For Pet's Sake Column

Today is National Polar Bear Day. It’s fitting to observe this holiday now, what with all the talk about global warming and the terrible threat it poses to our polluted planet. If you’ve been living under, say, an iceberg and haven’t yet heard the news, let me tell you what’s going on: The polar bear, like many of the world’s animal species, is at risk of extinction because of the earth’s rising temperature. Up to this point in time, our government has refused to acknowledge that greenhouse gas emissions are causing the Artic ice – the polar bear’s primary habitat – to melt faster than Bush’s grip on reality. But thanks to a myriad of environmental organizations and documentaries like Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” the veil of secrecy has been lifted and I, for one, don’t like what I see. I blubber like a baby whenever I view footage of polar bears compelled into cannibalism or drowning because they must swim dozens of miles across shrinking ice floes in search of food.

Study after study has shown that the 20,000-25,000 polar bears remaining in the wild are not only losing their habitats at an alarming rate, but they are losing their protective body fat as well. A 2004 National Geographic Society study showed that the once beefy bears – the world’s largest terrestrial carnivore – weigh approximately fifteen percent less today than they did in the 1970s. And that’s not all. The massive mammal’s adult population and cub survival rate is also declining. On the Hudson Bay in Canada, for instance, there were an estimated 1,200 polar bears in 1987; only 950 survive today.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

For years, organizations such as the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Greenpeace have been threatening to sue the government if it didn’t take action to protect the polar bear. After repeated attempts at communication were ignored, the three organizations, in December, filed a lawsuit in California. Up to that point, our government made every effort to insulate us from the realities of global warming. But on December 27, 2006, the administration did something rather astonishing: it announced a proposal to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The proposal marks the first legally binding admission by George W. and friends that our shrinking ice caps are becoming a growing problem. Hmmm, I may be able to warm up to Bush’s bullheadedness after all.

What does all this mean for the polar bear’s plight? Simply, it indicates that we need to ensure that the government formally lists the Artic animal as an endangered species. You can help by signing a petition on the Center of Biological Diversity Web site at www.biologicaldiversity.org. The government’s final listing determination is set to take place on January 9, 2008.

The polar bear is a barometer of the state of our planet’s health. Their survival – indeed, our own survival – depends upon our actions today. Perhaps Al Gore said it best when he urged movie audiences to “act boldly, quickly, and wisely….before it’s too late to act at all.”

What are your thoughts on listing the polar bear as an endangered species and Bush’s bullheadedness for that matter? Send your responses to Karen at karenleestevens@cox.net.