries wound up soon after the Japanese proposal was tabled in San Francisco, sources told the Herald yesterday. The whalers' position then hardened at the weekend with the release of a joint statement by countries backing the "sustainable use" of whales. With the European anti-whaling bloc strengthening on the other side, a stalemate looms at the commission's annual meeting in June that would let Japan continue to choose its own "scientific" whaling targets. These are 380 in the North Pacific and up to 985 in the Antarctic, where the toll has led to violent clashes with anti-whaling groups, and angered Australian political leaders. The peace talks under the US chairman of the commission, WIlliam Hogarth, have been trying to break a long-standing deadlock between pro- and anti-whaling sides. The Rudd Government told a closed intersessional meeting of the commission in March that for Australia to join any peace deal, it would need to include hard commitments for an end to unilateral scientific whaling. What does this mean is this good news because they will not accept a deal? Or is it bad news because they will simply continue their research haux? If the IWC members dont speak up and start protecting whales the killing will go on for ever! Only we can tell the leaders of the IWC member countries that they should not even think about commercial whaling and any kind of sustainbale whaling deal... We need more members to send that message in the weeks before the IWC meeting!
So please invite your friends to become whaledefenders! http://tinyurl.com/whaledefenders
4days left for the polar bear petition http://tinyurl.com/polarbearpetition
Please sign and spread the word out to show Obama that we want real protection for polar bears! Dont let Exxon kill them!

ANIMAL VOICES NEWS&ALERTS-SAVE THE POLAR BEARS!

AnimalVoicesNews&AlertS
LETTER: Urge President Obama's Interior Secretary
to Rescue the Polar Bear!

Cyberact: Prepared letter on line (may be edited):


Info Source: NRDC Senior Attorney, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Tell Interior Secretary Salazar that struggling polar bears can't wait any longer. With extinction looming as soon as 2050 for Alaska's polar bears, the Interior Department must reverse the Bush Administration's "polluters-first" policies quickly -- and grant the polar bear the full-fledged protection it so desperately needs.

Please send a message now calling for immediate polar bear protection.

Edited Sample:

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar

Dear Secretary Salazar:

You have inherited a failed Bush Administration policy on polar bears that I strongly oppose. It is riddled with loopholes that would allow global warming pollution and Arctic oil exploration to continue unabated while the polar bear is in mortal danger. This policy cannot ensure the bear's survival. It must be changed now.

The scientific evidence is overwhelming that rising temperatures could cause two-thirds of the world's polar bear populations, including all of Alaska's polar bears, to go extinct by 2050. Polar bears are already drowning and starving. In the face of this unfolding disaster, it is too late for half-measures and polluter exemptions.

Please act now to close the polluter loopholes and give the polar bear full-fledged protection as an endangered species. I also call on you to devise a recovery plan that will protect polar bear habitat against global warming pollution, oil and gas development, and other threats.

The plight of the polar bear is urgent. We can still save this magnificent species, but the window for action is closing rapidly. Please act immediately to pull polar bears back from the brink of extinction.

Sincerely,

Save Polar Bears and Undo Bush’s Weakening of Endangered Species Act

Written by Jake Richardson


So far 46,000 online signatures have been gathered by the Center for Biological Diversity to support the re-writing of the Bush administration’s regulations which allow for the emission of greenhouse gases to not be considered as a threat to wildlife habitats and wildlife like the polar bear, even though global warming is clearly harming polar bears.
They also removed the capacity of the Fish and Wildlife service to monitor wildlife conservation impacts for federal projects involving timber sales, and dam construction.



The Bush administration’s revisions to the ESA were a blow to the act, and need to be removed. “These policies eviscerate the central Endangered Species Act process — Fish and Wildlife Service oversight — that has protected endangered species for 35 years, and they exclude the greatest future threat to endangered species — global warming — from consideration under the Act. ” states their website. The Obama administration has said publicly they want to revise Bush’s weakening of the act, but so far the revisions have not taken place. Congress passed legislation granting Secretary of the Interior Salazaar 60 days to rewrite parts of the ESA, but it has not been done yet. There are only about 20 days left to do so.

