Arctic summit set to curb polar bear hunting
The World Wildlife Fund will call this week for tougher restrictions on the hunting of polar bears as Arctic nations gather in Norway for a summit meeting on the plight of the climate change-endangered species.
Around 700 polar bears are estimated to be killed by native North American Inuit people and Canadian hunters each year. That amounts to more than three percent of the total estimated population of 22,000.
But the WWF says the real threat to the polar bear’s survival is now global warming with estimates suggesting the population could shrink by two-thirds in the next half century as sea ice melt devastates their native habitat.
Since 1973, the five Arctic territories where polar bears roam – Alaska, Canada, Russia, Norway and Greenland – have been bound by the Polar Bear Agreement, which was put in place to protect the creatures from over-hunting.
But in a draft Species Action Plan to be put before the five in Tromso, the WWF will call for further restrictions on “over-harvesting” and new initiatives to protect the bear from global warming.
In a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Carter Roberts, the head of WWF-US, and James Leape, the Director General of WWF International, called on Washington to show leadership in tackling the key threats to polar bears.
“The meeting should deliver an unequivocal message that governments must take firm and immediate action to address climate change if the polar bears are to have any chance at all of survival this century,” the letter said.
Even with official quotas in place many polar bear populations are being decimated by illegal hunting with the bears hunted for food or for their valuable skins and skulls. Russia, where polar bears are currently protected, is also considering legalising the hunting trade in northwestern Siberia.
The prospect of a complete ban on hunting is considered sensitive because Inuit people see it as an important part of their native Arctic culture. WWF polar bear co-ordinator Geoff York told the Independent newspaper that the organisation was not opposed to hunting in principle, providing quotas were sustainable.
“If you just take away people’s livelihoods, you can do short-term harm to your long-term conservation goals,” York said.
But he warned the crisis was so critical that polar bears would soon need all the help they could get: “The situation facing polar bears is dire, because of habitat loss due to climate change. If we don’t do something meaningful soon, it will be very difficult for them to survive in the long run.”
Click here for more information about this week’s polar bear summit, learn more about the WWF’s polar bear conservation efforts or follow some of the bears in the wild using the polar bear tracker.