Polar bear kills man in Arctic Svalbard

Yahoo – AFP, Line NAGEN-YLVISAKER, August 28, 2020

The campsite near Longyearbyen where the polar bear attack took place

A polar bear has killed a Dutch man on Norway's Arctic Svalbard archipelago, local officials said Friday, the sixth fatal attack in almost 50 years in the region.

According to experts, the shrinking icecap has reduced the polar bears' preferred seal hunting grounds, pushing them to approach populated areas in their search for food.

The incident took place overnight in a camping area near Svalbard's main town of Longyearbyen, located 1,300 kilometres (800 miles) from the North Pole.

The 38-year-old victim was found seriously injured in his tent and died shortly afterwards, the local governor's office said in a statement.

He had been working at the campsite, according to the local Svalbardposte newspaper.

Other people at the scene shot at the bear, which was later found dead in the parking lot of the local airport.

In Svalbard, which is also known as Spitzberg, people are advised to carry a weapon when outside urban areas.

"The bears generally stay away from humans. We are not at the top of their menu, as they prefer to feed on seals," Jon Aars, a researcher at the Norwegian Polar Institute, told AFP.

"But they are also opportunistic animals, and if they are hungry and are desperate enough, we can become their prey," he added.

There are an estimated 1,000 polar bears in the Svalbard archipelago

According to a 2015 tally, the archipelago is home to about 1,000 polar bears, a protected species since 1973.

Around 300 of them live year-round in the archipelago, with some concentrated in the west of the territory near human settlements. The area was free of polar bears while it was still legal to hunt them.

The campsite worker's death was "a tragic event," Svalbard's deputy governor Soelvi Elvedah said in a statement.

"But this is also a strong reminder that we are in polar bear country and must take the precautions to defend ourselves."

Five deadly attacks on people had previously been recorded since 1971.

The most recent previous fatality occurred in 2011 when a bear attacked a group of British campers on a school trip.

A 17-year-old student was killed and four others were injured before the animal was killed.

Last month the Svalbard archipelago recorded its highest temperature for over 40 years, 21.2 degrees Celsius (70.2 Fahrenheit), almost equal to the all-time record, Sweden's meteorological institute reported.

According to scientific studies, global warming in the Arctic is happening twice as fast as the rest of the planet.

Russian Arctic archipelago sounds alarm over aggressive polar bears

Yahoo – AFP, February 9, 2019

Polar bears are affected by global warming with melting Arctic ice forcing them to
 spend more time on land where they compete for food (AFP Photo/TORE MEEK)

Moscow (AFP) - A Russian Arctic archipelago on Saturday declared an emergency situation over an "invasion" of dozens of aggressive polar bears that have entered homes and public buildings.

Russia's northeastern Novaya Zemlya archipelago, which has a population of around 3,000 people, has appealed for help to tackle "a mass invasion of polar bears into inhabited areas," regional authorities said in a statement.

Russian authorities have so far refused permission to shoot the bears but are sending a commission to investigate the situation and have not ruled out a cull.

Polar bears are affected by global warming with melting Arctic ice forcing them to spend more time on land where they compete for food.

They are recognised as an endangered species in Russia and hunting them is banned.

Russia has air force and air defence troops based on Novaya Zemlya.

Since December, 52 polar bears have regularly visited the archipelago's main settlement, Belushya Guba, with some displaying "aggressive behaviour," local official Alexander Minayev said in a report to regional authorities.

This included "attacks on people and entering residential homes and public buildings," said Minayev, the deputy chief of the local administration.

"There are constantly 6 to 10 bears inside the settlement," he said.

"People are scared, they are afraid to leave their homes... parents are frightened to let their children go to schools and kindergartens."

The head of the local administration Zhigansha Musin said that the numbers of polar bears were unprecedented.

"I've been on Novaya Zemlya since 1983 and there's never been such a mass invasion of polar bears," he told regional officials.

Bears are constantly inside a military garrison and "literally chase people" he said as well as going into the entrances of blocks of flats.

Local officials complained that measures to scare off polar bears such as vehicle and dog patrols have not been effective as polar bears feel secure and no longer react.

The federal environmental resources agency has refused to issue licences to shoot the most aggressive bears.

A working group of regional and federal officials is set to visit the archipelago to assess the situation and the measures taken so far.

The Arkhangelsk regional authorities, which oversee Novaya Zemlya, said that if all else failed "shooting the animals could be the only possible forced measure."

