Anchorage Daily News

Environmental and animal rights groups have lined up to oppose a lawsuit that seeks to let American sport hunters again import hides of polar bears shot legally in Canada.

Safari Club International wants to overturn a ban put in place last month when U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne declared polar bears a threatened species.

Politicians from Canada's Northwest Territory this week made the same request to Interior Department officials in Washington, D.C.

Opponents say sport hunting adds stress to polar bears already menaced by a loss of sea ice, their main habitat.

"Until we take steps to address global warming, we need to do all we can to relieve further threats that are accelerating the bears' downward spiral, including the trophy hunting of polar bears in Canada," said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife.

MAY 15 DECLARATION

Kempthorne on May 15 declared polar bears threatened, or likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future, because of habitat loss.

Trophy hunting of U.S. bears in Alaska has been banned since 1972. Bears killed by subsistence hunters are not considered a threat.

Kempthorne, however, declared polar bears threatened throughout their range and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service withdrew authorization to import hides from animals killed in approved populations in Canada -- including animals already killed and awaiting a taxidermist mount.

Importation was allowed through an amendment to the Marine Mammal Protection Act passed by Congress in 1994.

Safari Club International on May 23 filed a required 60-day notice of its intent to sue to overturn the ban, not just for bears already killed but also on behalf of members who hope to hunt in the future, including those who booked and paid for hunts in 2009 and 2010.

Safari Club International attorney Doug Burdin said Wednesday his organization may join the state of Alaska in suing to overturn the listing but so far has only filed to overturn the ban on importing hides.

A listing under the Endangered Species Act does not create an import ban, he said, and the Fish and Wildlife Service did not follow the law in banning hides.

"They never held any kind of rulemaking for designating the polar bear as a depleted species under the Marine Mammal Protection Act," he said.

The ban certainly should not apply to bears killed before May 15, he said.

Safari Club International also argues that sport hunting by U.S. citizens aids bears by supporting Canada's sustainable use harvest programs.

A hunt can cost $40,000 to $50,000 and Safari Club International claims income from hunters helps support polar bear research and provides a direct economic benefit to Canada Native communities from supporting and guiding hunts.

"This infusion of cash into the cash-strapped Native communities provides another incentive for these people to accept the Western-based science and management that facilitates polar bear conservation and that is required before the Service will approve a population for import," he wrote.

BEAR DEFENDERS

A half-dozen groups want more, not fewer, protections for polar bears and filed to intervene in the lawsuit, including the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace, which petitioned for the polar bear listing.

The Humane Society of the United States, the International Fund for Animal Welfare and Defenders of Wildlife sought to intervene in a separate filing.

Naomi Rose, senior scientist at the Humane Society of the United States, said the organization opposes killing animals for recreation and fought the 1994 provision for importing bear parts.

The organization also objects based on conservation. Polar bears are difficult to count and their numbers could decline before it's noticed, Rose said.

"Polar bears are a really bad species to kill for recreational purposes," she said. "It's not in their best interest."

The groups point to a U.S. Geological Service study released last year that concluded Alaska's polar bears, and two of the six Canadian polar bear populations from which Americans imported polar bear trophies, could be gone by 2050 because of warming and its effect on sea ice.

Bob McLeod, the Northwest Territory's minister for energy, industry and tourism, said Monday the import ban would effectively wipe out its sports hunting industry.

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