POLAR
BEAR SOS!

2008 will be the most
critical year in the
polar bear's 2,000
centuries on Earth.

Photo by: Steve Amstrup, Source: SL-03407, Publisher: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Polar bears are one of the first species to face extinction as a direct result of global warming. Reports of polar bears starving and drowning show this is occurring in increasing numbers. This has never been documented by scientists before.

Over the past 30 years, over a million square miles of sea ice (that is an area the size of Norway, Denmark and Sweden combined) have already disappeared. Nearly all of the polar bear's summer sea ice could vanish by 2040. They range across hundreds of miles of ice to find mates and hunt for the food they need for themselves and their young. Without sea ice, the polar bear cannot survive.

That is why I became a member of Natural Resources Defense Council, America's most effective environmental action group.

I encourage you to join me.

Under pressure from NRDC, the Bush Administration has proposed that our nation come to the polar bear's rescue under the Endangered Species Act. But, that will not happen without strong support from millions of Americans like you and me.  A massive counterattack from Big Oil and Big Coal, who are more interested in protecting their global warming pollution than in saving the polar bear, is expected.

Please feel to join fellow environmentalist and Trustee Leonardo DiCaprio and me by contacting Natural Resources Defense Council at www.polarbearSOS.org. There you will have an opportunity to sign a citizen petition like the one below, as I did.

Want to take immediate action by writing your lawmakers?

http://www.nrdconline.org/campaign/Tell_Senators_to_Put_Polar_Bears_First

Join the NRDC so the campaign can be expanded.

I am proud to be among the 500,000 Americans who have told the Bush Administration that polar bears desperately need, and deserve, special protection now. A million voices are needed right now. We are only about halfway there.   I hope you will join us in this unprecedented effort.  For more information:

http://www .digi-help.com/society/polar-bear-arctic-ice.asp

http://www.polarbearSOS.com

Thank you for your consideration.

Richard Vanceunebrouck-Werth  (RVW)

Dr. Rosa Meehan, Supervisor

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

1011 East Tudor Road

Anchorage, AK  99503

Dear Dr. Meehan,

Thank you for your participation  in the proposal to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.  As you know, the scientific evidence that polar bears are threatened with extinction from global warming is overwhelming. 

Arctic sea ice is essential for the polar bear's survival, but 80% of that ice could be gone by 2028, and all of it by 2040.  As your work shows, polar bears are already suffering the effects: birth rates are falling, more bears are drowning and fewer cubs are surviving.

So, I am very concerned that your proposal fails to identify global warming pollution as the cause of the rising Arctic temperatures and the sea ice that is rapidly disappearing.  Our society and government?s refusal to curb global warming pollution is a primary cause of the polar bear?s melting habitat and terrible plight. I believe it deserves to be, and must be, addressed.

The discussion of the kind of habitat that is essential for the polar bear's survival in your proposal is appreciated. Unfortunately, your proposal does not designate any of that habitat as "critical habitat" that could be essential in the bear's recovery. Please reconsider this without delay.

Thank you for your consideration.

Richard Vanceunebrouck-Werth

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