Hi Karen:

Are you my niece?  A. Ruth

so no live cam this year and to be honest no real good reason given by NG...so we get three info broadcasts...watched the one on the 7th...nothing new to learn and no shots of the bears...the next broadcast again states nothing about showing the bears except for the one you have posted...maybe they will show some bears....it is really too bad the cam was not tagging along on the buggy but again....still really not sure why they cancelled the season...I think it has to do with money but who knows.

This addy has a reference to another broadcast on Nov 14, 2008, at noon cst. http://www.thermo-stat.org/national-geographic/   Dana Lyons sings with the Polar Bears ...says they will be on a buggy looking at bears....???? Nothing from NG about this event though.

 

Does anyone know when the cam will go Live?

 

 

Go to:  http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/38351

 

USA to limit oil drilling in Alaska  – “critical habitat” protection for polar bears!

 

WooooHooooooooooooo

 Longer news article:  Anchorage Daily News
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/547990.html

Karen/California:

Don't ya just love it when the Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, sued Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne on Monday, seeking to reverse his decision to list polar bears as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act?  Guess that wouldn't have anything to do with her husband working for BP on the North Slope?  But I have to wonder....!

Take a look:  http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=104&sid=1453774

Alaska sues over listing polar bear as threatened

Hi Karen, just perusing the forums and saw your last post. Dated before that same gov. became a VP candidate. Hope someone gets in who actually believes in science :))

 

Don't ya just love it when the Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, sued Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne on Monday, seeking to reverse his decision to list polar bears as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act?  Guess that wouldn't have anything to do with her husband working for BP on the North Slope?  But I have to wonder....!

Take a look:  http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=104&sid=1453774

Alaska sues over listing polar bear as threatened

 Odds increase for ice-free North Pole this summer

PREDICTION: One researcher gives it a nearly 50 percent chance.

By SETH BORENSTEIN
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- There's a 50-50 chance that the North Pole will be ice-free this summer, which would be a first in recorded history, a leading ice scientist says.

The weather and ocean conditions in the next couple of weeks will determine how much of the sea ice will melt, and early signs are not good, said Mark Serreze. He's a senior researcher at the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colo.

The chances for a total meltdown at the pole are higher than ever because the layer of ice coating the sea is thinner than ever, he said.

"A large area at the North Pole and surrounding the North Pole is first-year ice," Serreze said. "That's the stuff that tends to melt out in the summer because it's thin."

To view the rest of the story, please go to:

http://www.adn.com/front/story/449365.html

From Defenders of Wildlife - special alert:

Just days after polar bears gained new life-saving protections, the powerful Safari Club International sued the federal government.

The reason? To once again allow wealthy U.S. hunters to kill struggling polar bears in Canada -- and bring their carcasses back as trophies.

Polar bears are already on the fast track to extinction. Oil companies are poised to invade their key denning habitat. Rising temperatures are melting sea ice, leading to starvation. Yet the Safari Club wants to ensure that rich hunters can keep polar bears in their gun sights.

Years ago, the Safari Club successfully lobbied for the loophole that allowed trophy hunters to kill Canadian polar bears and return to the U.S. with their heads for wall trophies and fur for rugs.  

But the Safari Club has deep pockets, lawyers and lobbyists.

This is going to be a tough fight. Safari Club International isn't just any special interest. It is a powerful international organization of wealthy trophy hunters that is fighting our conservation efforts on many fronts.

In Alaska, they're helping to back a $600,000 campaign aimed at defeating a ballot measure to ban the state's brutal program of aerial hunting of wolves and bears.  Meanwhile, they've also sent their attorneys to battle us in the Greater Yellowstone region, where we're fighting desperately to save wolves.

Closing the deadly trophy hunting loophole was one of the few concrete new protections polar bears received as a "threatened" species just weeks ago. Now, the Safari Club wants to take that away. With your help, we won't let them.

-- Your help is needed:  write letters, send emails!  Just get involved.  If we don't speak up, they will think we don't care and it will be business as usual - more trophy hunting. --

go to:  http://action.defenders.org/site/PageServer?pagename=act_061008_CSA_Vote&s_einterest=C3C4&s_Affiliate=act_

 

 State will sue over polar bear listing, Palin says

SPECIES STATUS: Unreliable data, threat to energy development cited.

Published: May 22nd

The State of Alaska will sue to challenge the recent listing of polar bears as a threatened species, Gov. Sarah Palin said Wednesday.

She and other Alaska elected officials fear a listing will cripple oil and gas development in prime polar bear habitat off the state's northern and northwestern coasts.

Palin argued there is not enough evidence to support a listing...

To view the rest of the story:
http://www.adn.com/polarbears/story/413710.html 

To view graphic:
http://media.adn.com/smedia/2008/05/15/01/808-15PolarBear_Endangered.thumb.prod_affiliate.7.gif 

BREAKING NEWS: 

 Polar bear listed as threatened species
WASHINGTON -- Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced Wednesday that the agency will list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, a decision that could cast the bears as the enduring symbol of the effects of global warming.

I just came across a beautiful book...

Vanishing World -  Mireille de la Lez / Fredrik Granath

 http://www.vanishingworld.net/

 

Please read this one...again...

http://www.polarbearalley.com/

 

Polar ice pack loss may break 2007 record

TREND: Ocean currents, global warming and wind combine to leave the Arctic ice fragile.