The Center of Biological Diversity is collecting signatures from the public who want to show their support for strengthening the Endangered Species Act, and protecting the world’s remaining polar bears. Please vist their site and consider signing the online petition.

Image Credit: Ansgar Walk

Bag a Polar Bear for $35,000

Bag a Polar Bear for $35,000 -- Hunters in Rising Numbers Willing to Shell
Out for Exotic Trophy

By Jerome Taylor, Coastal Post


http://www.alternet.org/story/136469/

Boyd Warner treasures the memory of killing his first polar bear. It was
2003. For days he had stalked his prey on the frozen wastelands north of Pond
Inlet, one of Canada's most isolated Inuit communities deep inside the
Arctic Circle. His dog team picked up the scent of an eight-foot adult male and
they hurtled over the ice: the hunt was on."It was one of those beautiful
Arctic days," recalled Mr. Warner. "We'd had about 14 hours of sunlight and
were completely surrounded by nature. The moment of death comes quickly for the
bear. You might track one for days through the ice but a single shot to the
heart kills it instantly."

For wealthy modern-day trophy hunters, bagging a polar bear is the ultimate
kill. Fourteen days in harsh conditions, requiring dog-sleds, Inuit guides
and a heated tent camp, does not come cheap: the minimum bill comes to
$35,000 (£24,000).

Mr. Warner is the man who helps them do it. Earlier this week, the
45-year-old Canadian, whose company Adventure Northwest is based in Yellowknife,
sent this season's first group of hunters north to Pond Inlet, where they will
track and kill up to six bears. "This is probably the toughest hunt you can
ever do," he said. "The weather conditions are appalling and it takes a huge
amount of patience. You're living in the Arctic where it can drop to -50C
at night and everything is done with sled dogs. It's incredibly grueling.

"This year we have a lot of Mexicans and Americans but you get hunters from
Europe, mainly Norwegians and Poles. They are just genuine, ordinary folk
with a lot of cash. They respect the animals enormously."

There are few animals more symbolic of the perils of climate change than
the polar bear, which faces destruction as the Arctic sea ice melts away - the
bears starve or drown because the distances they have to swim to find prey
become too vast. Yet every year scores of wealthy hunters from around the
world pay tens of thousands of dollars to travel into the frozen Arctic and
bag themselves a coveted polar bear hide.

Canada, home to about 60 per cent of the world's 22,000 polar bears, is the
only one of the five polar bear "range states" which allows outsiders to
hunt them as a trophy sport. America, Greenland and Russia only allow their
native Arctic populations to kill a quota each year whilst Norway has outlawed
stalking altogether.

"I don't enjoy killing animals but I enjoy the hunt," said Mr. Warner.
"People find that difficult to understand but for me there is no paradox."

The kill quotas - known as "tags" - are also allotted for Canada's Inuit
communities, many of whom choose to legally sell them onto outsiders willing
to part with enough cash.

"Those 20 bears are going to get killed one way or another because the
Inuits depend on them for food during the winter," Mr. Warner insisted. "So it
shouldn't really matter whether it is the indigenous population that is
shooting them or outsiders."

When the animal is killed, usually with a shot to the heart just behind the
bear's fore leg, the Inuits use everything apart from the liver, which
contains toxic levels of vitamin A and has to be buried.

Most hunters are then allowed to take their polar bear hides back to their
own country, so long as they have the completed paperwork. Last year the US
banned the importation of polar bear hides but most countries, including
Britain, place no restrictions on the skins.

Mr. Warner reports that his business has been hit by the US restrictions.
"The American ban on importing polar bear skins has definitely hit the Inuit
communities hard," he said. "You're not going to part with thousands of
dollars if you can't bring your trophy back."

