Obama administration says polar bears are threatened not endangered

[Freddie Stubbs]

Source: USA Today

The Obama administration today confirmed an earlier Bush-era decision that says polar bears are merely "threatened" rather than "endangered."

In court papers filed with the U.S. District Court in Washington on Wednesday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the animal doesn't qualify as endangered under federal law.

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) defines an endangered species as one that "is in danger of extinction," while a threatened species is one which "is likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future …"

"The service arrived at the 2008 decision to list the polar bear as 'threatened' following careful analysis of the best scientific information, as required by the ESA," said acting service director Rowan Gould.

Read more: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/12/polar-bears-threatened-endangered-obama-administration-climate-change-global-warming/1

[OrwellwasRight]

1. Sigh.

Poor polar bears.

[amerikat]

5. I beg to differ.

[OrwellwasRight]

6. That makes me want to cry. nt.

[davidinalameda]

2. in other words

we can continue to fuck up the polar bears for a while longer

assholes

[hlthe2b]

3. I hope BO has to answer the confused concern of his daughters...

every night about this. I know one is very concerned about the coming extinction of tigers. I have to think they are likewise aware of the polar bear debacle. This saddens me so much...I do not for one minute believe the science justifies this very "convenient" interpretation.

[boppers]

4. 20,000-25,000 in the wild.

http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/polar-bears/faq#q3

Compare and contrast with Giant Pandas, which are around the 1,000-3,000 level.

[onehandle]

7. "likely to become" So... that's ok with them? Some other President's problem perhaps?

Yes. That's it.

[bitchkitty]

8. Oh my God.

I can't wait to see how people will defend this.

[kenfrequed]

9. This was a mistake

Why oh why oh why did they have to come out on this?

I understand the technical reason, but he just gave the anti-climate change crowd a soundbite.

They gave the carbon polluters a break on the air and undercut the environmentalist movement's chance to use this threatened animal as a symbol for pushing ahead on greenhouse gases and outputs.

There was no reason for this.

They should have buried this until Friday if they felt it had to be said. No one would have cared about it had it been released on Christmas eve. Nevermind the fact that this decision is completely ignoring catastrophic climate change.

Pure lunacy.

[DeadEyeDyck]

10. Luv the pics

[PSPS]

11. Obama = Bush's third term

[AllTooEasy]

24. you are an idiot!

plain and simple. You harp on all the simularities and ignor every difference. Watch Rachael Maddow's Dec 21 episode on the internet and get a clue.

[sirthomas66]

27. You are 100 per cent right. You may even be 120 per cent right. Next

year the true horror begins. If this man is so great, why did the Democrats take the worst beating last November since 1938. This man led the attack on Social Security.

[DesertDiamond]

12. Fuzzy logic, anyone?

[Jackpine Radical]

13. I view this as a sign of great hope.

Fish & Wildlife apparently has the power to save a species from extinction by the simple expedient of moving it from one list to another. I suggest that they bring back the passenger pigeon and the dodo by moving them from the extinct list to the abundant list.

[DesertDiamond]

18. Brilliant! Why didn't they think of that before??

[glinda]

14. You lie!

[CountAllVotes]

15. wake-up Mr. President! *argh*

[emilyg]

16. I want to cry.

[DeSwiss]

17. K&R n/t

[RaleighNCDUer]

19. Ya'll understand this is a move in the right direction, don't you?

Before a couple years ago they were not even on the 'threatened' list - meaning they could be hunted, not afforded any protections at all. As a 'threatened' species there are severe restrictions on interfereing with them, and hunting is right out. The fact is, they are NOT endangered at this time - there is a fairly large population in the wild. That does not mean that can't change, quickly, and the population crash due to habitat degredation. Now, being a 'threatened' species, they will be closely monitored to see if that is or is not happening.

'Threatened' and 'endangered' are very specific technical terms in conservation, with distict parameters of population size, rate of decline vx birth rate, survivability of the young. Being 'threatened' means they are in decline, the birth rate is not keeping pace with the mortality rate, but they have a large population and the decline is not precipitous. IOW, there's time to turn it around. 'Endangered' would mean a small population, low birth rate, high mortality rate, and extinction likely within a matter of years without drastic corrective measures - think Bengal tigers.

No need to panic. It's an appropriate call, for now.

[OnyxCollie]

20. Your parameters do not mention environmental decline.

Population size and birth rate might be just fine, but if the ice melts and the polar bears lose a way to catch food, they're fucked.

