Using Climate Change Impacts as Leverage to Protect the Polar Bear: The Value of Habitat Protection in Promoting Animal Welfare

• Author: Eric V. Hull
• Pages: 147-165

147

Chapter 6:

Using Climate Change

Impacts as Leverage to

Protect the Polar Bear:

The Value of Habitat Protection

in Promoting Animal Welfare

Eric V. Hull

I. Eorts to Protect Polar Bears Under U.S. Environmental Laws ...........149

A. Polar Bear Protection Under the Marine Mammal Protection

Act ...............................................................................................149

B. Polar Bear Protection Under the Endangered Species Act:

e Special Listing Rule ............................................................... 152

C. Shrinking Chances to Save the Polar Bear .....................................157

II. Animal Law: Incorporating Lessons From the ESA and MMPA ..........158

III. Recommendations for Animal Law Development ...............................162

A. Cross Advocacy: e Role of Animal Law in Saving Polar Bears ...162

B. Utilize Lessons From Environmental Law to Strengthen

Animal Law ..................................................................................163

Conclusion ...................................................................................................165

Arctic ecosystems are undergoing rapid warming that continues to

cause declines in se a ice t hat polar bears need to survive.1 Arctic ice

cover has receded by approximately two-thirds of its historic cover-

age and t he Arctic region continues to lose approximately “13 percent of its

sea ice every 10 years.”2 During the summer of 2014, the Arctic ice coverage

1. Alan Neuhauser, NASA: Arctic Ice Shrinks to 6th-Lowest Level on Record, U.S. N  W R,

Sept. 23, 2014, http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/09/23/nasa-global-warming-

shrinks-arctic-ice-to-6th-lowest-level-on-record [hereinafter NASA]; see also U.S. Geological Survey,

Polar Bear-Sea Ice Relationships, http://alaska.usgs.gov/science/biology/polar_bears/pbear_sea_ice.

html (last visited May 3, 2015).

2. NASA, supra note 1.

148 What Can Animal Law Learn From Environmental Law?

shrunk to its sixth lowest level ever recorded.3 is loss of primar y polar

bear habitat has emerged as the major factor inuencing the reproductive

success, survival, and population status of polar bears.4Today, 8 of the 19

identied polar bear populations in the world are in decline.5 e southern

Beaufort Sea polar bear subpopulation has declined by approximately 40%

between 20 01 and 2010, from 1,500 to 900 bears.6 Absent additional pro-

tection eorts, climate-related changes in habitat may drive the species to

extinction by the end of this centur y.7is chapter explains how wi ld polar

bears are currently protected under U.S. laws a nd examines key provisions

within these laws that may be used to promote animal welfare.8

Part I of this chapter examines eorts to protect wild polar bears under

the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and the Enda ngered Species

Act (ESA). Emphasis is placed on the complex political and scientic process

that led to listing the polar bear as threatened under the ESA. Part II exam-

ines key anima l welfare themes incorporated into each Act and considers

how these themes can be utilized in the development of animal law. Part III

provides recommendations for incorporating lessons learned from environ-

mental law into a nimal law, and suggests t hat the eld of animal law could

increase its viability by par ticipating in eorts to protect pola r bears from a

rapidly changing arctic environment.

3. Id.

4. See, e.g., Christine M. Hunter et al., Climate Change reatens Polar Bear Populations: A Stochastic

Demographic Analysis, 91 E 2883 (2010).

5. M E. O  ., P B: P   15 W M  

IUCN/SSC P B S G, 29 J-3 J 2009, C, D 86

(IUCN 2010), available at https://portals.iucn.org/library/eles/documents/ssc-op-043.pdf (reporting

that 8 of 19 of the world’s polar bear populations are declining, 3 are stable, 1 is increasing, and the

status of 7 is unknown).

6. See Press Release, U.S. Geological Survey, Southern Beaufort Sea Polar Bear Population Declined in the

2000s (Nov. 17, 2014), available at http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=4055&from=rss_

home#.VMgermjF8Ws.

7. Int’l Union for Conservation of Nature/Species Survival Comm’n Polar Bear Specialist Group, Sum-

mary of Polar Bear Population Status per 2014, http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/status/status-table.html (last

visited May 3, 2015).

8. Wild polar bears are protected domestically under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA)

and the Endangered Species Act (ESA). See MMPA, 16 U.S.C. §1362(6); see also Determination of

reatened Status for the Polar Bear roughout Its Range (“Listing Rule”), 73 Fed. Reg. 28212

(May 15, 2008) [hereinafter Listing Rule].e welfare of captive polar bears is regulated under the

Animal Welfare Act (AWA); see 9 C.F.R. §§3.100-3.118 (2014).