Five Countries Declare Polar Bears Threatened by Climate Change

Five countries issued a joint statement on Thursday identifying climate change as “the most important long-term threat” to the bears.

Nearly fourty years ago, the five countries created a treaty to protect polar bears through limits on hunting. The statement was issued at the end of a three-day meeting in Tromso, Norway, of scientists and officials from the United States, Norway, Canada, Russia and Denmark, all with territory abutting the Arctic Ocean that serves as habitat for the bears. Rosa Meehan, the division chief in Alaska for marine mammals management of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, said “Polar bears are facing a pretty rough road.The thing we need to do is look to the global community to seriously address and mitigate climate change.” There are those from countries ringing the Arctic who do not agree the bears need to be singled out for protection in the face of climate change. Fernando Ugarte is the head of mammal and bird science at the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources and he stated the government was concerned that the rising pressure to protect bears, particularly in the face of global warming, might prompt other countries to press Greenland to clamp down on hunting. “I am not sure there is a scientific reason to appoint polar bears as the main icon of climate change,” he said by telephone in Nuuk, Greenland’s capital. “There’s a long list of animals that will be affected. Why not the walrus, the narwhal, the ringed seal?” "Canada, with two-thirds of the world's polar bears, has a special duty to help solve the climate crisis," said WWF Canada director of species conservation Peter Ewins in a statement, saying Minister of Environment Jim Prentice will now be the focus of international attention. "Finally, it now seems that minister has reluctantly agreed that climate change is affecting polar bear habitat, the first step in taking strong action to protect it," he said. Canada has agreed to identifying the threat of sea ice loss as a result of climate change and to monitor and control industrial development in polar bear habitats.