The latest US-led scientific surveys suggest that up to two-thirds of all
polar bears could be lost by 2050 - bringing the sustainability of hunting
into question. Tackling the issue has been unpalatable for host governments
because of the hunts' traditional role and ongoing economic importance in
Inuit life. As the mercury rises, the fates of ursus maritimus, Mr. Warner and
the Inuit hunters will become ever more precariously intertwined.

ANIMAL NEWS

Heartbreaking News: Last Known U.S. Jaguar Dies After Capture


As many of you know, a tragedy transpired this Monday when Macho B, a wild endangered jaguar captured and outfitted with a radio collar in February, was recaptured and euthanized by the Arizona Game and Fish Department after being found suffering from kidney failure. More details are coming out daily that his repeated capture and sedation were the leading cause of Macho's untimely death. At 15 to 16 years old, Macho B was believed to be the oldest wild jaguar, and currently the only wild jaguar, living in the United States. For 15 years the Center for Biological Diversity has worked in the courtroom to protect this rare big cat, and the devastating loss of Macho B comes just weeks before our lawsuit -- calling on Fish and Wildlife to develop a federal recovery plan and protected habitat -- is slated to begin. The death of Macho B is a harsh illustration of why a recovery plan that evaluates the risks of capture to the animal and the species before any snaring or collaring occurs is desperately needed for wild jaguars to survive here.
The Center, joined by more than 60 concerned citizens and the emailed comments of supporters, held a memorial service for Macho B outside the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Tucson, Arizona offices yesterday, calling for a recovery plan and protected habitat for jaguars. The loss of Macho B is being felt all over the country, and we need your help now to use this sadness to keep the pressure on the Fish and Wildlife Service for real protections. Please take a moment now to tell the Obama administration to protect and recover jaguars and make a gift to the Jaguar Recovery Fund.
Read more on Macho's death in the Arizona Republic and check out what veterinarian Dr. Dean Rice had to say about its causes in the Los Angeles Times.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Obama Announces Endangered Species Act Rescue

Our country's best wildlife law will soon rise from the ashes of its Bush administration near-demise, according to a Tuesday memorandum issued by President Obama announcing he'll rescind Bush's rules eviscerating the Endangered Species Act. The undoing of the rules means that thousands of potentially species-harming federal activities exempted by Bush from independent review -- including activities generating greenhouse gases -- will again be the rightful subjects of scientific scrutiny by federal agencies. A full defeat of the rules may require more action by the new administration, but Tuesday's announcement is an essential first step. The Senate is now considering a bill that would let the Obama administration, with the stroke of a pen, rescind both Bush's Endangered Species Act changes and a special rule weakening protections for the polar bear.
When Bush's Endangered Species Act regulations were finalized in December, the Center for Biological Diversity was already in court to fight them. We're glad to see scientists back in the driver's seat for endangered-species management and hope Obama will fully rescind both the Endangered Species Act changes and the polar bear rule.
Read more in the Washington Post.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pacific Fisher Closer to California Protections

Finally responding properly to a Center for Biological Diversity petition, this week the California Fish and Game Commission did a complete 180 on its position regarding safeguards for the Pacific fisher, voting to deem the rare forest carnivore threatened or endangered under the California Endangered Species Act. The plucky, slender-bodied Pacific fisher, one of the few species that preys upon porcupines (no, it doesn't really eat fish), has been devastated by historic fur trapping and continued logging in its old-growth habitats, and fishers in California are now reduced to two small populations. Still, upon a recommendation by the California Department of Fish and Game, last August the Commission rejected our petition to protect the species. After a Center public-records request showed that most of the Department's own biologists had supported our petition, the Commission decided to reconsider its fishy August decision.
Thanks to another Center petition, the Pacific fisher is also a candidate for federal protections, and we'll be watching to make sure it gets those protections soon.
Check out our press release and learn more about the Pacific fisher.


