Stop the Polar Bear Extinction Plan
Shrinking sea ice poses an immediate, lethal threat to polar bears Researchers have tracked a female bear swimming for nine days without rest through the Beaufort Sea before she found a sea-ice platform; she survived, but her cub drowned.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced plans to reissue a Bush-era regulation that sharply limits protections for polar bears under the Endangered Species Act. Industrial greenhouse gas emissions, or anything outside of the polar bears' range will be disqualified from regulation under this "special rule."
The polar bear was the first mammal added to the endangered and threatened species list solely because of threats from global warming. A conservation rule that blocks the very actions needed to limit carbon emissions and save polar bears is no conservation plan at all. It's an extinction plan.
Ask USFWS to create a real polar bear conservation rule that addresses the most pressing threat to their survival: global warming.
SUBJECT: Enact a Real Polar Bear Conservation Rule
Dear Secretary Salazar,
I urge you to direct the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to create a real polar bear conservation rule, rather than following through on recently announced plans to reissue a Bush administration "special rule" that dramatically limits protections for the bears under the Endangered Species Act.
As you know, polar bears were the first mammals added to the endangered and threatened species list solely because of global warming threats. Polar bears are drowning and starving to death because the Arctic sea ice they depend on is disappearing. If we don't change course, more than two-thirds of these amazing animals, including all the bears in Alaska, will be gone in 40 years.
Regulations issued under the Endangered Species Act must provide for the conservation of threatened species. Yet the special rule just proposed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service fails to address the biggest threat to polar bears: the greenhouse gas pollution driving climate change and melting Arctic sea ice. The rule also reduces the protections the bear would otherwise receive in Alaska from the impacts of oil-industry activities in its habitat.
This misguided rule could be the last straw for polar bears. Please enforce the actions the Endangered Species Act demands and propose a plan that addresses greenhouse gas pollution -- the only way to truly protect this magnificent species.
Thank you.