In January, a defence ministry official said that hundreds of disused military buildings had been demolished on Novaya Zemlya because polar bears were settling inside them.

Russian officials say an "invasion" of aggressive polar bears in inhabited areas of Arctic Russia has come to an end, ten days after the animals came to the area looking for foodhttps://t.co/yrfiQV8NOG

— AFP news agency (@AFP) February 19, 2019

New Chinese home for 'world's saddest polar bear'

Yahoo – AFP, November 14, 2016

Visitors take photos of polar bear Pizza inside his enclosure at the Grandview
Mall Aquarium in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou in July 2016 (AFP Photo)

A polar bear dubbed the "world's saddest" by animal rights activists has been removed from a Chinese shopping mall where campaigners said it was suffering in unsuitable conditions.

The Grandview Mall in the southern city of Guangzhou held a farewell party for Pizza the bear at the weekend, it said on social media.

A spokesman for the mall, which set up an "Ocean World" attraction with 500 species to try to draw in shoppers, told AFP: “Pizza left the aquarium with escorts after the farewell party” on Sunday.

Chinese media reports said he was returning to the facility where he was born in captivity in the northern port of Tianjin.

The mall claimed the move was a temporary one due to the facility being renovated, and that Pizza would return after the works were completed.

But the US-based Humane Society International mounted a media-friendly campaign to highlight the bear's plight, coining the description the "world's saddest polar bear" and generating global headlines.

It distributed video showing Pizza pacing around his 40-square-metre glass-fronted enclosure and shaking his head as onlookers took pictures on their cellphones.

Arturo the polar bear was the latest of more than 60 animals to die over recent 

months at the zoo in the western city of Mendoza (AFP Photo/Andres Larrovere)

The footage showed the bear was in poor physical and mental condition, it said.

Peter Li, China policy expert at HSI said in a statement: "Pizza the polar bear has endured a life of deprivation and suffering in his small, artificial glass-fronted room at the shopping mall.

"At last he will feel the sun on his fur, sniff fresh air and see the sky above in the company of his mum and dad."

The move was a result of public pressure, he said, and suggested that if the bear was in poor health that could be another factor.

“We implore the Mall to make this a permanent move for Pizza and to not condemn him to return," he added.

Pictures of the bear's farewell party posted on China's Twitter-like Weibo by the mall showed children queuing up to say goodbye to the bear.

“Tears and sadness are only temporary, we will make the cosiest home to await your return,” it said.

China aquarium refuses to deliver 'sad bear' Pizza to UK

Yahoo – AFP, September 20, 2016

"Pizza" the polar bear stands up inside his enclosure at the Grandview Mall Aquarium
 in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, in an undated image supplied on
September 20, 2016 by Hong Kong-based activist organisation Animals Asia
(AFP Photo)

Beijing (AFP) - A Chinese aquarium keeping a forlorn-looking polar bear named Pizza said Tuesday it has "no need" for foreign interference, after activists offered to move the animal to a British zoo.

Animals Asia, a Hong Kong-based organisation, created a petition calling for the closure of the Grandview aquarium in the Chinese city of Guangzhou that attracted half a million signatures.

Photos of Pizza shared widely on social media show the bear lying listlessly on the ground in a gloomy, windowless room while visitors crowd around taking photos on their cell phones.

Activists said the Yorkshire Wildlife Park in England had offered to adopt Pizza on condition that he was not replaced by another polar bear, adding the zoo would not pay for the animal due to "fear that any funds could be used to buy more animals".

But the zoo declined to comment or confirm the offer while the aquarium operator said no one had contacted him about taking the bear, adding they "have no need for foreign organisations to get involved".

"Yorkshire Wildlife Park has not contacted us," said the general manager of the aquarium, a man surnamed Fan who refused to give his full name.

Arturo the polar bear was the latest of more than 60 animals to die over recent

months at the zoo in the western city of Mendoza (AFP Photo/Andres Larrovere)

"We are a legally compliant aquarium, run according to Chinese standards and protecting animal rights. In the future we will strengthen the protection of animal rights and welfare," he added.

The cost of transferring the large, living carnivore nearly 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles) from Guangzhou to Doncaster, England "will be raised if the offer is accepted", Animals Asia said.

The activists said they are now pushing for a meeting with the aquarium in hopes of getting a response to their offer, adding they will draw up a bill if officials agree to have Pizza delivered.

The animal welfare director of Animals Asia, Dave Neale, said in a statement that the aquarium "have the chance to put their mistake right" and end the crush of negative media attention.