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Capitol Power Plant Shut Down at Gathering -- Watch the Center's Videos

In the largest act of peaceful civil disobedience on climate change in U.S. history, this Monday more than 2,000 climate activists from across the country braved a snowstorm and freezing temperatures to take part in Capitol Climate Action, an event that successfully blocked and shut down the coal-fired Capitol Power Plant in Washington, D.C. In addition to sponsoring the event, the Center for Biological Diversity's Francisca Santana, climate associate with our Climate Law Institute, participated alongside protesters, including environmental activist Bill McKibben and climate scientist Dr. James Hansen.
The Center has long been behind Dr. Hansen's scientifically supported avowal that atmospheric greenhouse gases must be reduced to 350 parts per million or below in order to avoid the most profound effects of global warming. As Hansen declared at the gathering, "What has become clear from the science is that we cannot burn all the fossil fuels without creating a very different planet." In order to get to 350 ppm and save life on earth as we know it, the Center is actively working to stop the construction of all new coal-fired power plants and the phaseout of all existing coal-fired plants.
Read more in USA Today, read Francisca's firsthand description of what went down -- complete with videos -- and check out this slideshow of the action.


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Lawsuit Looming Over Oil and Gas Sale in Kit Fox Habitat

To stop a sale of 23 oil and gas leases in California's San Joaquin Valley, last week the Center for Biological Diversity and Desert Survivors filed a formal protest and warned the Bureau of Land Management we'll sue over the sale's impacts on habitat for the endangered San Joaquin kit fox. In approving the sale, the Bureau authorized the leasing of 4,402 acres of public lands for oil and gas development -- including building wells, running seismic lines, and building roads -- while glossing over the lease sale's harmful effects on the kit fox, whose numbers have been declining since 1967. All parcels in the sale are in critical kit fox habitat and would exponentially step up one of the greatest threats to the species: habitat fragmentation. Besides allowing harm to the kit fox and other San Joaquin Valley species, the oil and gas sale would ensure more greenhouse gas pollutants are spewed into the air.
"The information in the Bureau's environmental documents misrepresents the full nature of continued oil and gas development in the San Joaquin Valley," said Melissa Thrailkill, staff attorney with the Center's Climate Law Institute. "It is based on outdated information, and if allowed to stand, will damage the local environment and push the kit fox ever closer to the edge of extinction."
Peruse our press release, where you can also read our notice of intent to sue, and learn more about the San Joaquin kit fox.



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Feds Announce Rewrite (But Not Demise) of Bush Oil-shale Plans


Last week, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced plans to withdraw the Bush administration' s proposal for expanded oil-shale leases in the Southwest -- but instead of rescinding Bush's illegal regulations, Salazar announced Interior would offer a second round of research, development, and demonstration leases for oil shale on public lands in Colorado and Utah. While it's good that Bush's proposal was scrapped, any plans for oil-shale development are bad news for Southwest lands and the global atmosphere: Producing oil shale is dirtier than the dirtiest coal, more land-intensive than conventional oil, and more water-intensive than farming in the desert --and it isn't even yet commercially viable.
The Center for Biological Diversity is involved in two lawsuits opposing the Bush administration' s oil-shale regulations, which violate a series of laws and fail miserably in adequately addressing environmental impacts.
Read more in the Houston Chronicle.


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Alaska Mayor Backs "Whalin' Palin" Against Endangered Beluga

February proved another bad month for Alaska's endangered Cook Inlet beluga when Mayor Dave Carey of the Kenai Peninsula Borough, adjacent to Cook Inlet, expressed his support for Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's pending lawsuit contesting protections for the whale. Meeting with the Kenai Peninsula chapter of the Industry Support Alliance, Carey showed complete agreement with Palin's adamant opposition to the whale's October 2008 Endangered Species Act listing, which it so desperately needs to survive in Alaska's dirtiest, fastest-growing watershed. In protecting the beluga, Carey childishly declared, the federal government has chosen to "punish" all the boroughs that surround (and, ahem, pollute) the whale's Cook Inlet home.
Also in February -- about a month after Palin's chief of staff wrote an Anchorage Daily News op-ed unbelievably titled "Protection Requirements for Cook Inlet Belugas Are Silly" -- online magazine Salon.com fought back with "Whalin' Palin," a clear-eyed article revealing the backwardness of Palin's recent actions against the beautiful white cetacean. The article highlights quotes from our own Brendan Cummings, ocean program director for the Center for Biological Diversity -- who first petitioned, and then sued, to help earn the whale's protections.
Check out a radio transcript on Mayor Carey's statements and read Salon.com's article for yourself.


