REPOST of POLAR BEAR SOS

/|\)0(

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: SEA SHEPHERD SIREN
To:
Date: May 3, 2009 11:19 AM
Subject: POLAR BEAR SOS


From:
SEA SHEPHERD SIREN
Angel
Saving Nemo & Our Oceans
Phil..

Polar Bear SOS

As their habitat melts away, Alaska's polar bears could be extinct by 2050.




"The polar bear is the world’s largest bear. It is considered a marine mammal -- like walruses, seals and whales -- because its main habitat is sea ice»



"Polar bears have one of the lowest reproduction rates among mammals. Females rear cubs for three years»



"Global warming is melting ice and forcing bears to swim further and further to ever-distant ice floes. Four were found drowned in the Bering Strait»



"The Arctic may be virtually free of summer sea ice by 2040 -- and without sea ice, polar bears cannot survive»



Polar bears spend most of their time roaming the Arctic on large chunks of floating ice, finding mates, hunting for seals and fattening themselves up for the warmer, ice-free months of the year. Yet that ice -- so crucial for the bears’ survival -- is now melting under their feet due to global warming...

Over the past three decades the Arctic ice cap has shrunk by 1 million square miles -- an area six times the size of California. Scientists are finding more evidence of polar bear drownings, cannibalism, starvation and cub deaths.

Unless we take effective action now, the polar bear will likely become extinct in Alaska by 2050.

In May 2008, under legal pressure from NRDC and others, the Bush administration announced that it would protect polar bears as a "threatened species" under the Endangered Species Act. Despite that important step forward, the plan as written is deeply flawed. It will do nothing to protect the polar bear against oil development or global warming pollution -- two of the deadliest threats it faces. In the meantime, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has joined powerful industry allies in a blatant attempt to strip the bear of the new protections it has under the law.

As NRDC and our partners fight off these threats in court, we are mobilizing BioGems Defenders to call on the Obama administration to reverse President Bush’s “polluters-first” policy and grant polar bears the full-fledged protection they so desperately need.

Tell the Obama administration to protect the polar bear and its Arctic habitat.

Phil