Bad news, bears… worse news, walrus

Polar bears are disappearing faster, according to a federal report released today–five weeks after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar decided not to use the plight of the polar bear to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in the Lower 48 states.
It’s bad news for polar bears, bad news for Salazar, but it still doesn’t mean Salazar should have decided otherwise. Regulating developments across the U.S. as threats to Alaskan polar bears isn’t feasible, but the decline in the polar bear–and an alarming new walrus count–add urgency to more comprehensive efforts to stop global warming, such as the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates there are at least 1,400 polar bears in two areas of Alaska it monitors. Humans cause the death of up to 300 each year, up to 250 of those from Russian hunters. The population can only sustain a loss of about 50 bears per year.
The bell tolls more often for the Pacific walrus. The agency estimates humans take about 5,000 walrus per year, but should only “harvest” 607 if the population is going to be sustainable. It estimates the minimum size of the Alaska population at about 15,000 animals. It’s that latter number, which the federal agency warns may be an undercount, that most alarms Brendan Cumming, the oceans program director for the Center for Biological Diversity:
“Polar bears and walrus are under severe threat, and unless we act rapidly to reduce greenhouse pollution and protect their habitat from oil development, we stand to lose both of these icons of the Arctic.”
Last year, two scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, Chadwick V. Jay and Anthony S. Fischbach, published a report explaining how the reduction in sea ice from global warming affects the walrus:
When the sea ice recedes over the deep ocean basin, walruses must either continue to haul out on the sea ice with little access to food, or abandon the sea ice and move to coastal areas where they can rest on land. During the record minimum sea ice extent in summer 2007, the Chukchi Sea shelf contained little to no ice for about 80 days and several thousand walruses hauled out on previously unused shores of northwestern Alaska. During autumn 2007, tens of thousands female and young walruses began using resting areas along the northern coast of Chukotka, after sea ice was no longer available. There, a few thousand mortalities were reported, apparently from trampling due to disturbances that caused adults to stampede into the water. As more walruses haul out on land instead of sea ice, nearshore prey populations will be subjected to greater predation pressure.
The polar bear is protected as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The Center for Biological Diversity has sued the federal government to protect the walrus under the Endangered Species Act, and a decision is expected in September. Today’s report came in response to a court-mandated deadline.