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Center Supports Speak-out Against Overpopulation

February 2009, the "littlest" month of the year, has been fittingly declared a month of action and communication on a huge issue: skyrocketing human population growth that's hurting our planet and pushing other species toward extinction. Last week, the Center for Biological Diversity announced our support for the Global Population Speak-Out, a collaborative effort by scientists, activists, and others worldwide to highlight the issue of overpopulation in efforts to restore the planet's health. Humans are now hogging up to 40 percent of the world's "net primary productivity, " a measure of solar energy converted to life-sustaining resources by photosynthesis -- and in the process, we're fueling nearly every ecological problem, from species extinction to resource depletion to the biggest threat of all: climate change.
"Many of us are working hard to reduce our carbon footprints," said Randy Serraglio, conservation advocate with the Center. "But in the end, unless we get a handle on runaway population growth, it may simply become a case of too many feet."
Check out our press release and learn more about the Global Population Speak Out.


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FOX News Belittles "Pint-sized" Pika's Plight

More than two weeks after the administration settled a Center for Biological Diversity lawsuit over protecting the American pika, last Friday FOX News finally covered the issue in a slyly disparaging piece taking stabs at the most innocent party involved: the pika itself. Instead of directly attacking "pika partisans" for efforts to stem the climate change that threatens the pika with extinction (or as FOX so deceitfully describes it, "forcing businesses, manufacturers, and energy producers to shut down across the country"), the article turns the pika's admittedly appealing appearance against it by rattling off words like "cute" and "furry" right and left in a subtly demeaning way. Not only is the pika "hamster-like" and "pint-sized, " FOX says, this "runty relative of the rabbit" is also apparently at fault for its own imperilment -- it just can't cut it in the modern world due to some pesky thick fur that leaves it tiresomely "unable to survive in temperatures warmer than 80 degrees."
Runty or not, the pika is making progress: Thanks to the Center's lawsuit, the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to decide by May on whether to protect it under the Endangered Species Act.

REVOKE BUSH'S PLAN TO DRILL IN "POLAR BEAR SEAS"TAKE ACTION NOW!

CLICK THE TITLE TO LINK TO THE ORIGINAL PAGE AND SEND THE MESSAGE TO PRESIDENT OBAMA!
The icy waters of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, north of Alaska, are home to 20 percent of the world's remaining polar bear population. Thanks to George Bush, these waters might also become home to a massive and dangerous network of oil rigs and pipelines. On his way out of Washington, Bush proposed the largest block yet of Arctic Ocean waters for drilling – right in the heart of threatened polar bear habitat. Oil spills are a certainty in that harsh climate and no technology exists to clean them up. Drilling is simply not worth it.

President Obama recently asked Americans to usher in a new era of responsibility. The Bush plan is still pending, presenting the new administration an important opportunity to demonstrate responsible stewardship of our natural heritage. Send a public comment today: Call on the government to halt all new drilling in the Polar Bear Seas. It's the only responsible path.
http://www.capwiz.com/alaskawild/issues/alert/?alertid=12497916&external_id=10396.-1001336

TWO-THIRDS OF POLAR BEARS COULD PERISH

Government Study Predicts Two-Thirds of Polar Bears Could Perish



A series of new studies by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) forecast that two thirds of the world’s Polar bears will disappear by the middle of this century. While alarming, the studies’ conclusions – which predict the loss of all Polar bears found in Alaska - are nonetheless considered conservative since they are based on moderate projections that estimate ice-loss in response to future climate warming scenarios.

