There is at present an open U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Public comment
period for the proposed critical habitat for the polar bear.
Polar bears
have become the canary in the coal mine for climate change, as more and more are
seen struggling in open waters of the melting Arctic Ocean. If current
conditions continue, experts believe the entire Arctic polar bear population
could disappear by 2050.
The Interior Department has proposed more than
200,000 square miles of America's Arctic as polar bear critical habitat under
the Endangered Species Act. But those protections are meaningless if oil
drilling is allowed inside their critical habitat.