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In more desperate gambling by our losing Presidential gang, Secretary of Interior Dirk Kempthorne, forced by court order to do something, declared the Polar Bear a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, not an endangered species and specifically said this listing should not be used as a tool to get at the causes of the threat. And by the way, Oil Cos keep up your fine work — just clean up the bears if they fall into the oil
While giving the bear a few new protections — hunters may no longer import hides or other trophies from bears killed in Canada, for instance — the Interior Department added stipulations, seldom used under the act, that would allow oil and gas exploration and development to proceed in areas where the bears live, as long as the companies continue to comply with existing restrictions under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
The oil and gas cos are already yelping:
‘We now have a species threatened which is both healthy in size and population; the real risk is litigation that will follow,” Crockett said. ”Lawsuits will continue to be filed opposing individual operations, lease sales and permits, and that could have a significant impact on business up here.”
These guys must really believe you can take your money with you after death. They are pushing pushing relentlessly against crucial action to slow down and stop the deterioration of our environment, letting all the costs be dumped into the laps of their heirs so they themselves can out boast Croesus. We’re the wealthiest! We have the most!
For a good look at the conditions of the bears and the fast changing environment see Michael Shnayerson’s May 2008 Vanity Fair article.
Of the world’s 19 distinct polar-bear populations (with an estimated total of 22,000), the one most carefully studied is in Canada’s western Hudson Bay. Instead of hunting from the ice in late spring and early summer, scooping up newly weaned ringed-seal pups like so many hors d’oeuvres, the bears found the Hudson Bay ice melting all too soon. Many lost significant body mass when forced to swim too early to shore and stay ashore too long. Females bore one cub instead of three. Some starving polar bears engaged in cannibalism. East of Kaktovik, U.S. scientists reported four polar bears drowned. Polar bears are among the world’s best marine-mammal swimmers. They aren’t supposed to drown. But even polar bears can’t swim indefinitely. For those four, the ice edge had receded too far.