Summit To Save Polar Bear From Extinction Starts In Norway

The Independent:

A limit on the hunting of polar bears by sportsmen and native Arctic people will top the agenda at an international summit in Norway tomorrow, seen as vital to the survival of the predator. Although few people outside the Arctic realise it, there is still a major legal hunt for the animals in four out of the five states that host the bears: Canada, Greenland, Alaska in the US, and Russia. In Norway, stalking is banned.

This hunt by Inuit native peoples and in Canada also by sportsmen -- referred to as a "harvest" -- claims as many as 700 polar bears killed every year, 3 per cent of the entire population. Adding the threat from climate change, which is eradicating the bear's natural habitat, the hunts are seen as no longer "sustainable". Studies from the US Geological Survey and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature suggest that the total population of 22,000 polar bears will fall by up to two-thirds over the next 50 years, leading the creature to the precipice of extinction.

Read the whole story: The Independent

Comments

[mick7191]

What ever it takes.

[rocketeer526]

After talking it over a group of friends and I have come to the conclusion that we just don't give a damn about the polar bears...good riddance. We're all just really proud at how well humanity has conquered and eradicated life form after life form. I for one am grateful that in a few years I will never have to worry about being attacked and mauled by such an ugly animal.

[rikkirighteous]

I for one promise not to eat many.

[Bybee]

why doesn't somebody start a fund for creating anchored docks for the polar bears? Maybe made of something that doesn't melt..

what a terrible way to go

[mick7191]

You couldn't build enough of them because they follow the food.

[mergina]

There is NO TIME TO DELAY.

[whoknew---]

I suggestion is that we arm the polar bears and teach them how to shoot...

So it will more equitable during this hunting expeditions....

[amdezurik]

and heliocopters :)

[ThinkCreeps]

Absolutely! Respect the right to arm bears!

[andyboy]

99% of the population on earth could care less about the polar bears. Are we going to set up a huge air conditioner up there?

Too little too late. Just like the economy. We only pretend to care to assuage our guilt. What we will do is collect a whole bunch of money which polar bears can't live on or eat. You'll use the little return address stickers on your snail mail.

[notconfindtweenhatnboots]

99% of the population could care less, huh? So that means that only 1% of the population does not care about the polar bears at all..

If the majority of the population does indeed care about the polar bears, then they need to do something about preserving their environment.

[amdezurik]

easy to see andy is a victim of NCLB...

[andyboy]

But they don't dweeb that was my point.

[Zengeist]

You took a survey, did you? The adolescent, ill-informed speak!

[andyboy]

Zengeist,

I didn't see the result of your survey of course. Nice personal attack. I stand by my assertion. There is NOTHING being done about the climate or polar bears. Zero. I don't count collecting money so blowhard naturalists can "tag" them and then marvel at how well they move around.

[Peddler]

If we don't start reversing the global economy-------the polar bear want have anybody to save them.

[parunach]

While I applaud the summit, it is a joke to have it in Norway, as they are one of the countries that is against the ban on hunting whales. It is like having a summit against anti-semitism in Iran.

[andyboy]

So why applaud something so wrong and obviously fake (or staged).

[Swordfishtrombone]

Norway: Kill 800 whales this year, yet protect the polar bear.

[ashabot]

Good for Norway! I had no idea "sports"men, et tu Palin?, still hunt the polar bear. Blows my mind.

We humans are ravaging the planet and it's inhabitants (including our own species) like an aggressive (and fatal?) cancer. Even our gods, though created in our own image, must be disgusted by our greed, violence and stupidity. I know I sure am.

[atlantajoe]

Does Palin hunt Polar bears ?

[WilliePilgrim]

If people are serious about saving species they would be well advised to make themselves aware of the changes that have gone on in the last few centuries. For instance, while we associate the polar bear with ice, in fact the range of this creature was only a few centuries ago, considerably larger as it preyed on the once abundant sea life that thrived in the North Atlantic but has long since been reduced by overharvesting of the worst imaginable kind to a faint impression of what it once was. Fishing, sealing, whaling, bird egg harvesting...all contributed to the decimated and almost empty wilderness we mistakenly presume is the way things have always been.
Where are the walruses that inhabited shoals down to the Iberian Peninnusula? Where are the great schools of fish?
Focusing on the Polar Bear (ursis maritimus...not uris polaris) is a good idea but it lacks veracity if it only hopes to save those conditions which we have come to think of as particular to polar bears while failinig to understand that what is missing is not lost, just delayed due to human shortsightedness.
The bears have survived numerable periods of warming and will survive this one too if there is food...and that is not strictly and only seals...bears are far to adaptable to depend on only one strategy.

[JulieSA]

Yes.

People seem to think that cutting carbon is the most important thing we can do for wildlife, and they get a tunnel vision focus on CO2. Just cut emissions and everything will be fine, right? Meanwhile, bird species in the US whose populations are crashing can't even get listed as endangered. It drives me crazy, all this focus on an animal that isn't even in imminent danger of extinction.

[BannedInBoston]

They should put a statue of that poor bear on Wall Street. There is a connection.

[Misha1234]

We need to do whatever we can to protect the wildlife. It's past time we stand up and take our place as caretakers of the earth and its inhabitants.

[obamanomics]

How do you know mother nature did not intend for Polar Bears to become extint? Even know they are not and in some areas there population has grown.

[labman57]

"Mother Nature" is an anthropomorphism. Nature does not have a conscience, nor an "intent". Unless you are suggesting that "God" wishes the polar bears to become extinct...?

[notconfindtweenhatnboots]

Well, isn't that a real cop out in that argument gives humans absolute carte blanch to destroy the entire world- by using the argument that if the "natural order" hadn't wanted all other species to become extinct... it wouldn't have allowed humans to have large brains to be able to create guns and procreate....

It's humanity's ethic obligation to minimize the destructive effect that our actions have on this planet and all the other beings who inhabit it.

[Dredd]

As goes earth life, so goes humanity.