The group has been publicising Pizza's plight since the beginning of the year.

Polar bears develop taste for dolphins as Arctic warms

Yahoo – AFP, June 11, 2015

A polar bear eats a white-beaked dolphin in the Smeerenburgfjorden fjord,

 in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, Norway, on July 4, 2014 (AFP

Photo/Samuel Blanc)

Oslo (AFP) - Norwegian scientists have seen polar bears eating dolphins in the Arctic for the first time ever and blame global warming for the bears expanding their diet.

Polar bears feed mainly on seals but Jon Aars at the Norwegian Polar Institute has photographed dolphins being devoured by a bear and published his findings in the latest edition of Polar Research this month.

"It is likely that new species are appearing in the diet of polar bears due to climate change because new species are finding their way north," he told AFP.

A polar bear eats a white-beaked dolphin

 in the Raudfjorden fjord, on the 

northwestern coast of the Norwegian 

archipelago of Svalbard, Norway, on

July 2, 2014 (AFP Photo/Samuel Blanc)

The first incident he documented was in April 2014 when his team came across a polar feeding on the carcasses of two white-beaked dolphins.

Although dolphins are regularly seen in the Norwegian Arctic in the summer months when the ice has melted, they have never been observed during winter or spring when the sea is usually still covered in sheets of ice.

But Norwegian scientists have reported a strong retreat of ice and two nearly ice-free winters in recent years which they said could have attracted the dolphins further north, where they probably became trapped by the sudden arrival of dense ice blown into a fjord by strong northerly winds.

Aars said the bear he photographed had probably caught the two dolphins when they surfaced to breathe through a tiny hole in the ice.

"Even if they saw the bear, the dolphins did not necessarily have any other choice," he said.

Saved one for later

In the photos a visibly skinny old male bear devours one of the dolphins and appeared to have stored a second one under snow for later -- something which scientist had never seen before.

"We think that he tried to cover the dolphin in snow in the hope that other bears, foxes or birds would have less of a chance of finding it. Maybe to be able to eat it a day or two later, once he had digested the first one," said Aars.

A male polar bear with the carcass of a white-beaked dolphin it has partially

 covered with snow to keep for later having already eaten another one at Raudfjorden

on the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard (AFP Photo/Jon Aars)

After the first incident in 2014, a further five cases of dolphins stranded or captured and then eaten by bears have been reported.

"I don't think that this signifies a great upheaval" in the diet of the carnivores, said Aars.

"It's just that the polar bear is coming into contact with species they have not been used to meeting until now."

Sitting at the top of the Arctic food chain, polar bears are opportunistic predators that are also known to feed on small whales if the opportunity arises.

Czech tourist mauled by polar bear during run up to solar eclipse

A Thursday encounter left a man injured and a bear dead on Svalbard. Authorities have been warning eclipse-chasing visitors about the dangers posed by the Arctic archipelago's 3,000 polar bears.

Deutsche Welle, 19 March 2015

A Czech tourist received injuries to his face and arm on Thursday when a polar bear attacked him on the remote island of Svalbard in the Arctic Ocean. The 37-year-old man was flown by helicopter to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

The bear was immediately shot dead following the attack.

A solar eclipse will be visible at 1011
UTC Friday across northern Europe.

The incident came on the eve of a total solar eclipse that will only be fully visible in far northern latitudes. Hotels in the region have long been sold out by visitors eager to get a glimpse of the rare event.

Authorities routinely warn visitors of the dangers posed by the archipelago's 3,000 polar bears which outnumber their 2,500 human neighbors.

"It is an ever-present danger," said Ronny Brunvoll, head of the Visit Svalbard organization. "Security is number one, two and three."

Outdoor enthusiast Jakub Moravec had been part of a group of six campers on a snowmobile and ski tour some 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the main settlement of Longyearbyen in the Norwegian-administered archipelago of Svalbard.

The campers said they had strung a tripwire around the camp’s perimeter but the bear had slipped underneath.

Moravec told Norwegian broadcaster NRK that he woke up in his tent with a bear standing over him.

"My colleague used a gun, a revolver, and shot the polar bear," he said.

The polar bear then fled the shots. Officers from the governor’s office arrived by helicopter and killed the bear about 200 meters from the tents.

The most recent fatal encounter was in August 2011, when a 17-year-old British schoolboy was killed by a hungry polar bear during a school trip.

jar/lw (AFP, Reuters, dpa)

After Knut: Germany's next top polar bear?

