“In 2008, the U.S. listed the polar bear as an internationally threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, and importation of the bears by hunters was then halted by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The move was made despite the science-based management programs of the Canadian Wildlife Service. CWS has carefully monitored polar bear populations for decades and has worked in concert with Inuit communities across the northern Canadian polar bear range to establish very limited and sustainable harvest quotas. Fewer than 500 bears are taken across all of Canada from a total population of more than 15,000 animals, a biologically irrelevant total.

Curiously, the New York Times reported that the global population of polar bears was estimated at 25,000 animals in 1984—the same total in 2008 when the bears were designated as a protected species.”

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