Latest Polar bear Stories
By Dirk Kempthorne Americans overwhelmingly support the conservation of endangered species. That's why Congress passed the Endangered Species Act in 1973. Congress, however, never intended this law to be the solution to global climate change. The law is already a complex source of red tape and litigation. The possibility of it becoming a tool for greenhouse-gas oversight -- as a consequence of the polar bear listing in May -- threatened to overwhelm agency experts and do more harm than...
George Bush's presidency trickles to an end in five months, and already some members of his administration are acting like tenants who know they are going to be evicted and doing as much damage as they can before they leave. But no one has dared to go as far as Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, who's trying to place the Endangered Species Act on the extinction list beside the dodo and the passenger pigeon. Kempthorne, a former Idaho governor and senator, got a zero rating from the League...
By Dina Cappiello WASHINGTON - Parts of the Endangered Species Act soon may be extinct. The Bush administration wants federal agencies to decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants. New regulations, which don't require the approval of Congress, would reduce the mandatory, independent reviews government scientists have been performing for 35 years, according to a draft first obtained by The Associated Press....
By Dina Cappiello Associated Press Parts of the Endangered Species Act may soon be extinct. The Bush administration wants federal agencies to decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants. New regulations, which don't require the approval of Congress, would reduce the mandatory, independent reviews government scientists have been performing for 35 years, according to a draft first obtained by The Associated Press....
Known as top predator in its icy terrain around the North Pole, the polar bear could be at risk of becoming prey to another predator: the shark.Scientists at the Norwegian Polar Institute were trying to gauge the effect of massive thawing at the North Pole on how far sharks hunt seals in the Arctic. In June they made an unexpected discovery when they found part of the jaw of a young polar bear in the stomach of a Greenland shark."We've never heard of this before. We don't know how it got...
So many kids say they want to grow up and work with animals. So did these two women, part of the crew who work at the Detroit Zoo. Get to know a little about them. ELIZABETH ARBAUGH MISSION: As coordinator of Enrichment and Training for the Detroit Zoo, Elizabeth organizes activities that allow animals to demonstrate behaviors as they would in the wild _ such as foraging and stalking. That's so the animals stay engaged, active and curious. EDUCATION: Elizabeth, 43, of Southfield, Mich.,...
In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, two environmental groups are demanding a reversal of regulations passed last month giving permission to oil companies working in the Chukchi Sea to disturb the polar bears and walrus that live there. Filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and Pacific Environment, the lawsuit hopes to overturn a ruling reached by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last month which allows "incidental takes" of native animals to the region. The regulations, which are set to...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Two conservation groups filed a lawsuit on Tuesday challenging the Bush administration's decision to let oil companies unintentionally harass or harm polar bears and walruses off the northwestern Alaska coast. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Anchorage claims that federal officials violated laws designed to protect the animals and their sensitive habitat in the Arctic waters of the Chukchi Sea. "These regulations set the parameters for how oil exploration...
Less than a month after declaring polar bears a threatened species because of global warming, the Bush administration is giving oil companies permission to search for oil and natural gas among them. The Fish and Wildlife Service issued regulations this week providing legal protection to seven oil companies planning to search for oil and gas in the Chukchi Sea off the northwestern coast of Alaska, even if "small numbers" of polar bears or Pacific walruses are incidentally harmed by...
Following a formidable 106-day trek across the Arctic, which ended with the two Arctic Arc expedition members relying on Envisat images to guide them safely through disintegrating sea-ice, intrepid polar explorer Alain Hubert recently visited ESA to handover a unique set of snow-depth measurements.To coincide with the launch of the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008, Alain Hubert and fellow explorer Dixie Dansercoer ventured out onto the sea-ice to embark upon a trek from Siberia to...
Latest Polar bear Reference Libraries
The cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) is an extinct species that was found in Europe during the Pleistocene. Its range was large and included areas from Great Britain to Spain, Italy, Poland, the Balkans, areas of Germany, Russia, the Caucuses, Romania, and northern areas of Iran. Large numbers of skeletons have been found in Switzerland, southern Germany, Austria, northern Spain, Hungary, Croatia, and Romania. Because so many fossils have been found throughout Europe, some experts assert that there...
The brown bear (Ursus arctos) can be found in North America and northern areas of Eurasia. There are sixteen recognized subspecies of the brown bear. This is the most widely distributed species of bear in the world, although its range is shrinking. Its range includes the Alaska and a few other areas of the United States, areas of Russia, and Romania and other areas of the Carpathian region, as well as Canada, Sweden, Finland, and the Balkans. The brown bear derives its common name from the...
The Syrian brown bear (Ursus arctos syriacus) is a native species to Eurasia. It is a slightly small species of brown bear. Its range includes Northern Armenia, Kopet Dag, Abkhazia, Azerbaijan Talysh, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq. Its range also includes the former Soviet Union. This bear is extinct in Israel, Lebanon, Egypt, and in more recent years it has become extinct in Syria. Due to habitat loss and poaching, the Syrian brown bear population is declining. The bear is also hunted for its bile,...
Brown bears as a group are one of the largest type of bears, second only to polar bears with the Syrian brown bear (Ursus arctos syriacus) being one of the smallest subspecies of brown bears. Found generally in the mountainous areas in the countries of Iran, Iraq and Turkey and in parts of the former Soviet Union to include Abkhazia, Karabakh, Transcaucasia, Talysh and northern Armenia. These bears find hollow birch trees that flourish in the higher elevations, moreso than pine and other...
The American Black Bear (Ursus americanus), also known as the black bear or cinnamon bear, is the most common bear in North America. The black bear can be found throughout much of North America, from northern Canada and Alaska south into Mexico and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This includes 39 of the 50 U.S. states and all Canadian provinces. Populations in east-central and the southern United States remain in the protected mountains and woodlands of parks and preserves. While there...
