House Backs U.S-Russia Polar Bear Accord

[Eugene]

House Backs U.S-Russia Polar Bear Accord

By JIM ABRAMS
The Associated Press
Monday, July 17, 2006; 2:38 PM

WASHINGTON -- The House gave its approval Monday to a U.S.-Russia treaty to help
protect polar bears from overhunting and other threats to their survival.

The House bill puts into effect a 2000 treaty that sets quotas on polar bear hunting
by native populations in the two countries and establishes a bilateral commission
to analyze how best to sustain the polar bear habitat. It passed by voice vote.

The Polar Bear Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union estimates the current
polar bear population in the Arctic at 20,000 to 25,000, and projects a 30 percent
decline in that number over the next 45 years. Climactic warming that melts the bears'
sea ice habitat is regarded as the main threat, but pollution and overhunting are other
major concerns.

Only subsistence hunting by native peoples is legal, but there is an illegal market
in Asia for gall bile and gall bladders from polar bears and other bears because
of their uses in medicine.

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Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/17/AR2006071700716.html

[maxsolomon]

1. when they're all drowned there aren't any left to hunt

approved 6 YEARS after the treaty was signed?

[jpak]

2. Canada and the Scandinavian countries should commit to this too

and trophy hunting of these critters should be banned immediately.