Polar Bear Protection

Polar bear at the Henry Vilas Zoo
Madison, WI August 2010

It's Thanksgiving! But instead of talking turkey, I'm going to talk about polar bears. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently designated an area twice the size of the United Kingdom as protected habitat for Polar Bears to help combat the effects of global warming and the reduction of sea ice on the polar bear population.

Setting aside the land is important, because some of it was previously open to and slated for oil drilling by Shell. The only reason Shell hasn't already drilled in that spot is because of a temporary stay due to the BP oil spill that occurred earlier this year in the Gulf of Mexico, (Shell still intends to drill in other parts of the Arctic starting in 2011.)

For those who don't know, Polar Bears are my favorite animal so I've done several reports on threats to habitat prevention in the arctic for school. It is amazing the amount of wildlife that depends on the arctic.