I just got this off my SCI weekly newsletter

Polar Bear Hunting Ban Moves Forward in Congress – Call your Congressmen Now to Oppose
The so-called “Polar Bear Protection Act†was added to an Interior Appropriations Bill late last night by Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island. This bill would ban the importation of trophies of polar bears legally taken from healthy populations in Canada . Stand-alone bills H.R. 2327 and S.R. 1406 would do the same thing. Sportsmen’s groups, including SCI, have sent a letter to Congress urging them to consider the facts and not support this bill on its emotional appeal. The attached letter and "Myths vs. Facts" document explain the whole issue in detail.


Here are the Myths and Facts:

Myths vs. Facts
Opposition to the so-called
“Polar Bear Protection Actâ€
H.R. 2327 and S.R. 1406
(June 2007)

Here’s why the undersigned sporting and conservation groups strongly oppose H.R. 2327 and S.R. 1406, the so-called “Polar Bear Protection Act†and any other legislation that bans the import of polar bear trophies from healthy populations in Canada. This anti-hunting piece of legislation will harm current successful conservation and management efforts in the United States and Canada, with no benefit to the survival of the species. The polar bear is not currently threatened with extinction and, in fact, enjoys extremely healthy numbers worldwide. The facts below dispel a number of “myths†put forth by the proponents of these bills and the anti-hunting groups supporting them. All interested sportsmen and women, and the organizations to which they belong, should contact their Senators and Representatives in Congress to oppose these anti-hunting, anti-conservation bills.

Myth:
Sport hunting of polar bears threatens polar bear populations in Canada.

Facts:
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Canadian wildlife authorities have determined that well-regulated subsistence and sport hunting are not a threat to the polar bear populations. To allow imports under the MMPA and applicable regulations, the FWS must make certain determinations aimed at ensuring sport hunting does not harm the species as a whole. The FWS currently only allows importation from six approved populations.

Myth:
Sport hunting by U.S. hunters increases the number of polar bears killed in Canada.

Facts:
Sport hunting by U.S. hunters does not increase the mortality level of polar bears in Canada. The two provincial governments in Canada that manage polar bears – Nunavut and the Northwest Territories – allocate a certain number of "tags" to the local native communities each year based on science-based assessments of sustainability. The local communities, in turn, use most of these tags for their own subsistence and other uses, but assign a number of them to sport hunters to generate revenue for these cash-strapped communities. If U.S. sport hunters did not purchase these hunts, the community would simply use those tags themselves for subsistence purposes. The result is that the same number of bears – that is, the annual quota – would be harvested regardless of the participation of U.S. sport hunters.

Myth:
Sport hunting by U.S. hunters does not support polar conservation and management.

Facts:
Sport hunting and importation by U.S. hunters support and fund polar bear conservation and management in at least two ways.

First, sport hunting brings in a total of approximately $2.5 million for Nunavut communities. This money helps encourage the Government of Nunavut and the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board to contribute about $1,000,000 per year to polar bear conservation. The $30,000-50,000 per hunt U.S. hunters pay brings much needed revenue to these cash-strapped communities. Because the polar bear has financial benefit to the native people that must live with the species on a day-to-day basis, those people have another incentive to carefully manage and conserve this species and to accept science-based management of the species.

Second, the import of trophies into the United States generates funds for research. Each import fee includes $1,000 to develop and implement cooperative research and management programs for the conservation of polar bears in Alaska and Russia. Between April 1997 and December 2004, the FWS issued 705 polar bear trophy import permits, which would have generated $705,000 for conservation initiatives for polar bear stocks shared between the U.S. and Russia.

Myth:
Canadian wildlife managers feel pressure to increase total quotas to maximize revenue.

Facts:
Canadian wildlife managers are not pressured to increase quotas beyond sustainable levels. The sport hunt tags are taken out of the total quota given to the local native communities. If these communities wanted to increase the number of sport hunts and their own revenue, they would assign more of their "tags" to sport hunters (assuming demand for sport hunts exceeds current supply). As the native communities generally get the meat from sport hunts, the sustenance derived from each tag would not be significantly diminished by assigning more tags to sport hunters. In addition, the quotas are set by trained biologists and wildlife managers using scientific methods. All of these people understand the importance of sustainability of polar bear populations.

Myth:
Proponents of HR 2327 and SR 1406 support this bill only because they want to reduce polar bear mortality.

Facts:
Organizations like The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), a proponent of HR 2327 and SR 1406, are attempting to ban all sport hunting in the United States and elsewhere. Knowing that an outright ban of all hunting is not politically viable, HSUS and others have decided to incrementally attempt to ban hunting one species at a time, using any and all available excuses. This proposed import ban is a step in this incremental strategy.