Ever since Knut drew millions of visitors to the Berlin Zoo in 2007, Germany has been known for its infatuation with baby polar bears. Knut's little brother - who still needs a name - may be its next animal celebrity.

Deutsche Welle, 15 Feb 2015

Rostock, a city in northeast Germany, has a new potential superstar. He's only two-and-a-half months old, weighs eight kilograms (about 18 pounds) and lives right by the Baltic Sea with his mother Vilma. It's a polar bear baby, a male one, a detail only recently discovered by zoo staff.

The little ball of white fur looks remarkably like Knut, the polar bear that drew people from all over the world to the Berlin Zoo in 2007. The resemblance is no coincidence: the new polar bear baby in Rostock is Knut's half-brother - the two share the same father, Lars.

The baby animal weighed only 600 grams at birth, not much larger than a guinea pig. Employees at the Rostock Zoo were overjoyed at his arrival; the last time a polar bear was born there was 10 years ago.

Looking for a name

Knut's little brother was born on December 3, is healthy and continues to gain weight. He already has enough energy to play with his mother, crawling all over her - but what he doesn't have yet is a name. After all, nobody even knew his gender until a few days ago.

Now that this crucial issue has been determined, Udo Nagel, the zoo's director, has called on all animal lovers to suggest a name. The criteria: it has to be a simple name, one that "sounds Nordic." Suggestions can be submitted via email to the zoo's press department until March 10. The person whose name is selected will win two nights at a local hotel and an invite to the bear's christening.

The baby's first public appearance is slated for the end of March. Until then, he remains alone with his mother, because the first three months should be as quiet as possible for the little family. Unnecessary stress should be avoided at all costs.

Famous forerunner

Famous brother Knut was born in December 2006 at the Berlin Zoo. He was the zoo's first newborn polar bear to survive past infancy in more than 30 years, and became a huge attraction.

One reason for his superstardom, aside from his natural cuteness, was his perceived humanity - he was raised by a zookeeper after being rejected by his mother, and played with his "adoptive father" like a puppy.

But that fame wouldn't last, with Knut dying in 2011 of a brain infection.

The Rostock Zoo might be in for a treat: Knut's home in Berlin reported a 30 percent increase in visitors in 2007. The polar bear, who earned the zoo millions of euros in revenue through the sales of tickets and merchandise, had fans all over the world.

Migratory birds, fish and mammals get new UN protection

Yahoo – AFP, 10 Nov 2014

Polar bear cubs with their mother Huggies in the Ouwehands Dierenpark zoo
in Rhenen on February 29, 2012 (AFP Photo/Erik van 't Woud)

Quito (AFP) - Polar bears, whales, sharks and gazelles were among 31 new species granted new protection status by the UN conservation body, following six days of "intense" talks by leading conservationists.

The UN Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) said on Sunday that six days of "intense negotiations" led to new protection for scores of bird, fish and mammal migratory species.

A record 21 species of shark, ray and sawfish were added to the list.

The polar bear, which is found in the Arctic, and the widely-distributed Cuvier's beaked whale made the list too.

Also newly protected are the red-fronted gazelle, common in Africa, and the great bustard, found in Europe and Asia.

Protecting these animals is key for overall environmental conservation.

"Migratory animals have become the global flagships for many of the pressing issues of our time," said CMS executive secretary Bradnee Chambers.

"From plastic pollution in our oceans, to the effects of climate change, to poaching and over-exploitation, the threats migratory animals face will eventually affect us all."

More than 900 experts from 120 countries met for the six-day meeting, approving all but one proposed species to be included on the protected wildlife list.

The African lion did not make the final cut because there was not enough information from the countries where it lives.

The conference was the best-attended in the body's 35-year history, and CMS hailed the "unprecedented" level of attention to the topic.

The director of the UN Environment Program, which administers CMS, said global interest in animal protection was crucial.

"The responsibility for protecting wildlife is a shared one, and that the threats to wildlife can be tackled most effectively through global cooperation," said UN Undersecretary-General Achim Steiner, who heads the UNEP.

The next CMS meeting will be held in the Philippines in 2017.

Study explains why polar bears are fat yet healthy

Yahoo – AFP,  8 May 2014

A young polar bear wallows in snow at the public zoo in Russia's second
city of Saint-Petersburg, on December 7, 2012. (AFP)

When it comes to healthy eating, polar bears break all the rules. They eat mostly fat, but they don't get heart disease the way humans would.

Scientists said the Thursday in journal Cell that the reason lies in their genes.