By TOM KIZZIA
Published: February 12th, 2008 12:02 AM

Some good news for the Polar Bears, Manitoba has listed the Polar Bears as a threatened species. The Polar Bears at Churchill will be protected so that's good news, now if we can get Canada and the US to list them as endangered they might have a fighting chance.

" The western Canadian province of Manitoba named the polar bear a threatened species on Thursday, enabling it to restrict new development on its Arctic shoreline, where hundreds of the big white bears spend several weeks each year. "

 read the entire news article

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSN0849498420080208?sp=true
 

Hey Bear, take a look at this:

Chukchi Sea lease sale draws record bidding

 

Anchorage Daily News
Published: February 6th, 2008 01:22 PM

Oil companies bid a record $2.66 billion today for oil and gas leases in the Chukchi Sea off Northwest Alaska.

The blockbuster federal oil and gas lease sale brought in more high bids than any other Alaska lease sale, topping the $2.06 billion bid in 1982 for Beaufort Sea leases in federal waters.

Federal Minerals Management Service officials said they had received 667 bids for the Chukchi, a record number for a lease sale on Alaska's outer continental shelf. The bids covered 2.8 million acres of the Chukchi.

Shell Gulf of Mexico was the most vigorous bidder. It bid the most for any single block: $105 million.

To read the rest of the story:
http://www.adn.com/189/story/306844.html

Thanks Karen, this is why they didn't want to put the Polar Bears on the endangered list until it was approved because if they did they would have to protect the Polar bears habitat and wouldn't be able to drill. It reminded me of the a clip from the Simpson's movie when they arrive in Alaska. here's the clip

 http://youtube.com/watch?v=luSjksdQHlE

Chukchi Sea lease sale could draw protesters

 

The Associated Press
Published: February 6th, 2008 01:24 AM

Conservation and Native Alaska groups say they will protest the Chukchi Sea lease sale planned for this morning in Anchorage.

The groups say exploration and drilling within the nearly 46,000 square miles available for leases will harm Chukchi Sea polar bears.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is reviewing polar bears for possible listing under the Endangered Species Act.

The area off Alaska's northwest coast also is used by walruses and whales taken by subsistence hunters, plus endangered sea birds.

The Alaska Wilderness League says protests also are planned for Shell Oil gas stations.

To view the rest of the story:
http://www.adn.com/money/story/306491.html

Feds OK oil, gas development in Chukchi Sea

 

By DAN JOLING
The Associated Press

Published: January 2nd, 2008 04:07 PM

The federal Mineral Management Service gave final approval Wednesday to oil and natural gas development off Alaska's northwest shore, drawing condemnation from environmental groups concerned with the effects on marine mammals.The MMS said it would hold a lease sale Feb. 6 in Anchorage for bidding on nearly 46,000 square miles of outer continental shelf lands in the Chukchi Sea, the part of the Arctic Ocean that begins north of the Bering Strait and stretches between northwest Alaska and the northern coast of the Russian Far East.

It would be the first federal OCS oil and gas lease sale in the Chukchi Sea since 1991. MMS Alaska spokeswoman Robin Cacy said the area contains an estimated 15 billion barrels of conventionally recoverable oil and 77 trillion cubic feet of conventionally recoverable natural gas.

The Chukchi Sea is home to one of two U.S. polar bear populations. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is days away from deciding whether polar bears should be declared threatened because of global warming and its effect on the animal's primary habitat, sea ice.

"The polar bear's existence is increasingly threatened by the impact of climate change-induced loss of sea ice," said Margaret Williams, managing director of World Wildlife Fund's Kamchatka and Bering Sea Program. "The chances for the continued survival of this icon of the Arctic will be greatly diminished if its last remaining critical habitat is turned into a vast oil and gas field."

Polar bears spend most of their lives on sea ice. They use sea ice to hunt their primary prey, ringed seals. In Alaska, females use sea ice to den or to reach denning areas on land.

Arctic sea ice this summer plummeted to the lowest levels since satellite measurements began in 1979, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado.

To view the rest of the story:
http://www.adn.com/189/story/252821.html

NOTE:  The blogs. which are below the above articles, are very interesting!

Hi Karen, thanks for that article. Kassie Siegal is in the Polar Bear Fever documentary I posted. I hadn't heard of her and her group until I watched the documentary but recently I've seen her name popping up all over the place. I do hope they are successful but with the Bush administration who knows what will happen. I also want to see my Canadian government step up and do something about the Polar Bears and list them as endangered as well.

Legal fray likely after ruling on polar bear status

LISTING: No matter what the decision is, somebody will sue.

By TOM KIZZIA
Published: February 4th, 2008

If U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director Dale Hall really thinks he can do nothing about greenhouse gases to save the polar bear, he'll be hearing soon from Kassie Siegel.

Hall told a congressional hearing last week he doesn't think the Endangered Species Act is the right law to force reduction of emissions blamed for warming the planet and shrinking the polar bear's ice habitat.

But environmentalists like Siegel, a lawyer and climate specialist for the Center for Biological Diversity, say they'll go to court if the federal government decides this month to declare the polar bear a "threatened" species -- but does nothing about the fundamental cause of global warming.

It's no idle threat. Her group, based in Tucson, Ariz., has filed more than 500 petitions and lawsuits over endangered species since it was founded in 1989. Two years ago, the center joined with two powerful environmental groups, Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council, to begin the push for polar bear protection.

view the rest of the story:
http://www.adn.com/front/story/304086.html