Kassie Siegel, a lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity, said the listing decision was an acknowledgment of “global warming’s urgency” but would have little practical impact on protecting polar bears.
“The administration acknowledges the bear is in need of intensive care,” Ms. Siegel said. “The listing lets the bear into the hospital, but then the 4(d) rule says the bear’s insurance doesn’t cover the necessary treatments.”
The science on polar bears in a warming climate is nuanced, which allowed the administration to shape its decision the way it did. Over all, scientists agree that rising temperatures will reduce Arctic ice and stress polar bears, which prefer seals they hunt on the floes. But few foresee the species vanishing entirely for a century and likely longer.
There are more than 25,000 bears in the Arctic, 15,500 of which roam within Canada’s territory. A scientific study issued last month by a Canadian group established to protect wildlife said that 4 of 13 bear populations would most likely decline by more than 30 percent over the next 36 years, while the others would remain stable or increase.
M. Reed Hopper of the Pacific Legal Foundation, a property-rights group based in Sacramento, called the decision to list the polar bear “unprecedented” and said his group would sue the Interior Department over the decision.
“Never before has a thriving species been listed” under the Endangered Species Act, he said, “nor should it be.”
John Baird, the environment minister for Canada, said Wednesday that the government would adopt an independent scientific panel’s recommendation to declare polar bears a species “of special concern,” a lower designation than endangered, and he promised to take other unspecified actions.
Management of the bear populations is the responsibility of Canadian provinces and territories. The territorial government of Nunavut, which is home to upward of 15,000 polar bears, had campaigned against new United States protections for the bear, largely because of worries that the lucrative local bear hunts by residents of the United States would stop when trophy skins could no longer be brought home.
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