U.S. Group Calls on Canada to Declare Polar Bears Endangered

An American environmental activist group says it wants Canada to follow suit if the U.S. lists polar bears as a threatened species.

With the U.S. government expected to announce within weeks whether to grant the bears protection as a threatened species under its Endangered Species Act, the Center for Biological Diversity criticized a Canadian scientific committee's recommendation last week to list the bears as a species of "special concern" in Canada.

"The only way that recommendation was issued for a 'species of special concern' was by simply ignoring projections based on global warming, and we think that was incorrect," Kassie Siegel, an attorney with the California and Arizona-based group, told CBC News on Tuesday.

On Friday, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) recommended that the federal government keep polar bears on the list of species of "special concern," a status that is one step down from "threatened" and two steps down from "endangered."

The polar bear has had the "special concern" status since 1991.

Members on the scientific advisory committee said the "special concern" listing best reflects varying conditions among the numerous polar bear populations in Canada's North, which has declining polar bear numbers in some parts but stable or even rising numbers in others.

But Siegel called COSEWIC's decision weak, saying polar bears in Canada should instead be listed as a threatened or endangered species, not a species of special concern.

"That recommendation explicitly stated that the projections they used to classify the polar bear excluded the threat of global warming," she said.