Polar Bear News

Two pieces of news about polar bears (Ursus maritimus). The first is some good news in an ongoing saga: Charles Monnett, the scientist who documented cases of drowned polar bears and was subsequently suspended by his agency, BOEMRE (the new acronym, since the Deepwater Horizon proved the final disgrace for a notoriously corrupt agency (discussed here)) has been reinstated from administrative leave. While investigations continue into why he was initially suspended and he will not be returning to the same duties, he has at least been temporarily cleared. This is something to keep watching as it develops though I wouldn't expect it to move with any great speed.

The other is much more unfortunate. A security guard working for BP shot and killed a polar bear with what appears to have been an explosive round when it wandered near a worker camp. While BP claims that the bear was killed by mistake and that the guard believed he was firing a rubber bullet to ward off the bear, it is a positive sign that the Fish and Wildlife Service is taking it seriously enough to do a preliminary investigation. There is nothing in the piece to indicate that anything other than what BP claims is the case, but polar bears are a threatened species and it is important to determine the exact circumstances of the death, whether it was preventable (assuming it was unintentional), and whether it was justified.

Threatened and endangered species receive a large amount of protection from the Endangered Species Act. There is a broadly construed ban on any kind of harm to individuals without a permit, and even then allowances are made only for specific numbers taken in specific ways (for example, a dam might be allowed to "take" 2,000 salmon via turbine action per year or a construction project might be permitted to take a nesting pair of owls via habitat disruption). While there is an exemption for lethal force when necessary to defend human life, that does not appear to be the case here, and scaring it off would have been the appropriate and justified choice for the safety of workers and the bear. The polar bear was listed as threatened due to loss of habitat from climate change and much has been written about that threat to the bear including how best to respond to protect it. However, once listed as threatened, unless specific exemptions have been written into the listing rule, the species is broadly protected from any type of prohibited action. In other words: once listed, it doesn't matter why. Any harm is prohibited harm, even if it isn't the kind that caused the listing. This is another piece that bears (unfortunate pun that wouldn't happen in many other languages) watching though I expect it to disappear into the ether without much closure.