The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday announces its recovery plan for endangered polar bears, but critics say it doesn't go far sufficient for what Polar Bears need. Polar bears in 2008 were declared endangered under the Endangered Species Act because of the loss of their primary habitation, sea ice, brought on by the climate warming and changed everything. Polar bears use sea ice for seeking seals for food.
Climate Change Is Contributing A Big Role On Earth's Atmospheric Temperature
Climate models project that rising temperatures will last until it weakens summer sea ice. The recovery plan calls for reduced greenhouse effect, gas emissions but requires no direct action for that to occur. The plan says reducing greenhouse gases will require global participation.
Shaye Wolf of the Center for Biological Diversity calls the plan toothless. She says the plan recognizes the primary problem but fails to put the answer in the recovery strategy. The plan, she said, admits polar bears will not survive without cuts in large-scale and worldwide gas pollution. Science in the plan displays the need to keep global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius for polar bears to have any rational chance of survival, she said.
The agency's job, she said, was to call out the steps desirable to be taken for polar bears survival. "It acknowledges the problematic status but fails to put the solution in the core policy for the bear," she said.
The intervention in its plan said addressing increased atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases that result in Arctic warming will involve global action. Until that transpires, the focus of recovery will be on U.S. wildlife supervision actions that will contribute to polar bear existence in the interim "so that they are in a location to recover once Arctic warming has been decreased," the plan said.
