The U.S. population of polar bears, unlike its kin for example well to the east among cold Canadian islands, seems distinctly threatened and endangered and otherwise in trouble, as legally defined under the law. So to designate its habitat under the Endangered Species Act, as the Obama administration formally proposed this week, merits a mention in the press. Most accounts also report, correctly, that the move is a rebuff of the Bush team’s reluctance to give the white bear specific local protection if the danger it faces is as diffuse and global as, uh, global warming.

But one has to have some sympathy for the previous administration’s stance in this case, no matter how benighted one might believe so many of its other environmental policies were. If shrinking sea ice is the main problem – along with disappearance of the seals on that ice on which polar bears so depend – what possible measures within US habitat could fix that?

The Los Angeles Times’s Kim Murphy takes on that conundrum explicitly, while finding no sources that have an easy solution to it (same Kim M, I presume, who won a Pulitzer four years ago for foreign affairs coverage. ADDENDUM – I learn from herself that that is indeed she – now the paper’s Northwest correspondent). The first segment of the story quotes a Fish and Wildlife Service man as saying the ESA is “not the tool to directly address carbon emission, which are the root cause of climate change.” And she found some enviros whose law suit helped goad the feds into the habitat designation, saying better to do something than nothing, basically – and who are griping that oil and gas companies still can get federal permits to work in the area. The piece, as do most of those below, leaves readers asking at the end, so?

This daily news seems to be invitation to reporters – those few with travel budgets – to spend some quality time with the scientists and Alaska residents who really know those big, confident (Even on drill rigs, people don’t seem to spook the bears much), thoroughly dangerous yet endangered carnivores. AP’s Dan Joling comes to mind. The pic, above, which the LAT credits to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, is an inspired choice. Today’s News-Miner, or the Juneau Empire or the  bigger Anchorage Daily News, do not at last look have any stories on this by their staffs.

But at Alaska Public Radio Network, Annie Feidt does have it.

Other Stories:

• NY Times – John Broder : Polar Bear Habitat Proposed for Alaska ;
• AP – Matthew Daly: Feds designate polar bear habitat in Alaska ;
• Reuters – Yareth Rosen: U.S. maps protected Alaska habitat for polar bears ;
• MSNBC.com: U.S. drafts protected areas for polar bears ;

Grist for the Mill: US Fish & Wildlife Service Press Release;

- Charlie Petit

This entry was posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 1:39 pm and is filed under Science Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.