Ocean Sentry
Polar bear populations in and around Alaska are declining due to continued melting of sea ice and Russian poaching, according to reports released Thursday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Officials say the drop among the Chukchi and Bering bears is likely steeper than for those in the Beaufort, due to a more dramatic melt of sea ice — which the bears need to travel and forage for food — and an illegal Russian hunt believed to be killing 150 to 250 bears a year.
The assessments, though incomplete, are disturbing, said an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, which petitioned and later sued the federal government to add polar bears and walruses to the U.S. Endangered Species Act list.
The United States officially recognized polar bears as an endangered species last year as a result of the warming Arctic climate, which has wiped out much of the summer sea ice critical to the animals’ survival.
Russian poaching, believed to be spurred by a market for bear hides, represents what the Fish and Wildlife Service describes as a potential compounding threat to the population, said Bruce Woods, the agency’s spokesman in Alaska.
There was an estimated 0.3 percent annual decline in the polar bear population in the southern Beaufort Sea between 2001 and 2007, with the total numbers likely hovering between 1,397 and 1,526 animals, according to the draft assessments.
The worldwide polar bear population is generally believed to be about 20,000 to 25,000, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which lists the species as “vulnerable”. The recent declines in the Alaska area follow decades of growth and stability that started in 1972 when the United States outlawed sport-hunting of polar bears. Prior to the ban, sportsmen killed hundreds of Alaskan polar bears annually, often using aircraft to track the animals.
The Fish and Wildlife Service also issued on Thursday preliminary population information showing the Pacific walrus, another marine mammal dependent on sea ice, had been impacted by habitat warming.
A reliable overall population estimate for the Pacific walrus, under consideration for Endangered Species Act protection, is expected to be released by early 2010, Woods said.
(From reuters.com, Alaska, by Yereth Rosen)
