Law Suits filed in an effort to have the Polar Bear declared "Endangered"

I can't beleive that they have not already been declared an Endangered Species. How can they not be?






Our world is warmer than has ever been previously recorded and these animals depend upon the annual onset of cold weather for their very survival.




For as long as modern man has walked this planet, Nanuk has wandered the North and been the most powerful individual ever to survive it's harsh and unique environment. They have forever wandered out onto the sheet ice, swimming from from one ice floe to another as they hunt, as is their very existance.




Now the Polar Bears are now drowning while they hunt, swimming from one ice floe to another is no longer as easily done. Sheet ice is melting and breaking up; ice floes are farther apart; the once fruitful shoreline is changed. Their prey now move to deeper water themselves and are no longer as accessible to the Great Nanuk.




They drown while they hunt because they are tired and hungry.



They drown because for so many generations we've talked about climate change and what we might do to prevent Catastrophe; but we've not done nearly enough.

Now a group of Conservationists in Alaska is doing what little they can to try and prevent these wondrous creatures of the North - an integral and identifiable part of what we think of as 'Canadian'- from slowly disappearing while nothing is done.

"ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP 12/15/05) - Three conservation groups say they will file a lawsuit Thursday under the Endangered Species Act seeking to protect polar bears from extinction.




The lawsuit says Arctic sea ice that bears depend on for hunting, mating and travel is melting at an unprecedented rate because of global warming.




Center for Biological Diversity spokeswoman Kassie Siegal says the lawsuit will be filed in federal district court in San Francisco.




The other plaintiffs are the Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace.




The groups petitioned to have the polar bear listed as threatened last February.




The Endangered Species Act requires that the Interior secretary respond within 90 days of receiving such notice but the secretary has yet to comply.




Scientists with the US Minerals Management Service Wednesday released a report documenting the deaths of four polar bears found drowned in September 2004 when sea ice had retreated a record 160 miles north of the northern coast of Alaska.




The researchers say that more polar bears may have drowned that have not been found.

full article



The Center for International Environmental Law CIEL is helping.



I hope for all our sake's that the Polar Bears of the Arctic will continue to exist as they should - in the wild, hunting, swimming, playing, fighting, rearing their young, braving the harsh elements; not just in cages in zoos around the world.