Myth:
H.R. 2327 and S.R. 1406 close a (so-called) “loophole†created by Congress in 1994.

Facts:
Congress passed the 1994 legislation that allows the FWS to permit polar bear imports from Canada in recognition of the benefits that sport hunting provides to polar bear conservation and management (as described above). Congress built in several safeguards to ensure that this importation of trophies would not harm the polar bear as a species. The FWS must approve the population from which the import originates. Each approved permit requires the payment of $1,000 to support polar bear research and conservation. Over the 13 years this so-called “loophole†has been in effect, the polar bear population as a whole has become and remained healthy and stable.

There are more Polar Bears now than there were in 1965.. Interest by the Private Sector has had much to do with that Rise.. The Bolsheviks can't stand it when the Private sector has a greater impact..
AK

Fur flies in Canada over proposed U.S. hides ban
MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

June 23, 2007 at 1:52 AM EDT

In an effort to boost polar-bear populations in Canada, a U.S. Senate appropriations committee has approved a measure that would block American trophy hunters from importing heads and hides of the big Arctic animals to the United States.

Wildlife conservationists in that country have been lobbying for the restriction, which passed on Thursday, and are confident that Congress and President George W. Bush will approve it later this year. If it's adopted, U.S. sportsmen will be forbidden from bringing home polar-bear body parts as early as Oct. 1.

Polar bears are not considered under imminent threat of extinction in much of their Canadian range, but U.S. and other wildlife experts are worried that global warming will soon begin to undermine population levels, so they want hunting reduced.

Sports hunting of polar bears, widely identified as the quintessential Arctic animal, isn't allowed in the United States (Alaska), although aboriginals are allowed to hunt them, as they are in Canada.

“Because an American trophy hunter is willing to drop 35,000 bucks to kill a polar bear, it sends the wrong message and may lead to some long-term problems for the polar-bear population,†said Michael Markarian, executive vice-president of the Humane Society of the United States, a Washington-based group that backs the restriction.

Over the past 10 years, U.S. hunters have received more than 800 permits to bring polar-bear carcasses into their country. Most of the animals were killed in Canada, particularly in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, where the territorial government has promoted the hunt, which generates millions of dollars in revenue for Inuit communities.

Any action to block U.S. hunters will cause economic pain in native communities, but won't reduce pressure on the animals, according to one of those involved in the industry.

“The economic impact to these small Inuit communities would be devastating,†said Boyd Warner, president of Adventure Northwest, a Yellowknife-based company that markets hunting and fishing in Northern Canada.

He said trophy hunters typically pay $30,000 to $33,000 for a permit to bag a bear. Native communities, he added, have quotas for polar bears and will hunt all the animals they're allowed, so even if Americans stop coming, the animals will be taken. “The bears are still going to die. Believe me, it's not going to save any polar bears,†Mr. Warner said.

According to figures compiled by WWF-Canada, a conservation organization, hunters, mainly from aboriginal communities, kill about 700 polar bears each year. Native communities can transfer their hunting rights to trophy hunters.

The U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act generally prohibits the import of products made from marine mammals, such as polar bears, seals and whales, but according to the humane society, a loophole was created in 1994 to enable U.S. trophy hunters to bring heads and skins of the animals from Canada.

Under the Senate committee measure, the loophole would be closed. It is expected the U.S. House of Representatives will deal with a similar proposal next week.

“Polar bears are rapidly becoming an endangered species. It is illegal to hunt these bears for sport in the United States. Trophy hunters shouldn't be able to skirt the spirit of U.S. law by killing polar bears abroad and bringing their heads back across the border to America,†Senator Jack Reed, the member of the Senate committee who proposed the measure, said in a statement.

There are 20,000 to 25,000 wild polar bears in the world, and about two-thirds of them live in Canada.

The Canadian government committee that studies threatened wildlife is reviewing the status of the country's polar-bear population, and is expected to issue a report next year. Recent research has indicated that polar bears are losing weight, particularly those at the southern end of their range in Ontario, where less ice cover is making hunting for seals, its main prey, more difficult.

Late last year, the U.S. government announced that it was considering listing the polar bear as threatened under its endangered species act, based on climate-change worries.

The World Conservation Union has moved the bears from a species of little concern to “vulnerable,†a ranking that indicates greater worry over the animal's future.

The humane society's Mr. Markarian said the high dollar amounts involved in polar-bear hunting have made it a commercial activity, and he is worried that economic pressure is leading to increases in hunting to levels that are unsustainable.