Companies Get OK To Annoy Polar Bears

WASHINGTON — Less than a month after declaring polar bears a threatened species because of global warming, the Bush administration is giving oil companies permission to annoy and potentially harm them in the pursuit of oil and natural gas.

The Fish and Wildlife Service issued regulations this week providing legal protection to seven oil companies planning to search for oil and gas in the Chukchi Sea off the northwestern coast of Alaska if "small numbers" of polar bears or Pacific walruses are incidentally harmed by their activities over the next five years.

Environmentalists said the new regulations give oil companies a blank check to harass the polar bear.

About 2,000 of the 25,000 polar bears in the Arctic live in and around the Chukchi Sea, where the government in February auctioned off oil leases to ConocoPhillips Co., Shell Oil Co. and five other companies for $2.6 billion. Over objections from environmentalists and members of Congress, the sale occurred before the bear was classified as threatened in May.

Polar bears are naturally curious creatures and sensitive to changes in their environment. Vibrations, noises, unusual scents and the presence of industrial equipment can disrupt their quest for prey and their efforts to raise their young in snow dens.

However, the Fish and Wildlife Service said oil and gas exploration will have a negligible effect on the bears' population.

"The oil and gas industry in operating under the kind of rules they have operated under for 15 years has not been a threat to the species," H. Dale Hall, the Fish and Wildlife Service's director, told The Associated Press on Friday. "It was the ice melting and the habitat going away that was a threat to the species over everything else."

The agency made no secret that oil and gas operations would continue in polar bear territory when it announced May 14 that melting sea ice threatened the creature's survival. But Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne assured the public that the bear population would not be harmed.

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"Polar bears are already protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which has more stringent protections for polar bears than the Endangered Species Act does," Kempthorne said.

Environmentalists already suing the agency over its determination that the bear's threatened status cannot be used to regulate global warming gases said Kempthorne's earlier assurances were misleading.

"Now, three weeks later, Interior issues a rule under the act that we view as a blank check to harass the polar bear in the Chukchi Sea," said Brendan Cummings, oceans program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. He added that his group believes the new regulations are illegal.

Exploring in the Chukchi Sea's 29.7 million acres will require as many as five drill ships, one or two icebreakers, a barge, a tug and two helicopter flights per day, according to the government. Oil companies will also be making hundred of miles of ice roads and trails along the coastline.

"We are poorly equipped to address those risks and challenges," said Steven Amstrup, one of the foremost experts on polar bears and a scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey's Alaska Science Center. "To assess what the impacts are going to be, we should know more about the bears."

Last year, the Marine Mammal Oversight Commission, an independent government oversight agency, told the Fish and Wildlife Service it lacked the information to conclude that exploration will not affect the bear population.

The seven companies will be required to map out the locations of polar bear dens, train their employees about the bears' habits and take other measures to minimize clashes with them. In exchange, the companies are legally protected if their operations unintentionally harm the bears. Any bear deaths would still warrant an investigation and could result in penalty under the law.

"These rules are essentially an insurance policy," said Marilyn Crockett, executive director of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, an industry group that in 2005 requested the new regulation. "They say if you conduct your operations in accordance to the requirement in this rule, you will not be held liable for the take of the bears."

Administration and industry officials said oil companies enjoyed similar status in the Chukchi Sea from 1991 to 1996 and in the Beaufort Sea since 1993 and there was no effect on polar bear populations.

There is no evidence of a polar bear being killed by oil and gas activities in Alaska since 1993, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. Since 1960, when the hunt for oil and gas began in Alaska, only two fatalities of polar bears have been linked to oil and gas activities in the state, the service said.

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On the Net:

Fish and Wildlife Service: http://alaska.fws.gov/

Comments

[KBAR]

For those that might wonder. Polar bear , although very tasty, is a little fatty and stringy so it's best left to marinate over night in an Italian dressing and pounded some before searing on a hot grill . Remember to cut slices across the grain for optimum tenderness. A nice red is an excellent compliment.

[BongHitsForJesus]

However, unlike polar bears, KBAR is hard to stomach at the best of times.

[tsloan]

amen.

[wadenelson1]

KBAR is actually FUBAR in disguise. I remember him from basic.

[Titonwan]

Sadly, I think a polar bear would gag on KBAR flesh (too full of vitamin stupid).

[tsloan]

fyi....too much bear liver results in vitamin A toxicity.

[wmbear]

ORCAS SURE LIKE 'EM...

I once watched a video of a killer Whale tipping over an ice floe on which a polar bear was resting, and then gobbling down the bear. OK for Orcas to do, since it's just "nature." Not OK for oil companies, since it's not.

[Quaoar]

Polar Bears think the same thing about you, although being stricter carnivores they might skip the Italian Dressing and eat you raw.

[WilliePilgrim]

While I'm suspicous of the influence that the Bush administration has over the policies and procedures of those agencies which protect our public lands, I suspect that the new adminstration will return the professionalism that has become so suspect over the last 7 years. Virtually all activity that could potentially affect these bears and their well being, from ecotourism to resource extraction will have some expected impact on the bears and biologists and resource managers will take into consideration what sorts of impacts are expected and acceptible.The career federal employees who oversee this process are overwhelmingly caring and professional and have the protection of their resources at heart and in the forefront of their minds. Being aware and responsive is key. What is probably a bigger threat to polar bear and sea life I suspect isn't the reduction of ice cover so much as the bioaccumulation of heavy metals and other pollutants as a result of the increased burning of coal by so called developing nations; China and India come to mind.

[emstrem]

Hey, I'm all for hurting the polar bears as long as I dont have to pay $5 per gallon of gas. Survival of the fittest, and if the polar bears cant adapt.....its been fun is all I can say.

[izAriver]

Here's to your extinction as well.

[njack]

Ditto.

[Titonwan]

Man, I wish you we're saying that tripe around a too low wall at a polar bear zoo. THAT'S news we can believe in! :)

[missviv]

You're an imbecile, you sincerely are. Gas is a fossil fuel because it's finite - eventually we're going to run out of (and hopefully that will happen in your lifetime). You don't even understand the "survival of the fittest" bs that you spew. If in fact we did live by survival of the fittest, YOU probably wouldn't be here. You couldn't hunt for food, heal your own wounds, take care of your own infections, build adequate shelter, or even be able to distinguish what plants are suitable to eat and which would kill you within hours.

I would easily value the life of a polar bear who respects the balance of the natural world over a piece of garbage human being like you.

[izAriver]

There you go.

[emstrem]

I strongly doubt we'll run out of gas in any of our grandchildren's lifetimes. We have so much oil reserves in this world but the doomsdayers are saying we are almost out now (not true).

On to your other point about me not being around, your wrong there too. I have hunted and killed an Alaskan brown bear on Kodiak island back in 1994, I have killed a black bear with a bow and arrow in my homestate of Michigan, and I've pretty much killed at least one whitetail deer every year since 1984 (the year I started hunting). I also do a lot of fishing, so I'll be just fine (unlike the polar bear).

O and I drive a 1995 F-150 that gets about 9 miles to a gallon of gas, which is worse than my wife's '03 Expedition. My bass boat is also a gas hog which I go thru on average 100 gallons of fuel per month....but hey, I can afford it (I just dont like it).

[TUPHATT]

missviv, gas is a fossil fuel because it's made of extinct species. And I don't think polar bears can appreciate anything but a full belly after a meal. I think they are selfishly killing other animal just so they can eat.

[yathink]

You sound like a very tasty polar bear popsicle. Bet there are more at home just like you. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

[reigndog]

Hey, can i eat you? Really, I'm serious... You're a threat.