Sad news. A recent U.S. Geological Survey claims that 2/3 of the world’s polar bears will be extinct by 2050 due to Arctic warming. Ice up North is melting so fast that the large predators likely won’t have enough ice on which to hunt and breed during the summers. The Secretary of the Interior has suggested making polar bears a “threatened” species under the Endangered Species Act, entitling the animals to federal protections. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is giving a final recommendation on the bear’s addition to the list to the Interior in January 2008. The Interior’s suggested protection of the polar bear, though not finalized, is an encouraging move, given the Bush administration’s history of active opposition to wildlife conservation.
Though the polar bears are disappearing, there is hopeful news on the other side of the globe. In a steamy Indian rainforest, tigers have been spotted 30 years after they were assumed extinct in the area. A local official estimates there are now about 20 of the big cats living in the wet, mountainous region of Maharashta. India is home to about 1,500 tigers, half of the world’s tiger population.