Some speedy evolutionary tricks, particularly in the genes which handle how fats are metabolized and how fats are transported in the blood, have allowed polar bears to survive in the Arctic, scientists said.

And it all happened within the last 500,000 years, after the polar bear split from its cousin, the brown bear, according to research that compared the two animals' genomes.

Scientists found that polar bears are much younger than previously thought, with past estimates of the divergence time between polar and brown bears ranging from 600,000 to five million years ago.

"It's really surprising that the divergence time is so short," said Rasmus Nielsen, a University of California Berkeley professor of integrative biology and of statistics.

"All the unique adaptations polar bears have to the Arctic environment must have evolved in a very short amount of time," he said.

It's unclear what drove polar bear to evolve into a separate group from brown bears, though it happened at a time that coincides with a warm interglacial period that could have encouraged brown bears to venture further north than they had in the past, researchers said.

Then, when conditions cooled again, a group of brown bears may have become isolated and forced to adapt to a snowy and cold new environment.

Polar bears eat mostly seals, which are rich in blubber, and they nurse their young with a milk that is nearly one-third fat.

About half the bears' overall weight is made up of fat, rather than muscle and bone.

In contrast, a healthy person's body fat percentage could range between eight and 35 percent.

"The life of a polar bear revolves around fat," said Eline Lorenzen, a researcher at UC Berkeley and one of the lead authors on the study.

"For polar bears, profound obesity is a benign state," added Lorenzen. "We wanted to understand how they are able to cope with that."

Researchers compared the blood and tissue samples from 79 polar bears from Greenland to 10 brown bears from Sweden, Finland, Glacier National Park in Alaska and the Admiralty, Baranof, and Chichagof (ABC) Islands off the Alaskan coast.

They found one of the most strongly selected genes was APOB, which in mammals encodes the main protein in "bad" cholesterol, known as LDL (low density lipoprotein) and allows it to move from the blood into the cells.

Changes in that gene hint at how the polar bear is able to manage high blood sugar and triglycerides at a level that would be perilous in people.

Scientists on the study, who hailed from Denmark, China and the United States, said one day, the polar bear's digestive secrets could help boost human health in an age of increasing obesity.

"The promise of comparative genomics is that we learn how other organisms deal with conditions that we also are exposed to," said Nielsen.

Study finds even polar bear cubs can swim huge distances in open water

GPS tracking of 52 female adult polar bears by US Geological Survey reveals average swim of 96 miles and one of 220 miles

guardian.co.uk, Reuters in Anchorage, Alaska, Wednesday 2 May 2012

A mother polar bear sleeps on the tundra with her cub. The bears have to
 swim longer distances as summer sea ice disappears. Photograph:
Paul Richards/AFP

Polar bears are capable of swimming vast distances – a survival skill potentially needed in an Arctic environment where summer sea ice is vanishing, a study led by the US Geological Survey (USGS) has found.

The study, published in the Canadian Journal of Zoology, tracked 52 female polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea off Alaska. Between 2004 and 2009, a period of extreme summer-ice retreat, about a third of those bears made swims exceeding 30 miles, according to the study. The 50 recorded swims averaged 96 miles, and one bear was able to swim nearly 220 miles (354 km), according to the study results. The duration of the long-distance swims lasted from most of a day to nearly 10 days, according to the study.

The bears' movements were tracked using global positioning system collars. All the animals in the study were females because male polar bear necks are too thick for GPS-equipped collars, said Karen Oakley, a supervising biologist at the USGS Alaska Science Centre.

Many of the polar bears in the study had young cubs with them, and it appears that at least some of the cubs – which were not collared – might have been able to keep up with their mothers in the water, USGS officials said.

The scientists were able to track 10 of the studied bears within a year of collaring and found that six still had their cubs, the lead scientist said.

"These observations suggest that some cubs are also capable of swimming long distances. For the other four females with cubs, we don't know if they lost their cubs before, during or at some point after their long swims," Anthony Pagano, a USGS scientist and lead author of the study, said.

While the demonstrated long-distance swimming ability is probably a good thing for polar bears, scientists were concerned about the animals expending too much energy in their efforts to travel across open water, the USGS said.

Oakley said the study sample was too small to draw conclusions about the fate of the entire polar bear population, which in 2008 was designated as threatened and granted protection under the US Endangered Species Act because of rapid warming in their Arctic habitat.

