Safe to shoot polar bears?

_mg_5597_oA specialist working group convened by Environment Minister Thorunn Sveinbjarnardottir has come to the conclusion that there is no reason why polar bears that step foot on Iceland should not be shot if this is thought necessary. The conclusion is interesting in the light of discussion that the bears are in danger of extinction because of climate change, as melting ice threatens their territory – the ice throes of the north.

After the bear that visited Iceland at the beginning of June was destroyed, Sveinbjarnardottir organized the working group to go over what happened to the bear and to set a plan for what to do if more bears come to Iceland. “It is my opinion that if the place and conditions are suitable, we should try and capture the bears alive. But we should consider each case separately,” she said.

However, the group’s conclusions put a question mark on whether polar bears should be saved in the future.

The group concluded: “Polar bears are on the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for animals that are vulnerable to extinction, and have recently been recorded as threatened in North America. Despite this ranking, the IUCN supports the sustainable hunting of all 19 populations of polar bears, including those in Greenland.”

The specialists that the working group consulted were united in their response. As the IUCN’s Polar Bear Specialist Group supports sustainable utilization of all polar bear populations, they make no comment on the fact that the bears that have come to Iceland have been shot.

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