An international conservation watchdog has ruled that polar bears aren't endangered enough to need a global ban on trade that would place their hides in the same category as elephant ivory.
The ruling will make it tough for U.S. attempts to use the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species to end Canada's commercial polar bear hunt and will be welcomed by Inuit hunters who depend on the industry for millions of dollars a year.
"Trade is not a significant threat to the species," concludes Traffic International in its recommendation released Wednesday.
The average annual export of 300 bear skins a year from Canada isn't big enough to threaten overall numbers, said Traffic.
Traffic, an international wildlife trade monitoring network that reports to CITES, looked at the issue of polar bear populations after the U.S. said it will ask the 175 countries that have signed the treaty to move polar bears to its highest level of protection. That level would effectively end all international trade in bear hides or other parts and cripple commercial hunting.
However, Traffic concluded that while the great white predators may be slowly declining, numbers aren't falling fast enough to require a trade ban.
"The polar bear's population has not undergone a marked decline in the recent past," reads Traffic's analysis. "There is general agreement that the polar bear population is declining, but the rate of decline is slow."
Projected declines would have to be at least 50 per cent over the next 45 years to require a trade ban, said Traffic. The best information suggests the decline will only be 30 per cent.
As well, Traffic points out the overall estimate of bear populations at between 20-25,000 hasn't changed in years.
News that Traffic recommended against the trade ban was welcomed by Nathaniel Kalluk, a polar bear outfitter in Resolute, Nunavut, who has 10 European and Canadian hunters lined up this spring.
"I'm all for that," he said. "If they don't go ahead with the CITES ban, I will go ahead with the hunts."
Hunters pay about $30,000 to go on a polar bear hunt, an important source of cash in small communities that don't have very many of them. As well, hunters who kill bears to feed their families can sell the hides for about $400 a metre for extra cash.
The Traffic recommendation was also welcomed by the World Wildlife Fund. Arctic program director Craig Stewart said the real threat to polar bears is from climate change, not hunting.
"No country should be using trade as a substitute for achieving a fair and effective deal (on climate change)," he said. "A simple act to ban polar bear trade won't address the real issue."
Traffic's recommendation, he said, will make the U.S. move "an uphill battle.
"This will cause countries who are on the fence to take a hard look at the proposal," he said.
Inuit have long maintained that bear numbers are healthy and say people are seeing more and more of them on the land. They complain management of the animal has become politicized by the fight against climate change because shrinking arctic sea ice -- the bears' main hunting platform -- is one of the most visible signs of global warming.
The U.S. has already banned the import of polar bear skins through its own borders. The American trade ban request comes before CITES at its next meeting in March.
Canada has said it will oppose the request.
Stewart said Russia and the European Union countries are leaning toward supporting the ban.
Nunavut environment minister Daniel Shewchuk said the territory has already contacted all 175 countries who have signed the treaty asking them to reject the U.S. request.
"The U.S. is ill-informed and uninformed," said Shewchuk, who called Wednesday's recommendation "very good news.
"I would hope this (recommendation) would change attitudes. I'm optimistic."
Even if the ban is imposed, it won't save any bears, said Gabriel Nirlungayuq of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., which oversees the Nunavut land claim. He said polar bears are part of the Inuit diet and Inuit will hunt them whether or not there's any money in it.
"It's not going to stop the Inuit hunting polar bears," he said. "It's a hunting culture."