The collaborative research effort, led by USGS, included scientists from other US and Canadian government agencies as well as universities and the private sector. The team divided the study area into four different ‘ecoregions’ for their analysis (see map below). They estimate that polar bears within the pink (Divergent ice) and green (Seasonal Ice) ecoregions will be extinct by 2050 and that the bears in the light blue areas (Convergent ice) will be gone by 2075, leaving only a small grouping of bears in the Canadian arctic (the yellow area) by century's end.



The studies, released September 7th, were requested by the Secretary of the Interior, Dirk Kempthorne, to aid the US Fish and Wildlife Service in assessing whether the Polar bears should be added to the Endangered Species Act. NRDC and other organizations filed a petition requesting endangered species protection for the Polar bear last year and a final decision on whether the Polar bears will receive federal protection is expected in January.

Although the results of the USGS studies paint a bleak picture for the Polar bears, NRDC believes the news is a stronger call to action. While it’s true that the climate system has a lot of inertia, meaning that some additional warming and sea ice retreat is inevitable, the likelihood of an ice-free Arctic—and polar bear extinction—depends heavily on how much more heat-trapping pollution is put in to the atmosphere. The USGS projections, which explore a range of emission scenarios, assume no change to current regulations. At the same time, they demonstrate the least amount of ice loss with the lowest emission levels. This means the Polar bears still have a fighting chance if we take decisive action to cut global warming pollution in time to prevent carbon dioxide from reaching the levels considered by USGS.

SENIORATTORNEY,ROBERT F.KENNEDY,JR SPEAKS OUT IN FAVOR OF POLAR BEAR PROTECTION

Join me in speaking out to rescue the polar bear
The following message from NRDC Senior Attorney, Robert F.
Kennedy, Jr., urging concerned Americans to speak out in favor
of polar bear protection, was sent to you by
http://www.polarbea rsos.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Dear Friend, After eight years of suffering under the Bush Administration' s
"polluters-first" policies, the polar bear is now hurtling
headlong toward extinction. It's up to the Obama Administration to slam on the brakes, put
Bush's dangerous policies in reverse, and give the green light
to full-fledged endangered species protection for the polar
bear. But that won't happen unless millions of Americans speak out
now. http://www.polarbea rsos.org/ polar_bear_ rescue Why? Because President Obama's Interior Department will be under
tremendous pressure from the oil lobby to maintain the Bush
policy that puts oil development first and polar bears dead
last. We must make our voices heard if we are to persuade Interior
Secretary Salazar to cancel Bush's "polar bears be damned"
approach. The stakes could not be higher. In the last year alone, the Bush
Administration auctioned off a vast expanse of Alaska's Chukchi
Sea to Shell and other oil giants -- exposing half of America's
polar bears to potential drilling and lethal oil spills. And only two months ago, Bush officials weakened the Endangered
Species Act so badly that it no longer protects polar bears
against the two deadliest threats they face: oil development and
global warming. But Interior Secretary Salazar is unlikely to defy Big Oil --
unless we mobilize a nationwide outcry that can't be ignored. That's why it's so important that you send your own Citizen
Petition right now and help NRDC ratchet up this next critical
phase of our Polar Bear S.O.S. campaign. http://www.polarbea rsos.org/ polar_bear_ rescue Let the new Interior Secretary know you care deeply about saving
the polar bear. Remind him that the American people expect our
government agencies to protect our country's wildlife -- not
sacrifice them for corporate profits. Together, we can reverse eight years of relentless attacks on
the polar bear -- and finally give these magnificent Arctic
creatures a fighting chance at survival. Sincerely, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Senior Attorney
Natural Resources Defense Council P.S. After you send your own Citizen Petition, I will let you
know about an easy way to spread the word to your friends and
family. We need at least one million petitions to put the polar
bear on the new administration' s radar screen, so rally everyone
you know to speak out and say, "I Care More about the Polar Bear
than Big Oil's Profits". * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
http://www.nrdconli ne.org/campaign/ Rescue_the_ Polar_Bear? rk=5140Fm5qprbKW