The study simply describes behaviour that was observed, Oakley said. "It's just very interesting that in fact they can swim long distances, and cubs can swim long distances," she said. "Do all the cubs that attempt to swim these long distances survive? We don't know."

Scientists do not know whether such long-distance swimming is a new behaviour, USGS officials said. The technology to track long-distance bear swims accurately was not available in the past, Oakley told Reuters. "The GPS technology, which is relatively new, is what allowed us to really do the actual in-depth analysis of this," she said.

But polar bears probably lacked the opportunity or need to make such long swims in that part of the Arctic in the past. In past decades, polar bears were always able to rest on available floating summer sea ice, she said.

"These long distances of open water didn't use to exist in the southern Beaufort Sea," she said. "Did they swim these really long distances? Well, they didn't have to because they weren't there."

Alaskans smuggled walrus tusks and polar bear hides

BBC News, 16 July 2011

Related Stories 

• Ten walrus wonders

Two Alaskans have pleaded guilty to illegally trading the tusks of about 100 walruses with Eskimo hunters.

Indigenous Alaskans are allowed to hunt
walruses for food

The pair were arrested in April with the ivory tusks, along with two polar bear hides.

They had swapped the animal parts with the hunters in exchange for money, guns, cigarettes and at least one snowmobile.

Indigenous Alaskans are allowed to hunt walruses but they are not permitted to sell the tusks.

The state prosecutor declined to comment on whether the hunters would also be charged, according to the Anchorage Daily News.

Prosecutors say this is Alaska's biggest wildlife trafficking case for nearly two decades.

A third defendant is expected to plead guilty to similar charges next week.

The three had obtained about 500 pounds (227kg) of walrus tusks from Yup'ik Eskimo hunters in the village of Savoonga, court documents say.

The pair pleaded guilty under a plea bargain and prosecutors have asked for prison terms of at least five years.

Two of the defendants asked for permission to get married before they are sentenced in November.

They fear that if they are not married, they will not be able to send letters to each other in separate prisons.

The judge said he would try to accommodate their request.

US designates 'critical' polar bear habitat in Arctic

Google/AFP,

WASHINGTON — The US government on Wednesday designated "critical habitat" for polar bears who live on Alaska's disappearing sea ice, a move that could impact new oil and gas drilling projects in the Arctic.

The United States has classified the polar bear as
"threatened," but not endangered

The Fish and Wildlife Service set aside 187,000 square miles (484,000 square kilometers) off Alaska as the threatened bears' habitat, which means any project that could impact the animals' way of life must undergo careful review.

"This critical habitat designation enables us to work with federal partners to ensure their actions within its boundaries do not harm polar bear populations," said Tom Strickland, Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks.

"Nevertheless, the greatest threat to the polar bear is the melting of its sea ice habitat caused by human-induced climate change. We will continue to work toward comprehensive strategies for the long-term survival of this iconic species."

The move falls short of barring any drilling or other activity in the area, but "identifies geographic areas containing features considered essential for the conservation of the bear that require special management or protection."

US environmental advocates earlier this month warned that polar bear habitats could be disrupted if oil companies eager to exploit the Arctic for fuel were to experience an accidental spill like the BP gusher in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Fish and Wildlife Service acknowledged that the designation, which includes swaths of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas off northern Alaska, "encompass(es) areas where oil and gas exploration activities are known to occur."

Any activity there would now have to undergo a review to "identify ways to implement these actions consistent with species conservation," the statement said.

"This applies to oil and gas development activities, as well as any other activity within the range of the polar bear that may have an adverse affect on the species."

The United States has classified the polar bear as "threatened," but not endangered, due to the struggles it endures because the sea ice on which it lives and hunts is melting due to climate change.

The US government is considering opening the Chukchi Sea, a body of water off the coast of Alaska that is shared with Russia, to drilling but is reviewing leases awarded in 2008 after a lawsuit by indigenous people and green groups contended that the government does not have enough facts about how drilling will impact the environment.

Companies like Royal Dutch Shell want to begin drilling in the coming months, once winter ice begins to break up, and are submitting proposals to show they can meet tougher new government regulations.

The US Geological Survey said in 2008 that within the Arctic circle there are 90 billion barrels of oil and vast quantities of natural gas waiting to be tapped, most of it offshore.

Related Articles:

Alaska polar bears given 'critical habitat'

NOAA closes some Gulf shrimping after tar balls found

Australia blames Thai oil rig firm for Timor Sea spill

13 nations meet to try to save wild tigers

Wild tiger populations have dropped from 100,000
a century ago to 3,200 today.

.