Polar bears on the slippery, human made, slope

Written by Alexandra Talbot
"It is not enough to understand the natural world; the point is to defend and preserve it." Edward Abbey's words resonate from the past to the present to the future. The polar bear is indigenous to that "natural world," and if we are not careful; if we are not protective, eventually there may be no snow to carry their footprints.

Whether we fully understand or accept the concept - belief - that global warming is slowly and insidiously devouring our environment and threatening our wildlife, we cannot refute the fact that the existence and survival among our most precious wildlife species may not have a future if we do not protect their lives and their habitats -Now. Any legislation that is enacted should be done so in perpetuity.

Earth's largest land predator
The polar bear, the largest of our land predators, is as indigenous to the Arctic Circle as it is to the mystical lore and mores of the Arctic peoples. They are magnificent creatures, and their existence is intrinsically dependent on the snow, the ice and the open waters of the Arctic. It is in the cold and on the frozen waters that they thrive and sustain their diet of ringed and bearded seals.

Sub species decline due to hunting!
About one-third of their sub-species were diminishing "thanks" to random, wholesale hunting - if you will. In 1973, the International Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears and their Habitat was signed by Canada, the United States, Denmark, Norway and the former U.S.S.R, as a combined effort to protect them within their respective countries. Nonetheless, since 1973 their survival remained at risk. But, with growing worldwide awareness over the years and with subsequent action they were declared a threatened species in May 2008.

Threatened by global warming
Their numbers, yet again, are all too rapidly dwindling because their natural environs for finding food is gravely threatened by global warming. Polar bears hunt to survive. They spend the majority of their time on the inescapably vanishing ice-covered waters of the Arctic from which they find their food source.

And again, the fault, the blame, seems to lie with us. Nature answers to no one - at least to no one human. She gives life, and she takes life. She cradles her gifts to us, and she shatters them at times. She is beyond man's control, yet we infringe upon and interfere in her domain.

It would seem that the more technologically advanced we become, the more intrusive and manipulative we become in reaping what we can from our environment and gradually disrupting the balance of life, nature, and survival. It is imperative that the knowledge we have, and have yet to ascertain, be used to safeguard the natural resources, the natural beauty, and the myriad wildlife species - with particular emphasis on the threatened, the endangered, and near extinct wildlife - that make our lives so grand, so exquisite, and so miraculous.

Circle of life
Life is circular: it is so for man as it is for animal as it is for nature as it is for our environment. We may be - or may not have been - here to see and to live through complete changes in cycles, but they happened: they are happening: and they will continue to happen. There "is a season" for everything and we are fortunate enough to be a part of it for however long we live. But, how we treat man, wildlife, and our earth invariably determines the quality of life for generations to come.

Thomas Jefferson expressed it profoundly and simply when he said, "For if one link in nature's chain might be lost, another might be lost, until the whole of things will vanish by piecemeal."