Environmentalists say Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is skating on thin ice with her opposition to efforts to protect polar bears.
Palin said last week that listing the bears as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act because of possible global warming would open the floodgates for petitions to protect other species, the Anchorage Daily News said Thursday.
New studies by the U.S. Geological Survey predict two-thirds of the world's polar bears could be gone in 50 years because of the shrinking summer ice cap. The newspaper said a federal decision whether to list polar bears as threatened is expected by January.
Copyright 2007 by United Press International
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Research around the North Pole
The German research vessel Polarstern has returned today to Bremerhaven from the Arctic Sea. It has cruised as the first research vessel ever both the Northeast and the Northwest Passages and thereby circled the North Pole. The third part of the research vessel's 23rd Arctic expedition, operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute in the Helmholtz Association, started its journey on August 12th in Reykjavik and ended it on October 17th in Bremerhaven.
Federal polar bear research critically flawed, says new study
Research done by the U.S. Department of the Interior to determine if global warming threatens the polar bear population is so flawed that it cannot be used to justify listing the polar bear as an endangered species, according to a study being published later this year in Interfaces, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®).
Arctic climate models playing key role in polar bear decision
The pending federal decision about whether to protect the polar bear as a threatened species is as much about climate science as it is about climate change.
White House considers listing polar bears
The U.S. Interior Department is considering whether to list the polar bear as an endangered species, it was reported Sunday.
Polar bear may be listed as 'endangered'
The Bush administration is calling for polar bears to be listed as a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
Global Warming Reduces Polar Bear Survival
Researchers for the first time have shown a connection between global warming and decreased polar bear survival, says a University of Wyoming scientist.
Polar bears at risk from ice loss
Survival of the remaining polar bears is increasingly jeopardized by rapid disappearance of the arctic sea ice, conservation groups say.
Goose eggs may help polar bears weather climate change
As polar bears adapt to a warming Arctic—a frozen seascape that cleaves earlier each spring—they may find relief in an unlikely source: snow goose eggs. New calculations show that changes in the timing of sea-ice breakup and of snow goose nesting near the western Hudson Bay could provide at least some polar bears with an alternative source of food. This new analysis appears in
Polar Biology.