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 RDC has opened a new front in our aggressive campaign to save the world's polar bears. In addition to our ongoing fight to reduce toxic contamination of the Arctic, restrict destructive oil development and curb global warming, which threatens to melt the bear's summer sea ice habitat, we're taking on yet another threat to polar bear survival: trophy hunters. It seems like the vestige of a bygone era, but in Canada's wild Arctic, big game hunters have killed more than 600 bears in the last decade, and it's all perfectly legal under Canadian law. "Scientists predict that the majority of polar bears will be extinct in the wild within the next 40 years, maybe sooner," says Andrew Wetzler, director of NRDC's Wildlife Conservation Project. He notes that commercial trade takes a significant toll as well, with hundreds of bears being killed for their fur, claws and other parts.
The United States, Canada and other nations that form the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) will meet in March, and NRDC is pressing the U.S. delegation to campaign for stronger international protections for polar bears. Tens of thousands of NRDC Members and online activists joined the fight in September, urging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to recommend that the bears be granted the highest level of protection under CITES, which would prohibit the commercial trade of polar bears and their parts and impose further controls on trophy hunting.
"What makes the situation in Canada even more alarming is that the country is home to some of the best polar bear habitat in the world," says Wetzler. "So protecting Canadian polar bears must be central to any plan for saving the world's polar bears." In the United States, it is currently illegal to import or export polar bear trophies or parts, ever since the Bush Administration bowed to pressure from NRDC and our partners and listed the bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act last year. Now, hunting groups are taking aim at this vital protection and suing to overturn it. NRDC is fighting their suit in court.
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“Scientists predict that the majority of polar bears will be extinct in the wild within the next 40 years, maybe sooner.”
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