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Saving our polar bears

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  • Originally published May 22, 2008 at 8:58 a.m., updated May 22, 2008 at 8:58 a.m.

Henry David Thoreau

Even though the ferocious polar bear is not the cutest or cuddliest of God’s creatures, I fear for its survival in this age of shrinking habitat, climate change and thinning ice flow.

I once got a mild chuckle out of a TV game show in which the true or false question was asked: Do polar bears eat penguins? The contestant struggled for a long time before finally guessing correctly that they do not, not because they wouldn’t but because they live at the opposite pole from the flightless birds.

Polar bears are definitely at the top of their food chain in the Arctic regions of the far north -- well, nearly at the top.

We two-legged homo sapiens are at the very top, but only because of gunpowder.

I once watched a TV show that enraged me, as a helicopter sat down on polar ice and disgorged a hunter with a high-powered rifle who quickly dispatched a nearby polar bear.

The hunter didn’t even skin his prize himself. For what he was paying, they sent a second crew in to do that and present the hunter with his bear skin rug back at the nice, cozy lodge.

I remember thinking, at least momentarily, that without that rifle, the hunter would have been in full flight from the big bear and praying to have his life spared.

But that’s not the way things are. We have never played fair with polar bears, treating them just as badly as we did the grizzlies of the lower 48 in decades past, shooting them down to the brink of extinction.

We humans never seem to notice who was where, first. Whether it was Native American people, or bears, eagles, wolves – and so on – we felt it was manifest destiny that we rule this North America.

And so we do.

But wouldn’t it be a shame up there in the Alaskan or Canadian north to lose such a majestic predator as the polar bear?

The latest fight seems to be between conservationist groups and the Department of the Interior over just how much protection these bears should get.

The federal government wants to participate in some type of protective program, but the conservationists want more, such as funds to combat the global warming that they feel is killing off bears by decreasing the ice flow that is their natural habitat. They’ve filed papers with the court asking for this added protection.

The government counters that a true assessment of the costs of doing that is due the American people.

OK, settle your differences, figure things out, and then let’s do something for those magnificent white bears.

Lord help us if we wait too long, and lose them forever.

Jim Bishop is a senior editor for the Advocate. Leave him a message at 361-574-1210 or jbishop@vicad.com or comment on this column at www.victoriaadvocate.com



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