Canada Declares Polar Bear as Species of Special Concern

Canada's Environment Minister Peter Kent has declared the polar bear as a "species of special concern" under the Species at Risk Act, officials announced on Thursday.

The government will create a management plan in the next three years to save the giant white bears from further threats to their numbers.

The government has not decided whether to end sports hunting of polar bears, although it is unlikely Arctic native people will lose their right to harvest a small percentage of them.

"Canada is home to two-thirds of the world's polar bear population and we have a unique conservation responsibility to effectively care for them," said Kent. "Our government is demonstrating leadership in protecting this iconic species. Listing the polar bear under the Species at Risk Act represents an important contribution to protecting our environment and the animals that live in it."

The bears are threatened by climate change and development in the Arctic. In recent years, the number of bears in the western Canadian arctic has dropped, although the population has grown in the eastern Arctic and in Hudson's Bay.

Some native groups support protection of the bears, although the Inuit people living in the eastern Arctic opposed the move. The Inuit still hunt the bears for their meat and pelts and guide wealthy hunters, mostly from the United States and Europe, on expensive shooting expeditions.

Canada is the only country offering a Polar Bear trophy hunt, thus attracting big game hunters from Canada and abroad. According to the 2007 federal Polar Bear Hunter Survey, the average total estimated trip expenditures of a US trophy hunter in the Northwest Territories (2007) amounted to approximately 37,000 Canadian dollars.

However, since the 2008 listing of the Polar Bear as a threatened species under the US Endangered Species Act, the number of hunters has declined due to the ban on importation of polar bear hides and trophies to the US.

As well, in places where the bears have become more plentiful, native people complain that they have become pests, entering their communities to find food. A full-grown polar bear can easily kill a human, and the bears are known to hunt people for food.

"At Environment Canada, our business is protecting the environment," said Kent. "We collaborate with our partners at home and abroad to realize concrete progress on initiatives that will protect the health of our people, our species and our planet. By listing the polar bear as a species of concern, we are doing just that."

In the United States, the polar bear is a federally protected species. On May 15, 2008, it was listed as threatened under the United States'Endangered Species Act.