[RaleighNCDUer]

21. In which case they will be moved to the 'endangered' list, as I said.

But that won't be happening for several years, at least. If the wild population drops to 5000 or so, THEN they will be 'endangered'.

BTW, I DID mention environmental decline - only I phrased it as habitat degredation. Same thing.

I think the problem here is similar to the 'clinically insane' and 'legally insane' argument, where somebody who is clearly nuts is not legally insane. Nobody is saying the polar bears are not in trouble. That trouble just does not yet meet the official designationof 'endangered', and they are not going to call them 'endangered' unless they meet their criteria for being endangered.

[OnyxCollie]

22. I understand what you're saying.

I think the frustration comes with the removal of the endangered label.

The ability to fuck with a threatened animal, as the oil industry will do, will have less severe repercussions than if it held the endangered tag.

Global warming is harming its environment. That's already happening. A massive oil spill may be what sends it over the edge.

On edit: Don't forget that Gov. Palin sued the bush administration to reduce protection for polar bears.

Protecting polar bears gets in way of drilling for oil, says governor
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3987891.ece

The polar bear should be removed from the endangered species list because its protected status will hamper drilling for oil and gas in Alaska, the state's Republican Governor has demanded.

Sarah Palin is suing the Bush Administration over its decision last week to place the animal under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, claiming that climate models predicting the continued loss of sea ice - the main habitat of polar bears - are unreliable.

The lawsuit came as a surprise because most of the outcry after last week's decision came from environmental groups. Although pleased that the Bush Administration had singled out climate change as a reason to place an animal under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, the green lobby were dismayed about restrictions attached to the listing.

The listing came with a big caveat: that it should not be misused to harm the economy and “set backdoor climate policy”. Some environmentalists also accused the Administration of deliberately delaying the ruling to make it easier for oil companies to finalise $2.7 billion (£ 1.35 billion) in offshore oil leases in the Chukchi Sea, an area that is home to about 20 per cent of the world's polar bears. Numerous lawsuits were threatened by the green lobby.

Shocking Choice by John McCain, Says Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund
http://www2.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/08-29-2008/0004875795&EDATE=

"Sarah Palin, whose husband works for BP, has repeatedly put special
interests first when it comes to the environment. In her scant two years as
governor, she has lobbied aggressively to open up the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge to drilling, pushed for more drilling off of Alaska's
coasts, and put special interests above science. Ms. Palin has made it
clear through her actions that she is unwilling to do even as much as the
Bush administration to address the impacts of global warming. Her most
recent effort has been to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove
the polar bear from the endangered species list, putting Big Oil before
sound science. As unbelievable as this may sound, this actually puts her to
the right of the Bush administration.

Oil Group Joins Alaska in Suing To Overturn Polar Bear Protection
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/30/AR2008083001538.html?hpid=moreheadlines

The American Petroleum Institute and four other business groups filed suit Thursday against Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director H. Dale Hall, joining Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's administration in trying to reverse the listing of the polar bear as a threatened species.

On Aug. 4, the state of Alaska filed a lawsuit opposing the polar bear's listing, arguing that populations as a whole are stable and that melting sea ice does not pose an imminent threat to their survival.

~snip~

Kassie Siegel, climate program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, which originally petitioned to list the polar bear as an endangered species in 2005, decried the assertion in the Alaska suit that science does not prove polar bear populations are declining. The center is also suing the federal government, seeking to change the polar bear's official status from "threatened" to "endangered."

"The amazing thing about this litigation is that the governor of Alaska is so anti-environmental that she is suing the Bush administration over a claimed overabundance of protections for the polar bear," Siegel said. "It's just amazing."

[Robb]

29. There was no "removal of the endangered label."

The label has never been applied.

[jtuck004]

23. He is asuming Sarah Palin is the one shooting... n/t

[alp227]

30. lol that's what i was thinking too

[AllTooEasy]

25. "merely threatened" - what a WEAK Obama attack!!!

That's like saying someone is merely HIV positive and not having full blown AIDS.

"Threatened" is still a major problem and changes regulations. Ask any enviromental lawyer or look it up on Wikipedia. This administration would be LYING if they said the polar bear was endangered. The numbers just don't fit the Endangered label.

The question you Obama haters should be asking is "what the hell is this administration doing to get the polar bear off the the Threatened list???"

[dipsydoodle]

26. Weak ? Pathetic expresses it better.

.

[Vinca]

28. Just as I was about to start giving them some credit . . .