Canadian territory fails to protect polar bears

WWF website 10 Nov 08;

Iqaluit, Canada: Canada's youngest territory is facing an international backlash following its decision to leave unchanged the number of polar bears it allows to be killed in part of the Baffin Bay region each year.

Nunavut, which came into being in 1999, has bowed to pressure from the local Inuit hunters and agreed to maintain the annual allowable harvest quota of 105 polar bears. The Baffin Bay sub-population straddles Canada and adjacent areas of Greenland. The number of polar bears has dropped from an estimated 2,100 in 1997 to about 1,500 today due to high levels of hunting by Inuit in both countries.

The hunting quota was set at 105 in 2004, based on the relatively large population numbers from the late 1990s. The harvesting in Nunavut was also based on an assumption that the number of bears killed in neighbouring Greenland was as low as 18 a year, but subsequent research has shown the actual figure to be about 10 times higher.

"You can't pretend to be looking after polar bears by carrying on with the same level of harvest that has led to a 30 per cent decline in the population, it is just totally unacceptable,” Peter J. Ewins, director of species conservation for WWF-Canada, told Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper.

WWF is calling for a joint management plan between Greenland, Nunavut and the federal Canadian government that would allow populations to recover and then be managed on a sustainable level.

For many environmentalists, polar bears have become a symbol of global warming because the ice habitat that they depend on is melting due to climate change.

Environmentalists have warned that the hunting decision may lead to international boycotts against Nunavut, and to concerns that the government, which relies heavily on advice from Inuit hunters, is ignoring the scientific research showing a precipitous plunge in the number of bears.